Thanks to everyone who attended the July 7 meeting of the KM/Knowledge Services Community Discussion Forum, when we had the chance to speak about what knowledge services will be like after after the pandemic.
Our July topic (“What Will Knowledge Services be Like When the Pandemic Ends?”) created considerable (and many) good thoughts. Here is some of what we picked up from the chat comments:
- A very important consideration (and a provocative suggestion) was that we knowledge strategists – instead of thinking in terms of “recovery” – might move to thinking about “realignment” as we consider what comes next.
- We also recognized that in knowledge services, it would be an advantage to begin thinking about a distributed work force, so that the knowledge “framework” (as we often refer to what we do) might become of part of the organization or community’s more “spread-out” management and functional operations.
- Another valuable consideration came up when one of the group suggested we take a positive attitude to some of what we are going to be facing, and in particular give attention to some of the “good things” (a good way of putting it) that come up when we’re trying to address some of the chronic concerns relating to information and knowledge sharing.
- In doing so, we could find ourselves – as knowledge strategists – with a variety of opportunities for defining and re-defining information sharing values within the organization, community, or group.
- Building on this, we knowledge strategists can impact the knowledge strategy in terms of resourcing and priorities and, as quickly grew out of the discussion, give us even more evidence that KM/knowledge services is very human-centric: key players matter.
Our KM/Knowledge Services Community Discussion Forum was so stimulating on July 7, in fact, that my colleagues and I have decided to repeat the July topic for our October meeting. We think it will be good, after more time has passed, to do even more thinking about recovery/realignment pandemic questions as our “new” work begins to play out.
In the meantime, we have two exceptional discussion programs coming up. On August 4, our Guest Presenter and Moderator will be Timothy Wood Powell, who will speak with us and then hear what we all have to say on the important topic: “The Knowledge Community: Method or Myth?”
Tim, an acknowledged leader in KM/knowledge services, is the President and CEO of The Knowledge Agency in New York City. He is also the author of The Value of Knowledge: The Economics of Enterprise Knowledge and Intelligence (Berlin and Munich: De Gruyter, 2020), and you can learn more about Tim and his work at his ten-minute video: First Look: The Value of Knowledge (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A791Ujybg5Y&t=6s). Both Tim and I look forward to having you with us on August 4.
I’m predicting a fascinating discussion when we tackle that challenge Tim presents for us, to determine whether our work in what we like to refer to as our KM and knowledge services “community” is a method or a myth.
To join us, sign up at the Meetup KM/Knowledge Services Community site.
Tim and I are both looking forward to seeing you on August 4 and Kevin and I on September 1.
Come join us. You’ll be welcome.
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