I’ve been exchanging tweets with Matthew Loxton about whether communities of practice (CoP) and projects are a good fit. He’s sceptical; I suggested it can work, depending on context and on definitions of a project. I haven’t written specifically about this before, so thought it was worth sharing preliminary thoughts in a blog post. First, […]
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RSS feed for this sectionReflections on Travel in America
I’ve spent more time in the U.S. over the last few years than in the rest of my life. And today on Independence Day I decided to do a 2 minute brainstorm of things I almost always enjoy on each trip, even if most of my time is in meeting rooms. In random order… Hearing […]
What are we doing on twitter?
You have undoubtedly noticed the exponential growth of tips—on twitter, for example—about how to achieve things through social media. Often the desired result is simply more followers. Some people want huge numbers of followers (see @jeffbullas for tips) where others such as John Tropea @johnt reduce the numbers of people they follow to avoid overload. […]
A Tale of Two Transactions
As some of you know, we have just moved after over 20 years in the same suburban home. There are many things I could compare and contrast, but an unlikely one stands out: dealing with the real estate transaction process. This is a post about home moving, but it’s also about bigger things. I could […]
More views on the BP-KM link
(or lack thereof) I received from Nick Milton and Roan Yong on my post “BP’s spill and KM excellence: A paradox?” Both–in somewhat different ways–challenged the idea that there was a paradox: Nick (speaking independently but with deep internal BP expertise) argued primarily from the Black Swan perspective: no one could see this coming. Roan […]
BP’s spill & KM excellence: A paradox?
Photographer Brian Skerry tells us that 90% of the big fish in the ocean have disappeared in the last 50-60 years. And most of us didn’t even have that context as we turned our eyes to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s early June and there has already been a MEDEVAC […]
Adaptive Tensions: Fuel for Innovation
In the twitter-based group that explores knowledge management topics (#KMers), John Bordeaux made some comments that piqued others’ interest. For example, he wrote that organizations pull for repeatability; people pull for creativity; and conflict can lead to novel approaches for both. This statement speaks to the heart of my interests as a reflective practitioner. In […]
Respected Leaders’ Work with Boundaries
I am about to respond to a request from some colleagues to post ideas from recent research. To set the stage, I am sharing the abstract from my dissertation here first. I have added a couple of notes to it in red font: Abstract We work in organizational structures designed by industrial era architects, yet […]
Who’s In & Who’s Out?
A comment by John Lebkowsky in twitter about democracy standing in line piqued my interest and led me to his blog post about e-democracy.org’s 125-member United States issues forum, which is described as “a civil, more deliberative discussion of national public policy issues and politics in the United States among people with diverse political perspectives.” […]
Sometimes you just have to write
Yesterday, I read an that inspired this poem: Twepistemologies with apologies (and credit) to John Godfrey Saxe There were six tweeps in Cyberspace exploring a mistake. “How could exec’s have gone so wrong when so much was at stake?” So in <140 characters Each shared a different take. The First (who wore a black belt) […]
