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Second intermission

The ActKM list serve this morning had a request for quotes about KM. I put this together quickly

Shawn has a good collection at Anecdote that were garnered from a variety of sources (which are in the main acknowledged so that will give you additional material to track down)

Their list of nine characteristics of KM includes three of mine (the first three so thanks Shawn!) which in their full form and origin can be found here. That posting includes the link to the 2002 article which explains them (although they date back to 1998). The first was originally Knowledge can only be volunteered it cannot be conscripted Shawn rephrases this as You cannot command people's knowledge, you need to encourage them to share it which I think looses something in the translation. He references Peter Drucker's verbal statement from an Executive retreat that he and I (plus one) under the auspices of Delphi ran back in 1998 and which I wrote down at the time In the knowledge economy everyone is a volunteer but we have trained our managers to manage conscripts I have produced a variation of that recently which states that If you ask people for knowledge in the context of need, it will be granted; if you ask them to volunteer theior knowledge on the basis of an anticipated future need it will be refused.

Dave Pollard's also has a load of stuff I would look out

I have also found the bible a very good source. Three of the ones I use a lot in KM (and innovation for that matter is) are

Matthew 9:17 Neither do people put new wine into old wineskins, or else the skins would burst, and the wine be spilled, and the skins ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.

I Corrinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known For more see here

James 2:24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified… (about which I plan to blog this Sunday

If you want some on innovation (which is one of the main objectives of KM) then see here and the current home page has material

On complexity (a key part of KM) see here

and for those facing executives who want to make KM into some glorified form of process management - the best of all from the incomparable Mulla Nasrudin

Nasrudin found a weary falcon sitting one day on his window-sill. He had never seen a bird like this before.

‘You poor thing’, he said, ‘how ever were you to allowed to get into this state?’

He clipped the falcon’s talons and cut its beak straight, and trimmed its feathers.

‘Now you look more like a bird,’ said Nasrudin.


That's what happens to KM initiatives, people make falcons into pigeons, because they understand pigeons (and if you are the falcon its pretty painful)

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Comments (2)

Dave Snowden [TypeKey Profile Page]:

There were a lot of responses on ActKM to the original request. Some of the ones I liked I reproduce below - thanks to Keith De La Rue and Peter Houlihan for these

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the
ability to learn from the experience of others, are also
remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
- Douglas Adams

"We learn practically nothing from a victory. All our
information comes from a defeat. A winner forgets most of
his mistakes."
- William H. Danforth, 1935

"Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
- George Santayanna

"History teaches us that man learns nothing from history"
- Hegel

T.S.Eliot, Extract from the Chorus of The Rock, 1934
The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

I just made this one up:

"Knowledge is like money - if it's not going anywhere it's not worth anything."

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