A cohort-based online workshop to help professionals work smarter
Next workshop starts February 2026. See below.
Work Smarter with Personal Knowledge Mastery
Personal knowledge mastery is a set of processes, individually constructed, to help each of us make sense of our world and work more effectively. PKM keeps us afloat in a sea of information — guided by professional communities and buoyed by social networks.
Seek > Sense > Share
• six weeks, 18 activities
• self-paced
• based on 20 years of research & practice
• evidence-based references
• resources on the foundations of knowledge management
• focused on creating your own approach for sensemaking
• emphasizes learning in communities & networks
Workshop participants come from a wide variety of organizations, including:
NASA, Amazon, MasterCard Foundation, National Health Service (UK), University of Kent, United Cities & Local Governments, SSAT (UK), Autodesk, BC Patient & Safety Council, University of Nebraska, National Australia Bank, Ontario Trillium Foundation, Deloitte, Carleton University, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, European Environment Agency, Target, CITI, CGI, AT&T, Roche, Verizon, The World Bank, Johnson & Johnson, Cronycle, Göthe Institute, Salvation Army, Hasbro, Sugar Research Australia, European Commission, Unilever, …
Recommended by Practitioners
Open note to any aspiring or practicing CEO. This is one of the best investments you could ever make.” —Shaun Coffey, AU
And, contrary to lots of other online courses, it’s not just watching a series of videos, it’s really about doing things and being part of an active community. Fully recommended!” —Filip Callewaert, BE
Personal Knowledge Mastery is where the game is in terms of the skills needed to make sense of work in a world where we are no longer remote, but distributed.” —Luis Suarez, ES
Private Workshops
Private online workshops are available for organizations.
2026 Public Workshop Start Dates
- 16 February 2026
- 5 October 2026
Fee: $(CA)650 — ± $(US)470 or €400
Register for the February Workshop
More Information
Download PKM Field Guide
Working Smarter with PKM (3 minute videos & transcripts)
The Personal Knowledge Mastery workshop comprises 18 activities spaced through six weeks, in addition to resources, links, and tips. Each Monday, Wednesday, & Friday a new assignment is posted in the online community space. People can work on their own or share in the discussion forum with other participants as they like. Harold is available to personally support all participants. At the end of the workshop, an additional three weeks are provided for reflection or catch-up, so participants have access for nine weeks in total.
The discipline of PKM helps to develop four core work skills, identified by the Institute for the Future:
-
-
-
-
- sense-making
- social intelligence
- new media literacy
- cognitive load management
-
-
-
See workshop outline below.
Q&A
What will I learn?
-
-
-
-
- how to examine and visualize your professional networks
- how to be mindful of your connections, online and otherwise
- an understanding of some new tools that can help with your sense-making
- how to continuously share and communicate in order to make sense of a complex world
- how some of the ideas, concepts, and methods discussed can become part of your regular routine
- workshop learning methodology — modelling
-
-
-
How much time does the workshop require?
Four hours per week is suggested, but more may be necessary to go deeper if desired. Note that there are an additional three weeks set aside to catch-up and reflect.
Where do we post our work?
You may add a comment to the activity post, post to your own website, or mention it on Mastodon, using the #PKMastery hashtag which Harold follows. It is up to you how much and where you share. You may keep all your thoughts private if you wish.
Are there any scheduled live activities?
Individual video chats may be arranged any time on request during the workshop. Due to time zone variations with a global cohort, there are no scheduled live group sessions.
Workshop Outline
Comments and reflections are all done via the website as threaded discussions, so there are no specific dates or times to attend.
Harold Jarche provides coaching, advice, feedback, and other resources as needed.
Harold is also available via audio or video conference on request.
Discussion is encouraged so that people can learn from each other. For participants, the more they give, the more they get.
-
-
-
-
- Network Mapping
- Sparking Curiosity
- Communities (using Mastodon)
- Intentionality
- Navigating Complexity
- Aggregators & RSS
- Understanding Media
- Fake News
- Half-baked Ideas
- Experts
- Connectors
- Seekers & Catalysts
- Narrating Our Work
- Systems Thinking
- Adding Value
- PKM in Action
- Reflecting
- The First Step
-
-
-
Testimonials
Imagine you’re trying to fix a problem, dealing with a crisis, or even just replying to someone, responding to a query, thinking about a possible solution. Most people deal with the issue at hand. That’s great already!
But if your KM meta reflex kicks in, all of a sudden you see another arc:
Hold on a minute! Is this a one-off? Or something likely to happen again? What can I do here and now that will not only help in the moment, but save time for me, and possibly others, in the future?
THAT is the meta reflex that gives you an edge. And it’s personal knowledge mastery at work. It is to knowledge management what meditation is to life. It’s the open secret that helps you avoid the hole in the road. Repeatedly.” —Ewen Le Borgne
I got asked this week ‘If I could invest in only 1 piece of personal development in 2020, what would you recommend?’. Easy. By a country mile the best investment I’ve made in the last few years is PKM … Harold has very carefully put together an online course designed to help participants learn to collate, make sense of, and add value to specialist web content. As we rapidly transition towards volatile and uncertain work landscapes, being able to quickly digest and derive meaning from increasing volumes of information will become an increasingly necessary skill, in order to remain relevant at a human level. In this, I feel Harold’s course is ahead of the game, and I’d thoroughly recommend the course as essential learning in the future of work.” —Cathryn Barnard, UK
I signed up, read a few pages, already had 2-3 deep learnings! BOOM!” —Jonathan Anthony
As a master mapping out a pathway for followers, I think you’ve neatly avoided the common trap of being overly prescriptive and kept it to a minimum of discrete steps.” —Chris Mansell“Your workshop with its very valuable content is very meaningful – and helpful to me. Especially ‘Perpetual Beta – strong beliefs, loosely held’ made me say YES! A lot of other times when I was reading your words I just thought ‘thank you’.” —Workshop Participant
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
I encourage you to sign up for the workshop in Personal Knowledge Mastery.” —Kenneth Mikkelsen
