PKMastery

Personal knowledge mastery

Prepare for the future of work

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Ross Dawson says that people who have “learnt how to learn” will be better prepared for jobs of the future. “We’re finding people who have learnt how to learn know how to engage with a community and tap into others for support.” This is what personal knowledge mastery (PKM) is all about. It starts by seeking people and knowledge sources and the Seek > Sense > Share cycle finishes by sharing with communities and social networks. My recent workshops, both online and in person, indicate a need for PKM skills in all types of organizations and for people at all levels, from freelancers, researchers, managers, executives and more. The benefits are not just for individuals, preparing for their next job, but the organization gains from employees who take control of their learning and freely share their knowledge. PKM makes for more resilient individuals and companies.

Much of PKM is about finding balance. In seeking knowledge sources, we have to balance aggregation, or getting as much information as possibile, with filtering, or ensuring that we have more signal than noise. Our networks need to be diverse and varied in order to be exposed to new ideas, but we cannot keep track of everything, so we have to be judicious with our time.  We need to constantly lump things together, such as with a feed reader, while filtering out the good stuff so we can find it again, such as with social bookmarks. It’s like breathing information in and out, while making sense of only a small portion at a time, sometimes built by many grains before trying to express our knowledge in order to make sense of it.

These processes are not taught in schools or training programes. There is no right answer in PKM. There are only processes that work. The test of PKM is whether it works for you. My experience is that a person’s PKM changes over time, and the most important aspect is being aware of how we seek sources of information, make sense of our own knowledge, and then share it at work, in communities or through networks.

As Helen Blunden has noted about her PKM, it’s about continuous learning.

It’s opened up a whole new world and it’s just made me eager to know more.  It’s also made me realise that our learning will never stop – and we should get comfortable with that idea.  (I believe the creativity is now coming from the “Seek” part of the model because information is not one-sided anymore; you get a variety of opinions, perspectives and angles and from a wider expanded network of people from all walks of life – different industries, different skillsets – my curiosity in life also helps me out here).

PKM practices can help make sense of the current environment, whether it be your profession, your job, or your areas of interest. A resilient learning network, that can develop from practising PKM, creates a more resilient framework from which to make decisions about the future. The more you give to your networks, the more you will receive. PKM provides a way to do this in a more structured, but personal, manner. The result is enhanced serendipity, always an advantage in a changing world.

PKM for future jobsMore info:

PKM Workshops

#itashare

The Power of Pull and PKM

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The Power of Pull by John Hagel, John Seely Brown & Lang Davison looks at how digital networks and the need for long-term relationships that support the flow of tacit knowledge are radically changing the nature of the enterprise as we know it. It is also an excellent reference book for understanding many facets of personal knowledge mastery. I have had this book on my reading list for quite some time and luckily Jay Cross gave me a copy which I read on the flight back from the west coast this week.

PKM helps people stay focused on the edges of their knowledge and look for innovation and opportunity. I have written, in embrace chaos, that I think the edge will be where almost all high value work gets done in organizations. Core activities will be increasingly automated or outsourced. Value is moving to the edge. The core is being managed by fewer internal staff and any work where complexity is not the norm will be of diminishing value. PKM enables tacit knowledge flows from the edge to the core and back.

emergent value

“Edge Participants also often reach out to participants in the core in an effort to build relationships and enhance knowledge flows. But these efforts are often frustrated – or at best marginalized – because core participants are too busy concentrating on defensive strategies within the core, trying to protect their profits and position, to understand the true growth opportunities represented by relevant edges.” – The Power of Pull, p. 54

PKM is a process of moving knowledge from the edge (social networks) to the core (work teams) and back out to the edges. It is the way that Pull can be done on a daily basis. Connecting the edge (emergent & cooperative) to the core (controlled & automated) is a major challenge for organizations. Part of the solution is more open management frameworks but another part is edge-like individual skills and aptitudes. PKM covers the latter.

PKM is a continual process of seeking from the edge (networks), filtering through communities of practice (CoP) and sense-making at the core (work teams) and also sharing back out to our communities and networks. Once habituated, it’s like breathing.

PKM flow

As stated in the book, “Pull platforms tend to allow us to perform the following activities with a blurring of the boundaries between creation and use“, showing four components that map directly to Seek > Sense > Share.

  • Find (Seek)
  • Connect (Seek)
  • Innovate (Sense)
  • Reflect (Share)

As the authors write, “Pull is not a spectator sport.” Neither is PKM. I would highly recommend The Power of Pull as a reference book that looks at how organizations need to change and how individuals need to redefine the nature of work.

“The choices each of us makes about the environments we participate in and the practices and behaviors we choose to pursue once we’re there will make a crucial difference in what we experience and the extent to which we can shape these experiences or simply let random experiences shape us.” – The Power of Pull, p. 99

“Chance favors the connected mind.” – Steven B. Johnson.

PKM 2013

PKM workshop 2013

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PKM-logo-smA number of people have requested that I run another Personal Knowledge Management workshop, so the next online PKM workshop is now scheduled for 21 Jan – 15 Feb 2013 through the Social Learning Centre. This will be the last workshop in the current format. In the Spring I will look at what has been learned to date and redesign the resources and activities.

In 2012, we conducted three online workshops and I also ran some on-site sessions for clients. What is becoming obvious is that the skills addressed in PKM are seen as important to many managers, knowledge workers, and practitioners in a wide array of disciplines. PKM combines aspects of traditional knowledge management, as well as digital curation, social learning, and critical thinking. I have shown how it is directly related to innovation and I believe it is an essential aspect of what are becoming known as digital competencies.

The Seek > Sense > Share framework I developed for PKM almost three years ago has helped many people establish their own sense-making processes. A common remark from workshop participants is how difficult sense-making can be, “I entered this workshop feeling I could seek and share quite effectively, it was the sensing I needed to work on.” Another participant described PKM as a way of “cleaning out my crap filters so the right information can come through so I don’t feel overwhelmed with information”; a very good description.

The main concept behind the workshops is to create a bounded space of active learners who can share their thoughts around a selection of resources and activities. The only rule is that all communication is within the discussion area, available for all participants to read and comment on. As facilitators, we use these discussions as starting points for deeper inquiry. Without the participants narrating their learning, the value of the experience would diminish.

Each workshop is a shared, cooperative experience. Many participants have made connections and friendships that have continued afterwards. My objective is to provide just enough structure for people to focus, but not too much to constrain personal reflection and social learning. It is very dependent on the positive intentions of everyone. Usually, we have enough active participants to get some deep conversations. What one gets out of each workshop is very dependent on what one puts in. From me, you get my undivided attention for a month and I look at ways to make better connections for participants, based on what they share. The structure is not for everyone, and people looking to be guided through a more linear process, such as a typical self-paced course, can be disappointed.

PKM: the basic unit of social business

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True collaborative networks do not rely so much on teams than on individuals, as B. Nardi, S. Whittaker and H. Schwartz have shown. The main benefits for networked organizations do not lie in the outcome from teams, but in individual knowledge acquisition, in the ability to connect with the right people and to access the right information at the right time. Instead of focusing on teams and communities, we must concentrate our efforts in providing workers with the right resources and knowledge to build their own connections. The basic unit of social business technology is personal knowledge management [PKM], not collaborative workspaces. – Thierry de Baillon, The Tainted Narrative of the Workplace

Teams are for sports, not knowledge work

Teamwork is over-rated. For instance, it can be a cover for office bullies to coerce fellow workers. The economic stick often hangs over the team; “be a team player or lose your job”. Empowered individuals working in networks, not teams, will give organizations the flexibility they need to be creative and deal with complexity.

Teams seldom take into consideration the uniqueness of individuals. Usually individuals have to fit into the existing team like cogs in a machine. Team members can be replaced. The team, like the gang, rules.

People are more complex and multi-faceted than the simplistic view of Homo Economicus. Our lives have psycho-social aspects. We are more than our jobs and we are more than our teams. Teams promote unity of purpose, not diversity, creativity, and passion. The team, as a unit of work, is outdated in the network era.

As much as organizations advertise for “team players”, what would be better are workers who can truly collaborate and cooperate, inside and outside the organizational walls. There are other ways of organizing work than in teams. Orchestras are not teams; neither are jazz ensembles. There may be teamwork on a theatre production but the cast is not a team. It is more like a social network. Teams are what we get when we use the blunt stick of economic consequences as the prime motivator. In a complex world, unity is counter-productive.

Small pieces, loosely joined

The mainstream application of knowledge and learning management over the past few decades has had it all wrong. We have over-managed information because it’s easy and we remain enamoured with information technology. The ubiquity of information outside the organization is showing the weakness of centralized enterprise systems. As enterprises begin to understand the Web, the principle of “small pieces loosely joined” is permeating thick industrial walls. More and more workers have their own sources of information and knowledge, often on a mobile device. But they often lack the means or internal support to connect their knowledge with others to get actually get work done.

Personal knowledge mastery [PKM] frameworks can help knowledge workers capture and make sense of their knowledge. Organizations should support the individual sharing of information and expertise between knowledge workers, on their terms, using PKM methods & tools. Simple standards, like RSS, can facilitate this sharing. Knowledge bases and traditional KM systems should focus on essential information, and what is necessary for inexperienced workers. Experienced workers should not be constrained by work structures like teams but rather be given the flexibility to contribute how and where they think they can best help the organization.

We know that formal instruction accounts for less than 10% of workplace learning. The same rule of thumb should apply to knowledge management. Capture and codify the 10% that is essential, especially for new employees. Now use the same principle to get work done. Structure the essential 10% and leave the rest unstructured, but networked, so that workers can group as needed to get work done. Teams are too slow and hierarchical to be useful for the network era. Organizations structured around Loose Hierarchies & Strong Networks, as described in the image below by Verna Allee, are much better for increasingly complex work.

cynefin networks verna allee

Social businesses should leave teams for the sports field, and managing knowledge for each worker

Starting to work out loud

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John Stepper discusses how people can get started working out loud and shows examples of different types of networks that one could connect with. It’s very easy to understand, but not quite so easy to do. Most people are too busy managing in the industrial/information age workplace and have no slack to try to learn how work in the network age.

But they probably won’t. Because they’re already busy. Because they’re afraid to make a mistake or unsure of their writing or speaking skills. Because they’re simply not used to working this way.

The most important step in learning a new skill is the first one. This same step has to be repeated many times before it becomes a habit. As John concludes:

For these people I offer some very simple advice: Schedule time in your calendar for working out loud. Start with simple contributions. Keep shipping.

Over time, you’ll develop the skills you need to be effective and the habits you need to do it regularly.

I strongly suggest that the first step of starting to work out loud, as part of personal knowledge management, has to be as simple as possible.

first step

Free Your Bookmarks: This is a very simple shift that only requires a slight deviation from a common practice: saving bookmarks/favourites on your browser. Using tools like Diigo, or Delicious moves them off a single device, makes them more searchable, and (later) makes them shareable. Being able to share is usually not a prime reason why people start using social bookmarks.

Aggregate: Driving as many information sources as possible through a feed reader such as Google Reader or Feedly, saves time and helps stay organized. It’s amazing how many people do not understand RSS or how to grab a feed and save it. Aggregation makes information flows much easier to deal with.

Connect: How do you get started micro-blogging on a platform like Twitter? I suggest beginning with an aim in mind, such as professional development or staying current in a specific field. Use the search function to find people who post about your area of interest. Then follow no less than 20 and no more than 30 interesting people. Dip into the stream once or twice a day and read through any posts that interest you. Over time, as you follow links, you may add or delete feeds. Within a week or two, you should be able to sense some patterns and then can modify your stream to help you in learning more about the areas that interest you.

Sometimes we get all caught up in the latest social media tools. Getting started working out loud is not complicated and should not involve a steep learning curve on a complicated system. Start with simple tools and frameworks and then use your experience over time to modify them.

networked unlearning

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Our nature – our bias towards an inward focus based on tradition and the past, or an external focus on what we’re seeing around us – cuts across age. Those of us who are willing to question our assumptions will find that we can unlearn (and relearn) at any age. Those who put more weight on what they already know will struggle to change at any age. Today’s digital native will be tomorrow’s digital dinosaur if they are unable to unlearn. That bleeding edge agile practitioner who dogmatically insists that they won’t work with unless you follow these four (in their view) essential agile practices has more in common with their older colleagues still clinging to waterfall methodologies than they are comfortable admitting. —Peter Evans-Greenwood

How can we avoid becoming dogmatic? I think social media can help a lot. Today, we can easily connect to networks that offer diverse views. Inge de Waard uses the example of research tribes: “When joining forces with people that have a common language – but different viewing angles – everyone learns as there is some kind of zone of proximal development there, or it can be created based on mutual conversation and dialogue.” Social media are tools that can help us develop emergent practices. They enable conversations between people separated by distance or time. Social media can facilitate the sharing of tacit knowledge through conversations to inform the collaborative development of emergent work practices. Conversations that push our limits enable critical thinking, which boils down to questioning assumptions, including our own.

One way to build a cognitive web toolbox would be to start with each of the four critical thinking categories shown in the image above. Each sub-category is just an example, and includes many different tools. One can start unlearning by finding and mastering tools that allow you to critically observe and study your field, participate in conversations that  push your understanding, challenge your assumptions, evaluate others’ arguments, and make tentative opinions that in turn will be challenged.

Unlearning takes practice. Living in a state of perpetual Beta can also be uncomfortable. The key is to be engaged in your learning. It requires strong opinions, loosely held. That means going out on a limb knowing you may be criticized. It also means putting forth half-baked ideas, which over time and exposure may develop into something more solid.

But finding and weaving our knowledge networks is getting easier with over two billion of us connected by the Internet. This scale and diversity is an advantage, not something to be concerned about. There is no such thing as information overload. I have yet to see someone completely filled with information. The real challenge is finding the right information. The more I learn, the more I realize I have to learn even more.

As Peter says in the article quoted above, “… it’s not learning that is the challenge, it’s our ability to unlearn that’s holding many of us back.” But we don’t need to unlearn alone. Our networks can help us unlearn; if they are are open, transparent, and most importantly, diverse. A more descriptive term for Personal Knowledge Mastery might just be Networked Unlearning or connected critical thinking.

A theoretical model for PKM

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My focus on PKM developed after an initial personal need and then increased when I saw how personal knowledge management could help others. Cheong, KF 2011, ‘The roles and values of personal knowledge management‘, DBA thesis, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW – now adds some solid research to the field. K.F. (Ricky) Cheong asked the following research questions:

RQ1: What are the roles of PKM in the Knowledge Management Process?

RQ2: What are the values of PKM for individuals and organisations?

RQ3: Is there any correlation between the roles of PKM in Knowledge Management Processes and the values of PKM for individuals and organisations?

RQ4: Is there any correlation between the values of PKM for individuals and the values of PKM for organisations?

Cheong provides this overview of a general definition:

Irrespective of how PKM is defined by different scholars, the key purpose of PKM is to provide a framework for individuals to manage new information, integrate it and enrich each individual knowledge database in an effective manner. Doing this successfully will empower each individual to easily apply their own personal knowledge to deal with new and old problems, to learn from new experience and to create new knowledge. It is a continuous and interactive process which is not independent of other knowledge management processes. (p. 42)

He based the research model and questions on a framework of skills for undergraduates, developed by Susan Avery, Personal Knowledge Management: Framework for Integration and Partnerships, presented in 2001.

The literature review in chapter 2 stated that Avery et al. (2001) defined PKM as an overall structured process for intentionally managing information and turning it into useful knowledge. There were seven PKM skills in the proposed PKM framework, namely (1) Retrieving information; (2) Evaluating information; (3) Organising information; (4) Collaborating around information; (5) Analysing information; (6) Presenting information; and (7) Securing information. (p. 233)

Cheong concluded, as I have, that PKM is beneficial on both a personal and organizational level. I am quoted in the thesis, but it is my earlier work, and not the more developed Seek > Sense > Share framework I now use, that shows how important knowledge – sharing is for individuals, organizations, and networks.

In summary, the research findings concluded that PKM has important roles in KM processes (section 5.2.1). The values of PKM were found to have significant contribution (section 5.2.2) in both individual competences and organisational competences. Positive correlations were found between the roles of PKM and their values in contributing to individual competences and organisation competences (section 5.2.3), and also between the values of PKM for individual competences and the values of PKM for organisation competences (section 5.2.4). (p. 259)

Cheong suggests that organizations incorporate PKM into knowledge management, and I  generally agree, though I have concerns with (3) as it might make PKM less personal and therefore not habitually used by knowledge workers.

The following is a general framework to guide an organisation in its task of implementing their organisational PKM strategy. (p. 264)

(1) Treat PKM Skills as an asset for organisation.
(2) Develop a PKM Skills inventory as part of Human Capital Management.
(3) PKM Skills are part of the performance measurement and reward system.
(4) Develop an individual learning plan to acquire and improve PKM skills.
(5) Leverage on IT based PKM tools to embed individual learning processes into the organisational learning process.

For most PKM practitioners, this is likely too much information, but Cheong does a good job of a fairly extensive literature review and corroborates what many practitioners already know. This work could be useful in getting PKM accepted as a more standard organizational practice, and for that, I thank Ricky K.F. Cheong.

Image: PKM Roles & Values by K.F. Cheong

From observation to breakthrough

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From multiple observations come ideas. From multiple ideas can come new insights. From multiple insights we can create stories. From our stories, we can change beliefs. In a nutshell [my interpretation], this is what Gunther Sonnenfeld discusses in much greater detail in The Great Planning Paradigm. Sonnenfeld’s post is focused on marketing, an area where I have little experience.

I find The Great Planning Paradigm is a good framework to look at innovation (breakthroughs) in general. It also aligns with personal knowledge management (PKM) or those routine behaviours that we can practice and perfect in order to enhance learning and innovation at an organizational level. The PKM framework of Seek-Sense-Share has several similarities. Observations equate to Seeking. Insight equates to Sensing. Telling stories equates to Sharing. It is most interesting to see a connection between PKM and marketing, something I would not have considered. Everything, it seems, is connected.

In PKM and innovation I showed how Seek-Sense-Share aligns with the four skills that most successful innovators exhibit. The framework has similarities with the four innovation skills noted by Scott Anthony, author of The Little Black Book Of Innovation. Seeking includes observation through effective filters and diverse sources of information. Sense-making starts with questioning our observations and includes experimenting, or probing (Probe-Sense-Respond). Sharing through our networks helps to develop better feedback loops. In an organization where everyone is practising PKM, the chances for more connections increases.

Collaboration is working together for a common objective, while cooperation is openly sharing, without any quid pro quo. Both are necessary in order to connect the work being done in organizations with new ideas outside the organizations. Innovation is not so much about having ideas, as making connections.

I recently explained the Seek-Sense-Share framework in my session with En Nu Online in the Netherlands, with quite positive feedback that the image below helped to convey how it worked. We seek new ideas from our social networks and then filter them through more focused conversations with our communities of practice, where we have trusted relationships. We make sense of these embryonic ideas by doing new things, either ourselves, or with our work teams. We later share our creations, first with our teams and perhaps later with our communities or even our networks. We use our understanding of our communities and networks to discern with whom and when to share our knowledge. Sometimes, timing is everything.

Innovation is not a repeatable process

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Can innovation be promoted through better processes? James Gardner [dead link] does not think so any more.

“I have not been able to find any regular correlation between well adopted innovation processes and actual innovation outcomes, and I’ve been looking pretty hard. And here at Spigit, we’ve got hundreds of data sets to look through.”

After a decade of looking at innovation in organizations, Gardner says that people have to be personally motivated; the old “what’s in it for me?” [WIIFM] question. “In other words, if it personally affects us, we care about it. If it doesn’t, we might care a bit, but we are much less likely to take action to change things.”

This is why I think personal knowledge mastery is so important. PKM promotes unique, individual ways of sense-making, while still sharing among peers and colleagues. In my writing on PKM for the past eight years, I have stayed away from prescriptive methods on purpose. I want every knowledge worker to discover his or her own processes. With our PKM workshops, I have seen examples of many different tools used for PKM. There is no single answer, but once you find something that works, you have a better chance of sticking with it.

I recently wrote about PKM and innovation and concluded that in order to address complex problems, businesses have to rely more on individual tacit knowledge, but this type of knowledge is never easy to convey to others. It takes time and especially trust to keep making attempts at common understanding. Accepting PKM, as a flowing series of half-baked ideas, can encourage innovation and reduce the feeling that our exposed knowledge has to be ‘executive presentation perfect’.

Workplaces that enable the constant narration of work and learning in a trusted space can expose more tacit knowledge. We can foster innovation by accepting that our collective understanding is in a state of perpetual Beta. This is how we create a culture of innovation.

Innovation is like democracy, it needs people to be free within the system in order to work. In my opinion, democracy is an essential foundation for social business. Empowering knowledge artisans to use their own cognitive tools creates an environment of experimentation, instead of adherence to established processes. I discussed knowledge artisans in my recent white paper, and what follows is an excerpt.

An artisan is a skilled manual worker in a particular craft, using specialized processes, tools and machinery. Artisans were the dominant producers of goods before the industrial era. Knowledge artisans of the post-industrial era are beginning to retrieve old world care and attention to detail, but they are using the latest tools and processes in an interconnected economy. Look at a web start-up company and you will see it is filled with knowledge artisans, using their own tools and connecting to outside social networks to get work done. They can be programmers, marketers, salespeople. Their distinguishing characteristic is seeking and sharing information to complete tasks.

Next generation knowledge artisans are amplified versions of their pre-industrial counterparts. Equipped with and augmented by technology, they rely on their networks and skills to solve complex problems and test new ideas. Small groups of highly productive knowledge artisans are capable of producing goods and services that used to take much larger teams and resources. In addition to redefining how work is done, knowledge artisans are creating new organizational structures and business models, such as virtual companies, crowd-sourced product development and alternative currencies.

Knowledge artisans not only design the work, but they can also do the work. It is not passed down an assembly line. Many integrate marketing, sales and customer service with their creations. To ensure that they stay current, they become members of various “guilds,” known today as “communities of practice” or “knowledge networks.” One of the earliest knowledge guilds was the open source community, which developed many of the communication tools and processes used by knowledge artisans today: distributed work; results-only work environments; blogs & wikis for sharing; agile programming; flattened hierarchies; and much more.

Allowing and supporting PKM, like BYOD, can empower knowledge artisans. This empowerment creates a more diverse set of skills and perspectives in the workplace. It also helps keep knowledge artisans motivated (autonomy, mastery, sense of purpose). While not directly equating to innovation, these conditions can be much more fertile ground for new ideas and many more connections. It’s rather obvious that strict command and control, or slavish adherence to cult-like methodologies like Sick Stigma, are getting us nowhere.

PKM webinar 25 october

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On 25 October at 18:00 GMT I will be conducting an online session on personal knowledge management (PKM). It will be in English and is hosted by En Nu Online, a Netherlands company focused on social media for learning and is part of a longer workshop series. The hosts are @joitske and @sibrenne and there will be a Twitter back-channel. If you would like to attend, you can sign up on the website. Cost is €45 for this 1.5 hour interactive session and includes two written case studies on recent online social learning implementations.

PKM

The automation and outsourcing of work is becoming our wicked problem to deal with as we move into the network era. Most workers have no control over the economy or the changes in the means of production. They just have to roll with the punches, which are coming faster and faster. However, there is one area where workers can take control; relatively easily and inexpensively. They can take control of their professional development.

Most recruiters will tell you that the time to build your network is before you become unemployed. It’s the same with professional development. If the only knowledge-building activities you do are ones mandated by your employer, then you may be in trouble. Developing a network of thoughtful people who can help in your professional life would be a good start.

If you think there is a possibility of spending some time in the future as either unemployed, contractual, or freelancing, then now is the time to build a professional development network. Seek out people who can help you; begin habits of regular sense-making activities; and start to share, because only by sharing will you meet the people you should be seeking in the first place. PKM is a framework that can help you take control of your professional development.