PKMastery

Personal knowledge mastery

Other PKM processes

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It seems that Stephen Downes isn’t enamoured with my PKM process:

My first thought was, do I do it this way? And, of course, I don’t – my process is much too haphazard to be dignified with the term ‘method’. But then I thought, what does the concept of a ‘method’ here imply? That there is a ‘best’ way to manage knowledge an information? Isn’t that what we’ve learned there isn’t? It’s a pick-and-choose sort of thing: the way we manage information has a lot to do with the information, and a lot to do with who we are and what we want the information for. “categorizing’, for example, is something I do only if my head is in a vise and I have no alternative – and even then, I use scripts to do it for me.

To be clear, my intention is to show what works for me and perhaps some part of this may work for others. All of my articles on PKM are descriptive, not prescriptive. Take what you need, as there are no “best practices” for complex and personal learning processes.

For example, here is a graphical representation of Lilia Efimova’s process:

knowledge-work-framework-efimova

This is Urs Frei’s representation of PKM:

Frei_PKM_20

And here is a model of social networking technologies and PKM skills from a group of researchers at the University of Florence:

networking_pkm

These representations offer different perspectives on the PKM theme, with a few similarities, and perhaps are of some use for others.

Here is one more by Sumeet Moghe (posted Jan 2010):

PKM_cpor-process_sumeet_meghe

Creating your PKM processes

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In Sense-making with PKM I described some personal knowledge management processes using various web tools. The overall process consists of four internal actions (Sort, Categorize, Retrieve, Make Explicit) and three externally focused ones (Connect, Contribute, Exchange). Personal knowledge management is one way of addressing the issue of TMI (too  much information).

pkm-flow

A sense-making routine can be regularly reading certain blogs and news feeds, capturing important ideas with social bookmarks and then putting ideas out in the open on a blog. The power of this process is realized after many iterations when you have created a personally contextualized knowledge base. PKM takes the notion of a personal journal and extends it significantly.

In Web Tools for Critical Thinking I expanded on Dave Pollard’s critical thinking process, showing how web tools can be used to develop critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is an important aspect of PKM but I had not put the two together explicitly. I created the following table to integrate my PKM process with Dave’s critical thinking process. You may have noticed that I’ve changed the order of  Retrieve & Make Explicit, but this is an iterative and non-linear process, so it doesn’t really matter.

My own PKM process has changed lately with my increasing use of Twitter and this is noted in the tools and strategies column.

PKM Critical Thinking Process Web Tools & Strategies
1 Sort Observe & Study Use an aggregator (feed reader) to keep track of online conversations

Follow interesting people on Twitter
2 Categorize Synthesize & Qualify
 Use Social Bookmarks

Find a Twitter App to suit your needs
3 Retrieve Draw Inferences Now that information is in a DB, use Search, instead of file folders.

Create online (reusable) mind maps,  graphics and text files of your thoughts
4 Make Explicit Form Tentative Opinions Tweet

Write a Blog post
A Connect Identify Missing Information (and people) Connect via Twitter, follow blogs or join Social Networks
B Contribute Develop Supporting Arguments Join in Tweet Chats

Write Blog Comments
C Exchange Analyze & Challenge Arguments Continue and extend conversations from news sources, other tweets or blog posts

Learning to work smarter

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Anne Marie McEwan’s Smart Working nicely summarizes the shift that is taking place in how we work. These shifts have happened before – when we developed agriculture, moved into cities, or created powered machines. Now we are becoming networked.

The term ‘smart working’ has in recent years been associated with flexible and mobile working, that is ‘anytime, anywhere’ ways of working enabled by communication technologies. Another view, broader than the narrow focus on location and time independence, is that smart working is about flexibility and autonomy in where, when and how people work.

In my view, smart working is the outcome of designing and putting in place systems, working environments and governance principles that are known to be associated with effective business performance, including workforce autonomy and self-determination, and which seek to maximise opportunities to use and develop people’s knowledge, skills.

I’m in the process of putting together several threads as a single article, and this is where I do my thinking in public.

In The Learning Age I said that business models and work practices are becoming networked and global, speeding the rate of time to implementation. The lines between work and leisure are blurring, as with work and learning. Today, about 16% of us can be described as hyperconnected but that is expected to grow to 40%, and I would say those people will be the main drivers of our economies and societies.

Effective knowledge sharing is essential for all organizations today but the mainstream application of knowledge management, and I would include learning management, over the past few decades has got it all wrong. We have over-managed information because it’s easy and we’re still enamoured with information technology. However, the ubiquitous information surround may put a stop to this. As enterprises become more closely tied to the Web, the principle of “small pieces loosely joined” is permeating our industrial walls. More and more workers have their own sources of information and knowledge.

At an individual level we need to make sense of the ever-increasing signals coming from our networks, while reducing the noise. This is why I developed sense-making with PKM which I am continuing to refine. Just yesterday I explained social bookmarks, feed readers and using Twitter as a search engine to a “digital immigrant” the same age as me. The light went on when I showed how she could connect with a worldwide cooperative community that shared several of her professional interests.

The power of micro-blogging with Twitter so far is quite impressive and I was one who adopted this medium with a fair bit of skepticism. I just noticed that in the past few months Twitter has replaced Google as the prime referring site for visitors here, surpassing Google.

With some individual skills in using social media, the next question an organization may ask is how to start an online community. Of course starting one doesn’t mean it will grow or be useful. Communication does not equal collaboration, and that is a challenge in “building” communities of practice (CoP). Just because the communication tools are in place does not mean that people will automatically collaborate.  You can’t really build a CoP, it has to emerge through practice; but you can put in systems and processes to support CoP’s.  You know you’re in a real community of practice when it changes your practice.

Taking advantage of social networks for business can give a temporary advantage (everything in business is temporary anyway) and help to develop disruptive business models. So that’s it – there are significant shifts in how we work which will require new skills and if used effectively can create new ways of generating wealth. The information age status quo isn’t the same for the learning age.

Learning and Working in Complexity Workshop

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Over several online and on-site presentations this past year, I’ve noticed a need for organizations to develop practical tools and contextual processes to manage information, knowledge and learning. I am offering a one-day workshop that encapsulates several years of “learning & working on the Web”.

Learning & Working in Complexity Workshop

One day (on-site or online)

Part 1: Overview of issues and forces that are fundamentally changing workplace learning

Part 2: Discussion & Examples from various fields

Part 3: Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) overview

Part 4: Setting up your own PKM system

References:

Skills 2.0 for learning professionals

PKM

Future of Training

Effective knowledge sharing

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The mainstream application of knowledge management, and I would include learning management, over the past few decades has got it all wrong. We have over-managed information because it’s easy and we’re still enamoured with information technology. However, the ubiquitous information surround may put a stop to this. As enterprises become more closely tied to the Web, the principle of “small pieces loosely joined” is permeating our industrial walls. More and more workers have their own sources of information and knowledge.

Following on from yesterday’s post, connecting and communicating through effective conversations, I’d like to quote again from Dave Pollard’s experience with knowledge management:

So my conclusion this time around was that the centralized stuff we spent so much time and money maintaining was simply not very useful to most practitioners. The practitioners I talked to about PPI [Personal Productivity Improvement] said they would love to participate in PPI coaching, provided it was focused on the content on their own desktops and hard drives, and not the stuff in the central repositories.

We can add to Dave’s anecdotal evidence the research from  Wharton’s Haas & Hansen in Does Knowledge Sharing Deliver?, via Tony Karrer. The researchers found that the two types of organizational knowledge – codified in a knowledge base and interpersonal sharing – are appropriate to different tasks. Generally speaking, codified knowledge does not help teams to produce any better unless the team is rather inexperienced. Interpersonal sharing can be more effective for some teams but it is time-consuming. According to Haas:

“We find that using codified knowledge in the form of electronic documents saved time during the task, but did not improve work quality or signal competence to clients, whereas in contrast, sharing personal advice improved work quality and signaled competence, but did not save time,” Haas says. “This is interesting because managers often believe that capturing and sharing knowledge via document databases can substitute for getting personal advice, and that sharing advice through personal networks can save time. But our findings dispute the claim that different types of knowledge are substitutes for each other. Instead, we show that appropriately matching the type of knowledge used to the requirements of the task at hand — quality, signaling or speed — is critical if a firm’s knowledge capabilities are to translate into improved performance of its projects.”

The inability of expensive enterprise knowledge management systems to deliver broad results is similar to the 80-20 funding ratio between formal and informal learning. We’ve been putting too much money in the wrong place.

A way forward for KM and Informal Learning 2.0

We should move away from central digital information repositories (KM, Doc Mgt, LCMS, etc.). I’m not advocating tearing down any existing IT infrastructure; just enabling a parallel system, which may exist already, to grow. Some suggestions:

  • Develop measures that can help experienced knowledge workers capture and make sense of their knowledge.
  • Support the sharing of information and expertise between knowledge workers, on their terms, using personalized knowledge management methods & tools.
  • Keep only essential information, and what is necessary for inexperienced workers, in the organizational knowledge base – keep it simple.

Web tools for critical thinking

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A few years back, Dave Pollard wrote a post on critical thinking and it’s one that I’ve referred to a few times since. I think that real critical thinking is a key survival skill in our global, digital surround.

What I think really needs to be taught is critical thinking as a defensive skill. We all think logically, but we can be fooled. Inadvertently or maliciously. If I were to design a Critical Thinking course it would quickly cover the basic cognitive skills, and provide some exercises for students to get these muscles working, and would then focus entirely on learning to challenge intellectual deception.

criticalthinking.gif
Almost every interest group in the world is now on an information & marketing offensive. It’s what Seth Godin calls a Marketing War, and if every corporate, government and special interest group masters it, we had all better watch out. To fight this war, we now have a few new tools at our disposal to help us question assumptions, including our own.

Looking at several web tools from the perspective of critical thinking, and the processes described by Dave, shows something similar to a personal learning environment (PLE). You could call it a PLE with an attitude, or PKM, and educators can start with the book, “Teaching Defiance“.

Personal Knowledge Management 2

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Note: If you are looking for the summary page on personal knowledge management/mastery (PKM) it is now here: jarche.com/pkm/

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Jay has recently posted on Learning Circuits that blogs can be used as knowledge management (KM) tools. Using these tools brings some new challenges, as Lilia has noted “In a sense personal KM is very entrepreneurial, there are more rewards and more risks in taking responsibility for developing own expertise.” I won’t deny the cultural change issues in using blogs for knowledge management but I will show how I, as an independent worker outside an organisational hierarchy, use blogs and other tools for personal knowledge management. [This is an update & re-write of a previous post from last year.]

I write on my blog for several reasons. First of all, it’s the platform by which I try to make implicit knowledge (e.g. not codified or structured) more explicit, through the process of writing out my thoughts and observations of what I have come across in my life. By forcing myself to write a summary or an observation, I have to reflect on my own learning. Also, by making my thoughts public I know that they will be scrutinized – now and in the future. There’s nothing like public visibility to make you check your logic. I also view my blog as my main communication medium, letting me converse with potential clients or provide them with a venue to get to know me without any feelings of obligation. Basically, it’s all out there for the world to see.

But how do I get from “Gee isn’t that interesting?” to a written blog post?

Many of my observations come from the blogs that I visit regularly. These feeds are aggregated in my Bloglines account which is made up of +/- 100 feeds. This feed aggregator is sorted into various folders and feeds are routinely added and deleted depending on my preferences and information needs. If I’m working on a project in a specific field I may add some feeds for the duration of the work. The feeds I select are a reflection of the work that I’m doing. I also keep a couple of feeds that have little relation to my work for any serendipitous learning. The ability to scan, preview, read and save posts makes this a simple and easy process – better than visiting each site.

There are also some web pages, posts or sites that I find interesting but I feel are not worth the effort of writing a blog post. For these sites I use Furl, a social bookmarking service. Furl not only saves the page but allows me to tag the item by category. My Furl archive is public so that I can share these pages.

Items and thoughts that are not ignored or stored in Furl usually get saved into a temporary bookmark folder in my browser. Over time I review these and may find a few others that relate to each other. When I have the time and inclination, usually after exercise, I’ll draft a post, review it and post it.

But what use is my blog?

Because my website is searchable, I’m able to retrieve two years of thoughts and comments and easily review these. This is quite practical for presentations, papers, proposals and responding to questions. If I didn’t write a blog, I would have a lot more bookmarks, without annotations of my reasoning and reflection at the time. After two years, my blog is becoming a valuable productivity tool, and the comments and links from others only add more value.

My blog is also a great way to meet people interested in similar subjects, and has helped to create an evolving community of practice. As I’ve mentioned before, this blog is like a very detailed business card, and those who disagree with my points of view may decide not to engage my professional services. This would be a good thing; from both perspectives.

As an independent consultant, a blog is probably the simplest, cheapest and most effective knowledge management tool there is today. Some other benefits are listed here.

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)

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Both Lilia Efimova and Denham Grey talk extensively about personal knowledge management (PKM). They have studied this field much more than I have, and if you’re looking for in-depth analysis then please look at their sites.
PKM
This post is more of a how-to for anyone new to blogs, aggregators and social bookmarking. I have mentioned how blogging is useful for me as a free-agent, consultant, knowledge worker. etc. Above is a overview of how this site is constructed to help me in managing my own knowledge flows [this is a screen shot of my previous Drupal installation and doesn’t reflect the current WordPress configuration]. It may also provide an argument on why you should have your own blog for work. First of all, Harold’s blog is the platform by which I try to make implicit knowledge (e.g. not codified or structured) more explicit, through the process of writing out my thoughts and observations of what I have come across in my work or on the web. A lot of these observations come from the web sites that I visit regularly.

These feeds are aggregated in my Bloglines account, which is publicly available, so anyone can see the sites that I read. This feed aggregator is sorted into various folders and feeds are routinely added and deleted depending on my preferences and information needs. If I’m working on a project in a specific field, like healthcare, I may add some feeds for the duration of the work. I also keep a couple of feeds that have little relation to my work for any serendipidous learning. My account usually runs at about 100 feeds, and the ability to preview and save posts makes this simple and easy – much easier than visiting each site.

There are also some web pages, posts or sites that I find interesting but are not worth the effort of writing a blog post (these take some time and effort). For these sites I use Furl because it not only saves the page but allows me to tag the item by category. For example, I have been using Furl to keep a list of items related to Public Education as well as Small Businesses that have blogs. My Furl archive is also public.

Because my website is searchable, I’m able to retrieve thoughts and comments and easily review them. Others can do the same. This is quite practical for presentations and papers.

Finally, I have links to my Associates. These show who I’m working with and can be helpful in redirecting people. For instance, the Atlantic Wildlife Institute’s URL is an amalgamation of the English and French acronyms (AWI + IAF = AWIAF). It’s not that obvious, so I tell people to go to my website and follow the link – much easier. Sometimes I’m in a conversation and someone asks for more details on a subject. In many cases I’m able to point that person to my website with either, “search for this term” or “follow this link on the navigation menu”. I will even access my website from a client’s office and use some article to reinforce or explain a point – quite useful.

Personal Knowledge Management

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From Lilia Efimova, is this quote [on PKM] worth keeping for your files:

To a great extent PKM [personal knowledge management] is about shifting responsibility for learning and knowledge sharing from a company to individuals and this is the greatest challenge for both sides. Companies should recognise that their employees are not “human resources”, but investors who bring their expertise into a company. As any investors they want to participate in decision-making and can easily withdraw if their “return on investment” is not compelling. Creativity, learning or desire to help others cannot be controlled, so knowledge workers need to be intrinsically motivated to deliver quality results. In this case “command and control” management methods are not likely to work.

Taking responsibility for own work and learning is a challenge for knowledge workers as well. Taking these responsibilities requires attitude shift and initiative, as well as developing personal KM knowledge and skills. In a sense personal KM is very entrepreneurial, there are more rewards and more risks in taking responsibility for developing own expertise.

My conclusion for a while has been that knowledge cannot be managed, and neither can knowledge workers. It will take a new social contract between workers and organisations in order to create an optimally functioning enterprise. Adding management and technology won’t help either. This is the crux of everything in the new ‘right-sized, lean, innovative, creative’ economy — getting the right balance between the organisational structure and the knowledge workers.