Troppi cani? Ci vuole piu' KM!

Dechen is looking for solutions to deal with the growing number of
stray dogs population in Thimphu, a concern of almost all residents
of the capital.

Since this is an issue close to her heart and could also have
religious implications, she wanted to avoid mistakes that the early-
starters would have made. Further, since more heads means more ideas,
she wanted to share the query with the right set of people. How could
she do that? Knowledge Management Partnership (KMP) could be the answer.
KMP is about sharing knowledge and experience through an internet-
mediated forum. It connects people sharing similar concerns and
interests towards the common objective of problem-solving instead of
reinventing the wheel.
KMP is an internet-mediated forum using an "e-consultation" format.
Communities of Practice (topics of discussion) can be selected based
on people's interest and of national development concern.
Each community is guided by a group of eminent persons working in
that sphere. Members to the community can come from different sectors
- government, non governmental organisations, development partners,
private sectors and academia.
So, when you put your query in an e-mail the moderator posts it to
all community members who will offer advices, experiences and
contacts and in about 5-10 days, the moderator will post a synopsis
of responses to the mailgroup (called a Consolidated Reply). These
contributions and additional resources can be made available on the
website.
A similar initiative in the UN office in India last year resulted in
the government changing its compulsory HIV/AIDS testing before
marriage in one of the states.
Many would argue that KMP may not be effective in Bhutan because of
inaccessibility of technology in rural areas. However, KMP could be
tailor made to suit the current IT status of Bhutan. It could be
adapted using existing facilities such as the national radio to reach
remote Bhutan.
Knowledge management's potential can be gauged by reflecting on the
various levels of society. To an organisation, KMP helps enhance the
delivery, relevance and effectiveness of their work and advisory
services; to a thematic community, it allows for the development of a
common language and understanding of thematic issues and for an
individual, it helps to do their jobs better, build bonds with peers
and keep up to date.
In this fast developing world, where people find it difficult to find
time to meet and discuss issues physically, perhaps, KMP can be a
solution.
Contributed by Sunita Giri

KM: praticarlo o perderlo.

Posted By: Jeffrey Mann, Research VP
Many of my discussions with customers about knowledge management (KM)
initially focus on how to capture knowledge as it is created or flows
through an organization. Users want to know how to convince employees
to share their experiences or take the time to document best
practices or other insights. They ask about the best systems to
store, classify, search and distribute this information. All of that
is important, but often misplaced, I find. It's generally far more
useful to concentrate on how the organization will use knowledge
rather than just how to collect it. Ironically, emphasizing how
knowledge will be used usually ends up increasing the quality and
amount of information collected as well.

One of the reasons many people are hesitant to spend the time to
document what they know is because they don't know how, or even if,
it will be used. Too many KM initiatives gather great material, which
then sits unaccessed on a virtual shelf in some repository somewhere.
Focusing exclusively on how to capture knowledge means not building
knowledge access into daily business processes, training users how to
find information that can help them make better decisions faster,
publicizing how the use of someone's insights has led to success or
other steps that would encourage knowledge use.

Visibility into how captured knowledge will be used can be a
tremendous incentive to participate in knowledge capture efforts.
Subject matter experts are more likely to participate if they know
that their efforts will actually be used. Individual recognition can
often be the best incentive, in fact; far better than the clumsy
efforts to financially reward contributors that I have seen. It is a
cliché (but nonetheless true) to say that nothing succeeds like
success. Ringing the bell to highlight wins and successes, with
recognition for the user and contributor, can multiply this value.

Of course, exclusively focusing on how knowledge is used would lead
to a chicken-and-egg paradox: How can we use knowledge if we haven't
captured any? Often, this presents an excuse to dive into technology.
Many KM planners, especially those from IT departments, are more
comfortable dealing with the technology-driven issues of how to
capture, catalogue and store information in repositories than the
people-driven issues of how it gets used throughout the organization.
As with so many high-performance workplace concepts, finding the
correct balance is important. A good rule of thumb is to focus at
least as much attention on using knowledge as capturing it. This
would go a long way toward swinging the balance the right way.

Come deprimere i knowledge workers.

Department of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of
Economics and Business Administration
"We study how complementarities and intellectual property rights
affect the management of knowledge workers. The main results relay
when a firm will wish to sue workers that leave with innovative
ideas, and the effects of complementary assets on wages and on worker
initiative. We argue that firms strongly protected by property rights
may not sue leaving workers in order to motivate effort, while firms
weakly protected by complementary assets must sue in order to obtain
positive profits. Firms with more complementary assets pay higher
wages (and have lower turnover), but such higher pay has a
detrimental effect on worker initiative. Our analysis suggests that
strengthened property rights protection reduces turnover costs but
weakens worker initiative."

http://www.nhh.no/for/dp/2006/0706.pdf

Far crescere l'innnovazione senza far crescere la complessita'.

"As companies struggle to innovate in today's competitive
environment, they need to continually guard against adding to their
"clutter" -- the creeping impact of complexity on efficiency and cost-
competitiveness. In this three-part special report, experts from
Wharton and George Group Consulting discuss how management can
approach this problem by thinking "ambidextrously" -- that is,
focusing on innovation and broad exploration while minimizing the
impact of clutter on operational processes and costs. Also, in the
accompanying podcast (with transcript), Mike McCallister, CEO of
Humana, discusses balancing innovation and complexity in the health
care industry with Wharton management professor Michael Useem and
Stephen Wilson, engagement director in George Group's Conquering
Complexity practice."

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/download/BalancingInnovationTechnology.pdf

Km board pubblica commenti sulla provacy e il diritto d'autore

"It has become commonplace to say that we have entered the age of
information. The words conjure up images of a reader's paradise ~ an
era of limitless access to information resources and unlimited
interpersonal communication. In truth, however, the new information
age is turning out to be as much an age of information about readers
as an age of information for readers. The same technologies that have
made vast amounts of information accessible in digital form are
enabling information providers to amass an unprecedented wealth of
data about who their customers are and what they like to read. In the
new age of digitally transmitted information, the simple, formerly
anonymous acts of reading, listening, and viewing ~ scanning an
advertisement or a short news item, browsing through an online novel
or a collection of video clips ~ can be made to speak volumes,
including, quite possibly, information that the reader would prefer
not to share. This Article focuses specifically on digital monitoring
of individual reading habits for purposes of so-called "copyright
management" in cyberspace, and evaluates the import of this
monitoring for traditional notions of freedom of thought and
expression."

http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/2794

Netdimension annuncia modulo di e-learning

NetDimensions, provider of the Enterprise Knowledge Platform (EKP)
learning management system (LMS), has announced a new software on
demand appliance in EKP Server Plus, a stand-alone server that ships
preinstalled with the EKP LMS to deliver, manage and track training
programs.

Le regole della rete

Le rete ha le sue regole, chi le conosce sa cosa usare, cosa evitare, come trovare quello che gli serve.
Sono regole vecchie, comprendono il buon senso, l'osservazione della realta', molto sano realismo.
Sono regole che di solito non si raccontano in giro. Molti guru e contro-guru infatti si fanno beffe di loro. Arrivano e ti spiegano loro come vanno le cose.
Per fortuna i guru e contro-guru durano poco.
Io ho cominciato a scrivere di internet qualche anno fa (era il 1995) facendo recensioni di siti e poi sono passato a scrivere di regole della rete. Lo faccio prevalentemente su questa rivista: EconERre. Qualche volta si dimenticano i miei articoli, o mi dicono proprio che non e' il caso di pubblicarli. Ma non lo fanno spesso, sono bravi ragazzi. Comunque, per sapere veramente come la penso dovete venire qui...

L'economia politica e in particolare quella applicata allo sviluppo regionale resta comunque cio' per cui ho studiato e per cui lavoro principalmente.
Solo che non va proprio piu' di moda, e' terribilmente sorpassata.
E' stata punita perche' non sa fare molto bene le previsioni, o meglio le sbaglia, o meglio ancora le sbagliano gli economisti, a volte in buona fede a volte perche' li pagano per quello.
L'informatica invece la pagano di piu'. Provate ad andare in Commissione Europea a presentare un progetto dove si parla di economia. Quando si parla di informatica invece...
Per fortuna informatica ed economia hanno delle relazioni, altrimenti sarebbe un guaio.