PKMastery

Personal knowledge mastery

Seek, Sense, Share in The Hague

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On Friday morning we left Delft and headed into The Hague by bicycle, the only practical way to travel in the Netherlands, as my hosts Sibrenne and Russell assured me. I would be facilitating a PKM master class, designed for people who already had some experience with using web technologies for personal professional development. The session was held at a wonderful location, in a 42-story modern office building. These co-work spaces are called seats 2 meet and also offer meeting rooms at a cost of €60 per person.

cycle commuting in The Hague
Cycle-commuting from The Hague to Delft

The day focused on the needs and objectives of the participants, with only a little information presentation on my part. All participants had watched my short PKM intro video and several had taken the web-based workshop, that finished on the same day. We spent time looking at how we used various technologies, our daily work routines, and also how to make decisions on how to connect with others. Russell made a point that my Seek > Sense > Share framework is a multi-layered model, that is very simple to understand, but difficult to master as one sees more and more aspects of it over time. I had taken this for granted and appreciated getting first-hand feedback from the group. An advantage of face to face sessions is that you can have more nuanced conversation. Of course we were working in most participants’ second language, so that was a bit of a barrier in discussing complex ideas.

I have decided to cease offering the online PKM workshops as they now exist, and have started on a new program, that should be ready in about forty days. In addition, I will further develop the on-site PKM master class, as well as another one focused on leadership in networks. I look forward to making some announcements in a month or two. In the meantime, I will only offer basic PKM workshops to groups of 10 or more.

I write this post as I ride the TGV to Paris. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a European train and staying connected makes for a more productive trip. Our world is changing but I think practices like PKM, and active sense-making, can help us individually and collectively.

Social Learning Handbook

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This post is an excerpt from Jane Hart’s recently published  Social Learning Handbook 2014.

social learning handbook 2014It’s all about people.

Today’s digitally connected workplace demands a completely new set of skills. Our increasing interconnectedness is illuminating the complexity of our work environments. More connections create more possibilities, as well as more potential problems.

On the negative side, we are seeing that simple work keeps getting automated, like automatic bank machines. Complicated work, for which standardized processes can be developed, usually gets outsourced to the lowest cost of labor.

On the positive side, complex work can provide unique business advantages and creative work can help to identify new business opportunities. However, complex work is difficult to copy and creative work constantly changes.

But both complex and creative work require greater implicit knowledge. Implicit knowledge, unlike explicit knowledge, is difficult to codify and standardize. It is also difficult to transfer.

Implicit knowledge is best developed through conversations and social relationships. It requires trust before people willingly share their know-how. Social networks can enable better and faster knowledge feedback for people who trust each and share their knowledge. But hierarchies and work control structures constrain conversations. Few people want to share their ignorance with the boss who controls their pay cheque. But if we agree that complex and creative work are where long-term business value lies, then learning amongst ourselves is the real work in organizations today. In this emerging network era, social learning is how work gets done.

Becoming a successful social organization will require more than just the implementation of enterprise social technologies. Developing, supporting, and encouraging people to use a range of new social workplace skills will be just as important. Individual skills, in addition to new organizational support structures, are both required.

Personal knowledge management (PKM) skills can help to make sense of, and learn from, the constant stream of information that workers encounter from social channels both inside and outside the organization. Keeping track of digital information flows and separating the signal from the noise is difficult. There is little time to make sense of it all. We may feel like we are just not able to stay current and make informed decisions. PKM gives a framework to develop a network of people and sources of information that one can draw from on a daily basis. PKM is a process of filtering, creating, and discerning, and it also helps manage individual professional development through continuous learning.

Collaboration skills can help workers to share knowledge so that people work and learn cooperatively in teams, communities of practice, and social networks. In order to support collaborative working and learning in the organization, it is important to experience what it means to work and learn collaboratively, and understand the new community and collaboration skills that are involved. “You can’t train someone to be social, only show them how to be social.” Practice is necessary.

The power of social networks, like electricity, will inevitably change almost every existing business model. Leaders need to understand the importance of organizational architecture. Working smarter in the future workplace starts by organizing to embrace networks, manage complexity, and build trust. The 21st century connected enterprise is a new world of work and learning.

For example, traditional training structures, based on institutions, programs, courses and classes, are changing. Probably the biggest change we are seeing is that the content delivery model is being replaced by more social and collaborative frameworks. This is due to almost universal Internet connectivity, especially with mobile devices, as well as a growing familiarity with online social networks.

Work is changing and so organizational learning must change. There is an urgent need for organizational support functions (HR, OD, KM, Training) to move beyond offering training services and toward supporting learning as it is happening in the digitally connected workplace. The connected enterprise will not wait for the training department to catch up.

Riding the Current by Finding the Right Crew

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In Riding the Current: How to deal with the daily deluge of data, Madelyn Blair provides an excellent manual for knowledge workers, managers, and executives. The advice and insight in this book is the closest that I have seen that aligns with my PKM Seek > Sense > Share framework. There is a lot in the book, which is filled with anecdotes, concepts, frameworks, and exercises. It covers both knowledge seeking from a formal and an informal perspective, and I would recommend it for any organization.

Madelyn, who sent me the book after we had a few of conversations over the past couple of months, uses a journey metaphor of Setting Out; Selecting the Vessel; Finding the Right Crew; Stocking Supplies; Equipping for the Dive; Deciding to Dive Deep; and Taking Charge. In Finding the Right Crew, there are three key roles:

Accompanier: Facilitates accomplishment of the task by providing information and/or contacts.

Practice Partner: Creates a learning environment of conversation, listening, and questioning, all with an appreciative attitude.

Fellow Seeker: Is a seeker just like the primary seeker, willing to engage in conversation and think critically and appreciatively.

Finding people to fill these roles can greatly assist our own sense-making. We should find Accompaniers who are more knowledgeable or experienced than we are in our journey. They are like mavens. A practice partner can connect us to the work to be done and help keep us focused. They understand our work or life context. Fellow seekers are the most open to our sharing and are often not judgemental as they are trying to make sense themselves.

PKM Finding the Right CrewHere is what Madelyn has found that others have said about finding the right crew:

  • Seek out those who are expert in your areas of need or simply practice in them
  • Seek out and join new communities of practice
  • Create a community of practice
  • Attend conferences and listen carefully
  • Keep looking for ideas, not just perfecting skills
  • Call in peers to assist you in the next challenge
  • Make it a habit to regularly ask the question, “What am I assuming about this?”
  • Find a ‘thinking partner’ and learn together how to be each other’s thinking partner – Nancy Kline: Time to Think

I would highly recommend this book if you are in any way interested in personal knowledge management.

PKM Roles

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I like to frame personal knowledge management as a combination of seeking knowledge, making sense of it, and sharing it with others. This simple model has worked well in explaining the main concepts of PKM and helping others to individually construct a set of processes to make sense of the world and work more effectively. Two key factors are sense-making and sharing, which I have shown on the image below.

PKM quadrantsWhile the upper right quadrant is where we might think we should put our efforts, it stands to reason that not all of us can work there for all the facets of our lives. Sometimes we are merely seeking something very quickly, at other times we may share without much thought, and there are times we want to keep our sense-making private, as we mull over new ideas. We are also limited to the amount of time we have to put a lot of thought into everything we do. Sometimes it is best to leave that to others.

Over 10 years ago Patrick Lambe wrote a very good guide on the various roles one can have in PKM.

Most people treat PKM as if it’s a full suite of skills that everybody now needs to have: skills like identifying sources of knowledge, searching, navigating, analyzing, organizing, linking, mapping, converting back and forth between tacit (head) knowledge and explicit (written down) knowledge, relationship building skills, communication, presentation, knowledge packaging, and so on. But in fact, like most things, different people have different personality types, and different personality profiles in relation to their personal knowledge affinities and capabilities. – PKM: A DIY Guide to Knowledge Management

Lambe identified six roles: Consumers, Communicators, Collectors, Connectors, Critics, and Creators. I have taken these and placed them on the same sharing & sense-making quadrant I used above. If you read the DIY guide, there are a series of questions to help identify your own tendencies in PKM. This is a good guide for work groups to find out how knowledge is co-created and shared. An effective team would have people engaged in all roles and provide some load-sharing for creation and criticism, both of which take significant effort. You could look at PKM by area of specialization as well, having a few people responsible as Creators, while others are nominated Critics. Those not as knowledgeable in a field can still play a role as a Connector, Collector, or Communicator.

PKM 6CAnother way to look at these roles is as an individual. When researching a field of practice, you could identify not just the Creators but also the good Critics. Critics can provide balance, something that TED Talks could learn from. The role of critic can even be formalized in an organization, as the US Army has done at its “Red Team University”.

The school is the hub of an effort to train professional military “devil’s advocates” — field operatives who bring critical thinking to the battlefield and help commanding officers avoid the perils of overconfidence, strategic brittleness, and groupthink. The goal is to respectfully help leaders in complex situations unearth untested assumptions, consider alternative interpretations and “think like the other” without sapping unit cohesion or morale, and while retaining their values.

More than 300 of these professional skeptics have since graduated from the program, and have fanned out through the Army’s ranks. Their effects have been transformational — not only shaping a broad array of decisions and tactics, but also spreading a form of cultural change appropriate for both the institution and the complex times in which it now both fights and keeps the peace.
– Andrew Zolli: HBR 26 Sept 2012

Connectors are also quite helpful. You may want to differentiate them from the mere Communicators, who do not add much value to what they share. However, finding Collectors can also be useful, as they may have information few others do. Of course, they’re harder to find because they don’t share.

PKM creator criticThe roles of Creator and Critic are the most important in sense-making, but there is valuable work for others in disseminating information. So what roles do you engage in? Do you know how to find knowledgeable people in a field? If you are working with others, what role can you play in your group or network? Is everyone conscious of the sense-making and knowledge-sharing activities and practices in the network? If not, how can you identify any gaps in the knowledge flows? Perhaps these frameworks can help.

PKM and MOOC

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Workplace training and education too often resemble modern playgrounds:

“safe, repeatable, easily constructed from component parts, requiring that the child bring little of their own to the experience” – Johnnie Moore

When adults design for children they have a tendency to dumb things down. Perhaps the notion that there is no such thing as writing for children should be extended to workplace training and education design. In the workplace, thinking of co-workers as “learners” actually may be a barrier to learning.

The real value of the MOOC (massively open online course/content) could be its potential to remove the barrier between learners, designers, and instructors. Its workplace learning potential may be greater than its academic value. But if one thinks of the MOOC as a course, designed by one party for another party, then it really is nothing new.

“Indeed, I was struck by a recent comment from someone with 15 years of experience in designing face-to-face, blended and online credit programs: I am trying to understand what MOOCs can offer that my understanding of educational design, learning design and online and distance education does not include. I’m afraid that the answer continues to be: ‘Nothing’, at least for the moment.” – Tony Bates

But the MOOC can foster emergent learning, which makes it an optimal form for understanding complex issues. This is something that a curriculum-based, graded, course is not well suited to support. With the MOOC, especially one focused on being massive and open, there is a greater possibility for serendipitous connections, such as what happened with participants becoming instructors in the early MOOC we conducted in 2008.

If we think of the MOOC as a vehicle for shared understanding, and not content delivery, it becomes the collective equivalent to personal knowledge mastery. It is group learning, with some structured content, and good facilitation; but most importantly, space for sense-making. In the complex domain, combining PKM with more structure for social learning, using the MOOC format, can be an important addition to how workplace learning is supported.

Update: several possibilities for corporate MOOC’s from Donald Clark.

PKM is making sense of complexity

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This is what you find on the first page of most searches for PKM:

Personal knowledge management (PKM) is a collection of processes that a person uses to gather, classify, store, search, retrieve, and share knowledge in his or her daily activities – Wikipedia

It is interesting to note that this definition comes from a study on manufacturing and artificial intelligence.

The paper tries to bridge gap between knowledge management and artificial intelligence approaches proposing agent-based framework for modelling organization and personal knowledge. The perspective of knowledge management is chosen to develop two conceptual models—one describes the intelligent enterprise memory, another models an intelligent organization’s knowledge management system. The concept of an agent-based environment of the knowledge worker for personal and organizational knowledge management support is introduced. – Agent based approach for organization and personal knowledge modelling: knowledge management perspective (2007)

In my practice of PKM, and the Seek > Sense > Share framework, there is nothing artificial at all, and looking for automation only detracts from the real power of PKM.  In the same Wikipedia article, reference is made to Dave Snowden’s issues with the concept.

Dave Snowden has asserted that most individuals cannot manage their knowledge in the traditional sense of “managing” and has advocated thinking in terms of sensemaking rather than PKM.

I agree. Dave has published a recent article on the Cynefin framework, which I think shows clearly where PKM can play a critical role. It is in making sense of complexity.

Cynefin is not intended as a crude categorisation model, although it has been used as such with some utility.  It is as much about dynamic movements.  So in the model shown here the prime dynamic is shown in red.  The idea is that ideas emerge in the complex domain and are then constrained to shift them into complicated. As you start to impose constraint you see if it creates repeatability, if not pull back.  If it works then you shift from exploration to exploitation.  Periodically you relax the constraints again to allow new possibilities to emerge.  From time to time the dynamic may have ossified in which case a reset is need; the blue line known as a shallow dive into chaos.   Only when change is no longer plausible is it shifted to Obvious [green] – Great is the power of steady misrepresentation

Cynefin_Dec_13_DaveSnowdenCynefin image by Dave Snowden

“Ideas emerge in the complex domain …” which is where creative knowledge workers in a network economy need to be active, probing, and playing. We also need to do shallow dives into the Chaotic domain. Neither of these activities will be helped through automation. If anything, automation will make us lazy, or unaware.

The process of seeking out people and information sources, making sense of them by taking some action, and then sharing with others to confirm or accelerate our knowledge, are those activities from which we can build our knowledge. Managing and sharing information, especially through conversations, are fundamental processes for sense-making in the complex domain. Sense-making is acting on one’s knowledge.

A key principle of PKM is that no one has the right answer, but together we can create better ways of understanding complex systems. We each need to find others who are sharing their knowledge flow and in turn contribute our own. It’s not about being a better digital librarian, it’s about becoming a participating member of a networked organization, economy and society.

Sense-making consists of both asking and telling. It’s a continuing series of conversations. We know that conversation is the main way that tacit knowledge gets shared. So we should continuously seek out ideas. We can then have conversations around these ideas to make sense of them. Sharing closes the circle, because being a personal knowledge manager is every professional’s part of the social learning contract. Without effective sense-making at the individual level, social learning at the organizational level is mere noise amplification.

So ask what value you can add ->

adding value

Some fundamental changes

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But neither the flat organization nor empowered employees have been fully realized. The reason is that most of us have been working over the years to solve problems by creating new and improved companies, rather than by equipping individuals with their own empowering tools. What we still need are tools that make individuals both independent of companies and better able to engage with companies (or with organizations of any kind). Social tools alone won’t do it — especially ones that are still corporate silos. (And, forgive me, even Quora is an example of that.) – Doc Searls: Answering “Why has the empowered employee predicted in the Cluetrain Manifesto not emerged?” in Quora

You cannot read the rest of Doc’s answer unless you log into Quora, which is a pretty good example that most social media companies are just as control-oriented as any industrial organization was. If you have not read The Cluetrain, you should at least peruse some of its 95 theses. The initial thesis of The Cluetrain Manifesto is that markets are conversations, but I think that theses 10 through 12 describe the big potential change in relationships brought on by the Internet.

#10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

#11. People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

#12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

As Doc mentions, the big challenge is equipping individuals with their own empowering tools. These tools are hardware, software, and most importantly, skills and attitudes. Taking control of our learning is a challenge for individuals used to working inside hierarchies that demand conformity and compliance. Note that without compliance training there would be almost no e-learning industry. The deck is still stacked against networked individuals.

So if you read the Cluetrain back in 1999, or have since quoted it, then it’s time to think about how to implement it. I have written about hierarchies and connected organizations for the past few weeks here. I have no doubt that major systemic change is necessary to deal with the wicked problems that face society today. Critical components that need to change are how we work and how we learn in organizations. That change has to start with people. Individuals need to build their own interdependent learning networks.

wicked-problems-joachim-strohThis is not a leadership or a management responsibility. This is a people issue. Each one of us should start seeking knowledge, building upon it, and sharing it, all in public. In this way we can develop an aggressively intelligent and engaged citizenry.

For the first time in history we have the means to learn together without any institutional or organizational intermediaries. We don’t need schools, or even corporate MOOC’s. It is not easy, but it is possible to create a global group of co-learners around almost any problem or subject. What’s holding us back? I think we are holding ourselves back.

If participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally, then it’s time to make some fundamental changes. Here is an example of re-thinking market relationships. Doc Searls is working with the Vendor Relationship Management project, which is “based on the belief that free customers are more valuable than captive ones — to themselves, to vendors, and to the larger economy. To be free —”

  1. Customers must enter relationships with vendors as independent actors.
  2. Customers must be the points of integration for their own data.
  3. Customers must have control of data they generate and gather. This means they must be able to share data selectively and voluntarily.
  4. Customers must be able to assert their own terms of engagement.
  5. Customers must be free to express their demands and intentions outside of any one company’s control.

Similar changes can be made in education and employment.

  • Free learners are more valuable than captive ones.
  • Free employees are more valuable than captive ones.

Thanks to Jon Husband for inspiring this little manifesto.

Ask what value you can add

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Remember when someone older than you first got an email account? They probably sent you at least one joke, and it was likely to a long list of recipients. Actually, they probably sent a lot of jokes. There is a similar phenomenon with social media. While it may not be jokes, we are inundated with over-sharing of the same stuff.

First of all, there is a difference between sharing and making something public. Posting a social bookmark to a service like Diigo does not create additional noise for your networked peers in a social network. This is making your work public. But posting your latest collection of webpages in an activity stream is sharing. Doing it poorly adds more noise than signal.

For example, I recently passed on a tagged collection of social bookmarks as a result of a conversation in an online community of practice. I shared this tag when the occasion arose. I did not post every time I created a new bookmark. In my PKM framework of Seek > Sense > Share, this is called discernment, or knowing when, and with whom to share.

As good social learners, sharing is not as important as knowing when to share. This does not preclude us from collecting lots of information (Seek), but it should make us consider appropriate ways to share. We should be ready to share when the time is right.

The most important and difficult part of PKM is sense-making. Little should be shared if there has been no value added. The value I added when sharing my bookmarks was not so much in terms of adding my own insights, which were negligible, but there was value in the timing. The context for sharing was optimal.

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Only people can let knowledge flow

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The knowledge sharing paradox is that while sharing our knowledge is good for the organization, each individual has to see a personal benefit as well. The more the enterprise directs knowledge-sharing, the less likely it will happen. Conversely, the less structured the process, the more difficult it is for the organization to benefit. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, or so it seems. Helen Blunden neatly sums up what can happen to those who freely share their knowledge.

I felt that my network, my trusted network which I worked hard to maintain, cultivate, nurture, trust and grow was going to be exploited by other individuals within the organisation who saw me as their ‘free ride’ to some quick answers.

Aye, there’s the rub; as Helen goes on:

My key learning point always goes back to looking at the culture of the organisation.  If there is a genuine, authentic opportunity to share and learn and be respectful of each other’s networks then I have no problem with it at all.  If it is mandated, or if my networks are used, misused or discounted, then I’d question why I’m even working there.

Knowledge flows when individuals actively engage in teams, communities, and networks by working and learning out loud. Both cooperative and collaborative behaviours, depending on the situation, are required. However, most organizations only focus on collaboration and fixed goals. Management often views cooperation as an aimless waste of time, which it can be. But collaboration and too much focus on teamwork can be detrimental to the organization as well.

knowledge flowsCommunities of practice can connect the knowledge flows between those messy social networks and focused work. This is where PKM (personal knowledge mastery) and PLN (personal learning networks) appear to differ. One aim of PKM is to connect learning and work. Steve Wheeler sees communities of practice as separate from the PLN, which he describes as mostly in the informal and opportunity-driven social network space.

One of the key differences I see between the two is that in PLNs, connections can be fairly random and interactions largely informal. Often there is a common ground such as a mutual interest or shared concern, but generally those who make up my PLN are a fairly ad hoc group of friends, colleagues, family and also those who have casually connected with me either through my instigation or theirs. In CoPs, connections are generally more deliberate, focused upon practice, often of a professional nature, and the interactions are focused largely upon the shared business of that community of practice.

PKM is focused on individuals who must negotiate and transcend the artificial barriers between their teams, communities of practice, and networks. Inside that person’s head, there are no knowledge barriers. However, discerning with whom and when to share, remains a key part of effective PKM. Social learning requires social intelligence, but organizations have to establish ways to support the multifaceted knowledge worker, or continue to face the knowledge sharing paradox. Understanding that people, not management systems, enable knowledge flow would be a good start.

connecting with PKM