What is common knowledge about knowledge? A visual tour…

Knowledge is the all elusive complex concept. And visuals help represent complex concepts. So for a change I thought I’d give a commented visit on a number of images about knowledge, found on the net. I don’t necessarily agree with what these images convey, but I have chosen to comment these ones because they seem …

The constant knowledge gardener

If we live in a true knowledge ecology (and the idea is not new as you can see here and there), nature lets its children grow naturally. Yet gardening can help boost some results – without going into the ins and outs of a possible knowledge conservation agriculture. Time to revisit the gardening metaphor perhaps and to think …

The path to wisdom is paved with effectiveness, focus, humility and empathy

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” ― Confucius. Wisdom features highly in the world of knowledge management. One of the biggest heresies it has produced, the erroneous DIKW pyramid (which I also questioned here and here), …

Harvesting insights (4): Making knowledge travel?

Time to revisit a concept that’s key in the recent past of ILRI’s and some other CGIAR knowledge work architecture: making knowledge travel. This concept and approach was, among others, central to the Agricultural and rural knowledge Share Fair organised in Addis Ababa in October 2010. This post written by organiser Nadia Manning right after the event …

Portrait of the modern knowledge worker

The concept of ‘knowledge worker’ which Peter Drucker coined in 1959, is perhaps not so clear (as shown again in a recent LinkedIn discussion – access potentially limited) and can be understood at least in two different ways: dedicated and other knowledge workers. Dedicated knowledge workers are the persons whose job it is to organise ‘knowledge work’, in relation …

What the heck is knowledge anyway: from commodity to capacity and insights

Ten years into KM and this is perhaps the most frequent question I’ve heard or come across to date in the knowledge management field: What is knowledge? Time to shoot at it, or better: time to plant a shoot… Currently again, there is a KM4Dev discussion about ‘knowledge banks’ (see word cloud below) and on the side, …

Walking my talk: “quick and dirty”… on the edge of knowledge

I have been an advocate of producing “quick and dirty” information for a while (see this post and that post). Offering that info, insight, experience out for the public scrutiny seems to me the best way to get good feedback from others and from the reality to refine it and come up with answers or better questions – …

Harvesting insights (1): back to (KM) basics

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I have set out to distil some of the key insights that are in my view at the crux of the success (or failure) of many KM and learning initiatives. What are the most essential insights I have gathered over the last few years working on knowledge and …

IKM-convergent? Annual programme meeting, Wageningen, day 1

A while back I blogged about the IKM-Emergent programme and its tendency to dispersion. The programme has evolved since then and a number of things are coalescing on this first day of the all-peeps IKM-Emergent  workshop (which brings together the three working groups, but also a number of new guests that are working on issues …

Peter and Justin: when and how does information make sense?

Last week when I was over in Ethiopia I had a wonderful dinner at a great Belgian Restaurant in Addis together with Peter Ballantyne of ILRI and some of his friends; A great bunch of people, some of who like Peter are working on knowledge sharing (and knowledge management although Peter hates the contradictory term …