PKMastery

Personal knowledge mastery

Four Basic Skills for 2020

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In 2011, The Institute for the Future and the University of Phoenix published a report that looked at Future Work Skills 2020 (PDF). The report identified six drivers of change. I’ve added links to examples of each, three years later.

  1. Longevity, in terms of the age of the workforce and customers — Retiring Later
  2. Smart machines, to augment and extend human abilities — Workplace Automation
  3. A computational world, as computer networks connect — Internet of Things
  4. New media, that pervade every aspect of life — Online Privacy
  5. Superstructed organizations, that scale below or beyond what was previously possible — AirBNB
  6. A globally connected world, with a multitude of local cultures and competition from all directions — Geek Nation

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Seeking feedback on PKM

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We are just finishing the second PKM in 40 Days online workshop this year. So far we have have had over 75 participants in the new format of 40 days online, 6 themes, 18 activities, and 14 days for reflection and catch-up. Each workshop is different but it is always great to get serious feedback on what PKM means for those who have undertaken the workshop.

I am realising the benefits of practicing what the PKM concept preaches…

1. SEEKING is a good start, but it isn’t enough.

2. SENSING INCLUDES PRIORITISING
We must make SENSE of everything we find, and that includes prioritising–recognising what is useful now, what will be useful later, and what may not be useful. The trick is to learn how to store the ‘useful later’ stuff so that I can get back to it, and this has been a key ‘take away’ for me. I’ve particularly enjoyed learning about this … Learning about how to organise information was a key reason I signed up for this program, so I’m a happy customer.

3. And finally, I have become more mindful that we must SHARE insights we’ve formed so that we can give back to the ‘universe’, as much as we get. What stood out for me was the fact that just ‘forwarding’ isn’t always helpful sharing. This is my reason for this post. I’m definitely thinking out loud here, so forgive me, but I’m trying to articulate the key insights I’ve taken away, hoping that it will help you frame this program with future participants.

Therefore, if I were to comment on this program, Harold, I’d have to say it’s brilliant: it offers something for all of us. But it’s up to each of us to take what you offer; make SENSE of it and filter it to identify information that is immediately useful vs useful later vs less useful, then SHARE key insights formed as a result of having gone through this process. – Chemene Sinson

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mastering a discipline for transformation

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A model of curation for the digital era that is being used in health and care is Harold Jarche’s ‘Personal Knowledge Mastery’ (PKM). This is about individuals making the best use of their networks and other sources of knowledge so that they can keep up to date with the most effective thinking in their area and practice new ways of doing things. Leaders who take responsibility for their own effectiveness through PKM create leverage and value for their organisations. The underpinning framework for curation within PKM is ‘seek, sense, share’. ‘Seeking’ is about finding things out and keeping up to date; pulling’ information, but also having it ‘pushed’ to us by trusted sources. ‘Sensing’ is about making sense and meaning of information, reflecting and putting into practice what we have learned and plugging information into our own mental models and turning it into knowledge. ‘Sharing’ is about connecting and collaborating; sharing complex knowledge with our own work teams, testing new ideas with our own networks and increasing connections through social networks.
—UK National Health Service White Paper 2014: The new era of thinking and practice in change and transformation

Mastery

There is always more to master in a discipline. One is never finished. As with all journeys, mastery begins by taking the first step. In the PKMastery workshops, everyone is at a different stage of mastery. We are all fellow seekers, including those of us who have been at it for many years. Perhaps this is why PKM does not fit easily into a curriculum, as it transcends subjects and skills. PKM is composed of many skills, but not a definitive set. My PKM is not your PKM.

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a compass for the big shift

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Participation in knowledge flows can generate new insights and practices and improve performance in ways that also yield learning and new capabilities.

This thinking extends from the individual up into the organization and beyond, into the ecosystem. Not just how can we learn, but how can we learn faster? We’re still early in the Big Shift, but if we can figure this out, we create an environment of increasing returns, expanding opportunity, and more value for everybody. —Why learning is the only sustainable response to the increasing pressures of the Big Shift

Personal knowledge mastery (PKM) is a discipline of seeking from diverse knowledge sources, actively making sense through action and experimentation, and sharing through narration of work and learning out loud. PKM is a critical business skill to address what John Hagel describes in the Shift Index:

The ability to participate in and learn from knowledge flows, often through technology, will be critical for success for individuals, organizations, and ecosystems.

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The skills gap is a learning gap

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Continuous learning, lifelong learning, learning organizations, and constant learning – terms we hear every day about the changing nature of the workplace. We don’t even know what skills to prepare for, but most people agree that we all need to keep on learning if we wish to remain relevant at work, in our professions, or in life. Just watch how new technology is adopted by people of my age. It can be painful.

With technology accelerating change in the marketplace and automation replacing highly skilled workers with robots, the decision to invest in any particular set of skills is far from obvious.  Empty platitudes about “upgrading skills” and “investing in our people” will not suffice.  We need to start thinking seriously about viable strategies to manage the skills gap. – Digital Tonto

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Learning to breathe in the network era

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The networked workplace is the new reality. It’s always on and globally connected. This is where all organizations are going, at different speeds and in a variety of ways. Some won’t make it. In many organizations the outside world is better connected than inside the workplace. This makes it difficult to connect at the boundaries, which is where we have the best opportunities for serendipity and potential innovation.

At the edge of the organization, where there are few rules; everything is a blur. It may even be chaotic. But opportunities are found in chaos. Value emerges from forays into the chaos. In such a changing environment, failure has to be tolerated. Nothing is guaranteed other than the fact that not playing here puts any organization at a significant disadvantage.

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People and the Wild Internet of Everything

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“Cisco’s view is that IoE technically differs from the Internet of Things; IoT is composed of connected objects, while IoE encompasses the networks that must support all the data these objects generate and transmit. “Software by itself won’t get the job done,” Chambers said at Interop in October, arguing that IoE demands data center software and hardware that work in concert.” – Information Week

Software is part of the solution. Hardware is part of the solution. People are the other part. Humans can connect complex things together better than any software or hardware system. It remains that the only practical interface with complexity is the human brain. It’s why the Turing test, to the chagrin of technology  marketers, has never been passed by a machine.

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ESN as knowledge bridges

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An effective suite of enterprise social tools can help organizations share knowledge, collaborate, and cooperate – connecting the work being done with the identification of new opportunities and ideas. In an age when everything is getting connected, it only makes sense to have platforms in place that enable faster feedback loops inside the organization in order to deal with connected customers, suppliers, partners, and competitors. It takes a networked organization, staffed by people with networked mindsets, to thrive in a networked economy.

Enterprise social networks (ESN) are growing in usage in most large organizations. More employees are sharing knowledge through activity streams on platforms by IBM, SAP, Jive, Yammer, and Socialcast, to name a few.  But ESN can constrain what they are supposed to enhance. Due to the very personal and intimate nature of implicit knowledge, people will only freely share it if they feel they are in control. A single enterprise network does not provide much individual control.

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Work Out Loud Week

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Sharing complex knowledge requires trust, but developing trusted knowledge networks does not happen over night. It requires a combination of actively engaged knowledge workers, using effective communications tools, all within a supportive organizational structure.

In complex work environments, the optimal way to do work is to constantly probe the environment and test emergent practices. This requires an empowered workforce. Emergent practices are dependent on the cooperation of all workers (including management) as well as the free flow of knowledge.

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What have we learned so far?

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What have we learned so far about personal knowledge mastery?

Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM): A set of processes, individually constructed, to help each of us make sense of our world and work more effectively.

PKM workshops have helped people develop their own process of seeking, sense-making, and sharing. Participants are asked to relate activities to their own professional development. Exercises such as network mapping are combined with the narration of work, network weaving, and how these can enable better knowledge connections. Many tools are discussed as participants try new ones or share their personal practices. Examples and anecdotes are provided during the workshop, but the real value is in sharing between participants. I try to guide the process with a gentle hand and provide more resources as the need is presented.

PKM connects what is learned in networks, communities of practice, and work teams.

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