Technology is the application of organized and scientific knowledge to solve practical problems.

I dug up this quote from my personal knowledge management (PKM) system, or outboard brain, or whatever you want to call it. The quote is from Harold Stolovitch, and it’s stored on this blog from a post I made over three years ago. My PKM system is a technology in this sense.

I know people who get hundreds of e-mail each day. I don’t. I also meet people who work in companies and have to make decisions or set direction but who do not have time to read. I can understand how time constraints force you to reduce “discretionary” activities such as reading, but how are you able to learn if you don’t take the time to read, listen, reflect and then make your own understanding explicit for others to understand?

One PKM process, of using web tools to sort [triage] , categorize, make explicit, and retrieve, is shown in this graphic:

Some of my practical problems, when I started this blog were:

• I needed a way to connect with others in my field in an inexpensive way (blog)
• I wanted to mine some of the knowledge out there (feed reader)
• After a while, I wanted to share what I was finding, or have it available when I was in a discussion (social bookmarks)

What I found out later was that I was creating a resource that I could use whenever I had some related work to do. My blog is the first place I search when I have an article or report to write. The process of writing, reflecting, discussing & annotating has given me a digital library brimming with my own sticky notes that I can easily find.

If you’re looking for a resolution for 2008, I would recommend the adoption and use of some kind of Web PKM system if you don’t have one yet. Here’s a reason why, from Ryan Lanham:

Leading, or leadership, is the process of using our own learning to enable the learning of others.

Informal learning is a theme of this blog and has been an area of professional interest for the past couple of years. There is a link between informal learning and collaborative work; the latter is a key focus of my consulting. This link was highlighted by Teemu Leinonen in a recent post on networked learning, starting with a definition of informal learning:

Informal learning means learning that is taking place in every day life situation when we are interacting with the outside world or with our own inside world. Most of the learning is informal and purely accidental and random.

This is an adequate working definition, in my mind, but what I find most interesting is Teemu’s definition of non-formal learning, a term that I haven’t used much or really noted:

Networked learning can also be non-formal. Non-formal means that it is informal but with objectives. If a group of criminals are organizing a discussion group in a bar to share ideas about latest burglary techniques they are having a non-formal learning session. It is informal but with an objective.

Given these definitions, I would say that much learning in intentional online communities (such as a community of practice around knowledge management) is non-formal, whereas it is more informal in looser social networks like Facebook. My sense of this is that non-formal learning would involve mostly self-generated objectives though objectives could also evolve from the group. Formal learning would differ from these in that most, if not all, objectives would be externally directed.

These three working definitions may help in defining and explaining different approaches or strategies when working with communities of practice, work groups, professional networks or even classes.