New Information: Tips from KM/Knowledge Services Folks in the International Aid Community

I’m happy to recommend Ian Thorpe’s blog (KM on a Dollar a Day) to colleagues working in KM/knowledge services. Ian Thorpe is writing about the challenges of KM in the international aid community.

There is much good content here, going beyond usual KM topics. Ian and colleagues who add comments are sharing good information, valuable to any KM/knowledge services professional regardless of the specific subject area in which they work.

And much of what’s on the blog connects to the KM/knowledge services focus we use at  SMR Int’l, as we talk about knowledge services as the merging of information management, KM, and strategic learning. For us, tweaking the KM discipline toward knowledge services takes us  over to the practical side of KM and how – as we often put it – we “put KM to work”.

So take a look at KM on a Dollar a Day. Using the tagline “musing on knowledge management, aid, and development with limited resources,” here’s how Ian describes what he’s looking to do with KM:

“While our organization regularly speaks about the importance of evidence and knowledge in our work, our systems, tools and practices are not well set up to share knowledge internally and externally in the way we need them to be.

“We are just putting together a first version of a draft strategy, but at the same time the organization is under a lot of pressure for funding and so we have very limited resources to be able to make the kind of fundamental changes we need to fulfill our vision.”

So even if you do not work in the humanitarian or development aid field, you’ll find good ideas here (like the latest post Smart-Aid: What’s KM Got to Do with It? with its list of five areas where knowledge and learning are critical to improving aid). And with a focus on building KM/knowledge services with limited resources, this blog is a good place to go, since we are all attempting to build our organizational cultures with not a lot of money.

Many thanks to my pal Doug Ragan at Sustainable Cities for sending along this reference to a blog I didn’t know about. Pleased to pass it on.