We speak a lot about KD/KS. If you’re curious about how knowledge development and knowledge sharing link together in ways we might not usually think about, take a look at Jonah Lehrer’s “GroupThink: The brainstorming myth” in the current (January 30) issue of The New Yorker.
While I’m not sure I agree with Lehrer’s basic premise that brainstorming doesn’t work (isn’t brainstorming a pretty basic tool in the KD/KS toolbox?), I do agree with his ideas about the value of chance encounters in knowledge sharing. His examples are terrific, and he makes it clear that when a space/building/environment is open and its structure suggests a more free-form version of knowledge exchange, good things happen. My favorite is his description of M.I.T.’s famous Building 20, which is almost a textbook example of what can happen when people wandering about run into each other and talk about what they’re doing.
Lehrer also gives due credit to a Jane Jacobs’ “knowledge spillovers,” the idea that what Lehrer calls “incidental conversations” produce more innovation than brainstorming sessions planned in advance.
Eleven years ago, Gerald A. Carlino wrote a useful and very readable article citing Jacobs’ 1969 theory (among others). Called Knowledge Spillovers: Cities’ Role in the New Economy, the article was published in The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Business Review (that’s the bank’s quarterly aimed at readers with a general interest in economics). Carlino’s April 2001 article also offers strong evidence of the success of knowledge spillovers in facilitating idea exchange, creative, and innovation.
Two good essays, and both Lehrer and Carlino provide a useful connection for those of us focusing on KD/KS. It’s a new and slightly different slant for us as we manage the KD/KS process.
PICTURES OF KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS
1. Picture 1 : Knowledge considered as “flow” or “thing” in the form of Codified, Recorded, Administered, Repositoried of all kind of created / captured/ collected Tacit, Explicit and Implicit Knowledge respectively. The medium needed behaving as Dependent to Space Time (DST)
2. Picture 2 : Knowledge considered as “consciousness” in the form of emergent property generated from 9 types of Knowledge evolvement through Knowledge Interfaces (KI) mechanism – http://bit.ly/s9ZNqR (“Basic structure of Human System Biology-based Knowledge Management (HSBKM) model framework”). The medium needed behaving as Independent to SpaceTime (IST) via “quantum entanglement consciousness transferring phenomenon” – http://bit.ly/wQj0qE (“Brief Guide to Physics of the Universe : Knowledge Management Generated”)
Md Santo – http://mobeeknowledge.ning.com
While I have not read Lehrer’s article but picking up from what is mentioned here about the example of people wandering into each other reminds me of the floor walking exercises we conducted as part of KM initiatives in the Library. It turned out the information we received as a result of this non-formal, one to one casual interaction produced more feedback as compared to ‘ meet the members’ session.Perhaps because of being more informal and personal as compared to sessions where some would perhaps feel the fear of speaking up amongst many.
Some quick pointers that should interest you:
Charles Landry makes some very lucid and poignant observations about the way we design and build our cities (http://www.charleslandry.com/). And I remember a conversation with Bryan Davis of the Kaietur Institute for Knowledge Management (http://www.kikm.org/) in which he pointed out that the average ‘speed’ of an industrial city is around 45km/h, while that of a knowledge city is … 5km/h, i.e. walking pace !
Will come back to this later.