Knowledge Environments I've just published a review of the way physical environments can influence knowledge flow in organisations. This was based on a paper I wrote for Landcare Research looking at how they might better use the space in their new building in Auckland. The review contains summaries of a lot of the leading thinking in this area, especially that of Victoria Ward and the Space SIG on Knowledgeboard.com.

I was jogging in the early morning with my friend Tim who I was staying with in Wellington. We were talking about the pictures from the probe sent to Titan. Tim, who has a much greater degree of interest in space told me that the mars rovers were still going, 360 days after they landed when their anticipated life was only 80 days, and that the titan probe was only sending back one data stream because they'd forgotten to turn the other one on. I realised that we had different levels of knowledge about the same topic even though we both only took a passing or amateur interest in the topic. If the sun could be used as a metaphor for knowledge about space exploration, Tim was more tanned than I. He was slightly 'closer to the sun'. It got me thinking about the way clusters of knowledge occur in organisations, and that the level of 'light' diminishes the further away from that source we are. If we want to make sure people in our organisations are more 'enlightened', perhaps it's about moving them closer to the source, or taking away shade causing barriers than it is about moving the knowledge to them.

IT Conversations: Tim O'Reilly - O'Reilly Radar - just listened to this from ITconversations.com. Tim O'Reilly was talking about the possibilty of using social software driven contributions on mapping services. For example Microsoft research is developing a system to let people contribute photos to map locations. This got me thinking about a story Dave Snowden told about narrowly escaping mugging in New York. He was using this to illustrate the difference between information and knowledge, using a map and a taxi driver as examples. Long story short he used a map to figure out how to get somewhere more quickly using the tube and a short cut across 42nd Street. As a gang of muggers approached a police car picked him up and told him he shouldn't be there, especially dressed in a tux and carrying a laptop bag. Any New Yorker, let alone any taxi driver would have had the knowledge to tell him not to take that route, but the map didn't say 'here be muggers'. With the ability for large groups to annotate and describe map locations wikipaedia style, the map actually could.

The other highlight of the speech was an anecdote about a service in cambodia where a small number of people drive a route daily through remote villages picking up email without stopping from user's wireless networks.

Anecdote: complexity - narrative - knowledge: Intervention design for complex issues. Shawn makes a nice distinction here about the difference between projects (with clear end results envisaged) and interventions (to create a disturbance allowing new and unpredicted patterns to emerge).

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less - Barry Schwartz. He argues that more choice might make people do better, but it makes them less happy. They did research on speed dating, 8 minute dates, the first group with 20 dates in a night, the second with 10 dates. There were about twice as many couples that went on to date further in the group with 10 dates.... More choices mean (even if it's only subconscious) more regret about not having chosen the perfect option. I wonder what implications this has for knowledge management, information overload and workplace stress...

A Knowledge-Based Approach to Performance Excellence - Sveiby's analysis of knowledge based enhancements to the Baldridge performance excellence criteria.

Space SIG 9: The Role of Private & Public Spaces in Knowledge Management - 12 Aug 2003 The best of a range of articles I read in reviewing the design of physical office space to facilitate knowledge sharing for a science organisation.

Knowledge Management Resource Center: Case Studies in KM Some useful case studies from European and US organisations.

Steve Denning - Using Storytelling to Spark Organizational Transformation.
I missed Denning's event in Wellington in August due to snow. This presentation in part made up for it.

IBM Systems Journal: The new dynamics of strategy: sense-making in a complex and complicated world. Reviewed in gathering some info about social network stimulation.

Gotcha: Glossary

A good glossary of knowledge management terms.

business/organization:How to manage communities,light overseeing part way through the transcript of a talk by Larry Prusak about loose coupling and using a light touch in managing communities in organisations.

Is it DM or CM?

A good short description of the differences between document management and content management by James Robertson of Step Two Designs.

New Scientist - For want of a word

Article about evidentiality in an amazonian language called Tariana.

Gurteen Knowledge

A good collection of KM resources

The Paradox of Permission - Storymaker

A short analysis of the paradox of giving permission for use of one's stories, by Storymaker who have a product that helps to mobilise the voice of experience in organisations and professional groups.

The TAO of Topic Maps
Topics, Associations, Occurences
Indexes define these, Glossaries define topic meaning, Thesauri define topic associations and may 'type' them eg broader term, related term. Topic maps are more efficient than full text indexing.
Conceptual graphs in AI
Topic maps combine the topic/occurence axis with the topic/association axis
Topics have types eg Puccini would be a topic of type “composer”. Types must also be topics.
Occurances are generally external to the topic map document itself.
A topic association asserts a relationship between two or more topics eg “Tosca was written by Puccini”, Tosca takes place in Rome”
The ability to do typing of topic associations greatly increases the expressive power of the topic map, making it possible to group together the set of topics that have the same relationship to any given topic.
IFS
Indicators - a resource that is intended to provide a positive, unambiguous indication of the identity of a subject.
Facets - name, value metadata pairs for topics
Scope - contextual boundary for a topic as distinct from its homonyms

The Generations of Knowledge Management
AOK: Preparing for Conversations with David Snowden

David Snowden interview with Kim Hill
http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/article.php?sid=1509