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Home > Vol.
2, No. 3 |
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In Search of Sustainability
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| Figure 1: Crafting a Better Future |
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Paradoxically the only security is in moving forward to improve the world around you. "Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found" (Lindbergh).
What we consider safe shores were once unknown frontiers explored by those who crossed the boundaries of the known. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Commander Eugene Cernan asked for the orders to set foot forward to the next frontier. These dared go where none had gone before.
It was safety and yet freedom that inspired thousands to give up the known and set sail for distant lands. Shall we do the same?
We have explored home-space, inner-space and outer space. The latest frontier is cyberspace. What craft can we build to surf the future? What new challenges can we envision? What is the next frontier? Who can imagine it or predict it? Who will forge it?
Perhaps it will be people like Ramana Rao, who explored beyond Euclidean space into the hyperbolic sphere, and companies as edgy as LexisNexis, who dare to use the emerging tools to map the terrain. We show you how and why this innovative leader in mega-databases is helping us with Visualizing LexisNexis Meta Data with the Hyperbolic Tree.
Debra M. Amidon, our Global View Director, and creator of the largest, most successful virtual organization did not arrive on the ships of others. She bravely set sail when those around her told her she was foolhardy. She never looked back, yet she was the first to examine and fill the gaps to ensure the voyage would become stronger and more successful.
While we were still driving down the superhighway and surfing the information highway Amidon was crafting the Innovation Superhighway. Her vision and structure is revealed in her latest book to be released in 2002. You can have a sneak preview of a sample chapter of The Innovation SuperHighway: Harnessing Intellectual Capital for Collaborative Advantage. (See the link noted in Works Cited.)
She was speaking of innovation when others were still handing out Thief of the Year and NIH (Not-Invented-Here) Awards. She was naming her company "ENT-erprise inn-OVATION" while other were trying to measure best practices.
She was setting out and breaking rules while the rest were inventing standards and conventions.
This is not to say the rest were wrong. They were all doing the right things. The safe things - this is all well and good as long as we have the pioneers slashing the trail and the scouts going on ahead.
We are fortunate to have several pioneers. Yet fewer are scouting new terrain. Steve Eskow in an electronic conversation with me called Amidon "the next Peter Drucker". I admire Peter Drucker, the pioneer, but I consider Debra M. Amidon to be traversing newer domains.
| Figure 2: Scouting New Terrain |
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Photo courtesy of NOAA - see Photo Credits
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She turns around long enough to see who is following and encourages them along. Then she sees the chasm between and offers a hand up - like giving away The Global Knowledge Primer for free. Check out her article in this issue and my review of this pivotal work, then read the primer and watch it expand your view.
While some of us are still schooled between four walls, others are reaching beyond the box - with traditional resources used in novel ways, like radio, telephones and television as part of classrooms connected to the Internet where it can be done. Where it can't, satellite and other means bridge the chasm.
We in the more affluent countries often forget or ignore the billions who do not take even radios and telephones for granted. For them water and other basic necessities are fleeting and unsure. Even in our own backyards there are pockets of poverty and despair. The only way to a better tomorrow is in education.
Not to teach a man to fish for fishing only works if you live near water, but to teach him or her to think, to imagine, to hope and to dream.
| Figure 3: To Fish or Not to Fish |
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In the end then they craft their own future. They find their own means to survive and thrive. Giving someone a fish is creating dependence. Teaching someone to fish is making decisions for him. The only true way to independent mature livelihood is the fostering of learning to allow options.
Again in this there are pioneers and then there are scouts. Many in the field of distance education are following - teaching fishing, others are leading - teaching for other careers and a few are breaking the way - educating for self-selected options.
John Hibbs is such a scout. He envisions a future with affordable education for all. With or without classrooms, with or without walls but always with open windows to the possibilities many of which are not even yet imagined.
Yet he is not just a dreamer - he is a man of action. He has gathered some of the world's best pioneers and brought them together to help him build the Socrates Academy - a cyber-institution - without walls, without the need for windows because it is under the stars and the sun. Yet there are plenty of prisms to reflect the glow.
The Deans he has gathered into his fold hold these prisms to the light across the world - with Deans from every major continent and region and Deans at large.
You can meet them and see what shaped them in Connecting the Dots: GLD Success Stories - Story 4: Introducing the Deans of the Socrates Academy.
You can become even more acquainted and listen to their views in Voice of the Deans of the Socrates Academy. They may not all have shared their stories yet but we will add them as they do.
Since last issue we have welcomed readers from Sri Lanka, Yugoslavia, Kenya, Lithuania and the Canary Islands.
I received this note from Japan:
Dear Xenia:
I have responded since we are members of Knowledge Map project. I also tend to wear the attractive brand of Xenia attire and necktie.
| Figure 4: Borderless World |
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And there are those who still think we are foolhardy to publish entirely on the Web and not in paper. There are those who think everything on the Internet should be free and wonder why we charge for subscriptions?
We have a vision - it is a vision not of a paperless society but of a portable accessible world - accessible anywhere without shipping costs and without time delays. A world not paper-free but one without borders - one where the person in China waits no longer for his copy of a publication than does the person in downtown New York.
One where the person in Japan does not find the Greek name of a non-Greek Canadian unusual but international, as it is.
Chin Hoon Lau (LAU Chin Hoon), a cyber-pioneer in Malaysia, presents the problems and possible solutions to the fragility of the Web. The Web is certainly a suitable name for something that can be brushed away like gossamer threads. Yet back comes the spider to build anew somewhere else. The urge for sustainability cannot be denied.
Yet in the wake of Lau's ideas for building a stable cyber-architecture for the Internet Biologists, I watched another cyber-entity crash and burn. The reason is that we dare do virtually what we would not consider face-to-face.
Ever since the Internet became a public thoroughfare the word flame has taken on a new and sinister meaning. Yes - we can drop bombs from a safe distance where we can watch others disappear in the conflagration. If you can't take the heat, stay off the 'net we say and run away before the volleys hit us.
It is sad fact and yet we take for granted that our online community will always be there no matter how we behave. There are the flamers, the fighters and the apathetic bystanders. How do we create collaborative peace and yet allow for challenge?
| Figure 5: Virtual Flames |
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Perhaps the words of wisdom Lau brings his series on In Search of Permanency will help our virtual communities find a way to thrive. He continues Part I: Fragility of a Purely Virtual Team last issue with Part II: Possible Solutions - Anticipate, Create, Dissolve and Part III: Towards a Long-term Organizational Relationship - Ask, Learn, Follow-up and Grow in this issue.
From the words in the titles we can already find some answers.
Jane Fountain is an examiner of social capital and its application to innovation and longevity of a community. She says she knows of no such examination of a virtual commune but suggests its value.
We took her up on the challenge and for the first time as far as we are aware attempt to assess the social capital, innovation and sustainability of a virtual community using SCAT (Social Capital Assessment Tool). With the issues uncovered in Lau's series and the suggestions for improving chances of sustainability, an empirical assessment of a virtual society is timely and a pioneering effort that is worth undertaking.
Inspired by Amidon, we bravely ventured to adapt this tool to measuring the cyber-community of practice - a cross-section of her Entovation global network, the E100. We started the series last issue and called it the Social Capital and Innovation Analysis of the E100.
In Part I: Foundations & Assessment Overview we introduced the E100, Amidon as founder and leader giving the context for the assessment, the definitions of social capital, its relationship to innovation and sustainability and highlighting the findings for this particular network.
In the two-part second segment with Part II-A: Leadership & Relationships and Part II-B: Organizational Culture and Sustainability, we provide a more in-depth view of the sections of the assessment with lessons to be learned and possible future directions for the social network.
Since this is a brave new world and the methodology is still one of exploration and adaptation, Part III: Social Capital Assessment Tool (SCAT) is an assessment of the tool itself with suggestions for improvements in the questionnaire and the scoring for this setting.
Part I was offered as an open article but since the undertaking was time-consuming and hopefully groundbreaking, we are offering the subsequent parts to our subscribers only and also as a separately sold e-document. Anyone from the E100 can have access for the asking since without the help and very existence of this group we would not have had a subject for examination! Our grateful appreciation is extended to Amidon and her global knowledge leadership network.
| Figure 6: Social Capital in a Fragile World |
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As someone sardonically asked: "If we weren't knowledge workers before, what were we - dumb workers?"
Then we talk of new tomorrows - have we ever had an old tomorrow?
Just because we were knowledge workers then and now does not mean we cannot become smarter and act more intelligently. What we need though are consistent reliable methods that we can evolve to become even better. It is not the best but better practices that will ensure our tomorrow is not only new, but is better and more profitable.
The same old traditional organization chart and piece-meal handling of human resource activities, such as hiring-training-firing, will not work at making our organizations and us smarter. There has to be a context, a framework, a management in the round, a life-cycle approach to people planning and care.
Even for individuals using the natural cycle from education to work to career to retirement can benefit from using the self-management in the round approach.
This is what I advocate in Competency Mapping: An Invaluable People Resource Tool. It is more than just a method of developing a personal skills profile. It can be used to plan and progress all human resource activities for a corporation whether that be Me Inc., You Inc., business, government or non-profit.
Now there's a word - non-profit! If it is non-profit then why does it even exist? Monetary might not be the main goals but if there is no benefit to anyone, there is no reason to open the doors!
| Figure 7: Beyond Money to Profit |
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Before I leave this topic of competencies and tools, I must let you know our enthusiasm when we met (virtually of course) Alycia Tulloch. She sent me a questionnaire on KM competencies and I inquired about her responses to date. They were far from great.
I saw a way we could profit from this MLS student's project as much as she could. A collaborative effort was planned where in exchange for a write-up of her results we would leverage our large worldwide audience to help her meet her needs for valuable input. Non-profit? Not on your bottom dollar!
Mutual advantage not just between Tulloch and KnowMap and not just from the benefit of responses and an article gained. Since the deadline was approaching fast we uploaded the survey and sent out notices to some of our contacts to advise them of the survey called: Knowledge Management Professionals Competencies Survey.
One of the contact lists used was the Internet community of the Library Management Division (LMD) of Special Libraries Association (SLA). Not only did Tulloch gain great responses, she and we received input into the formatting of the questionnaire and affirmation of privacy issues.
In addition members of the discussion list offered other sites, contacts and products where we could obtain additional insight into the subject of her research. Other list members asked for details on some of these resources showing that the benefit of the effort was not just for the survey participants and us.
But wait there's more! The discussion evolved into one of mentoring, coaching and leadership. The current chair of LMD mentioned a proposed name change to Leadership Management Division. A debate on the merits and demerits of this name began with the end result that the new proposed name is Leadership & Management Division.
This is the way any community, whether virtual or physical, is for profit even if no money ever changes hands. Isn't the Internet a wonderful invention allowing us to leverage this profit far and wide?
Speaking of surveys and the Internet as a means of communication, Richard V. Hollinger completes his results in this issue. Like Tulloch, Hollinger, a doctoral student in Archival Science at the University of Amsterdam, contacted us to complete his survey.
We saw the advantage in our mutual non-monetary for-profit exercise of advertising his survey in exchange for the write-up of the results. Hollinger's explanation of the purpose of his survey and the request for participants was carried in V1N6. Then in V2N1 he gave us the preliminary results of Surveys on the Use of Network Communications and Record Keeping Practices in Organizational Settings with Part I: Availability and Use of Network Applications.
Now he offers further results in Part II: Retention and Use of Digital Documents. Not only do we have the benefit of the results of the survey, we can profit from knowing we helped facilitate the learning process.
Sharing knowledge and collaborating on joint ventures is always for mutual profit, no matter whether a dollar or even a cent ever changes hands. After all money is really only the representation of profit. It is the artificial substitute for the age-old collaborative barter system.
| Figure 8: Changing Viewpoint |
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Are you looking up or down?
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Back to our theme of change - it is not so much a matter of whether we were and still are knowledge workers or if the concept of new tomorrows is redundant - it is a matter of - if we do the same things we have always done, we will always get what we got. Actually I believe it is much worse than that!
I believe if we don't go forward, we are losing ground. We cannot remain static for even if we try not to change, all that happens is the road will either rise up to meet us, or it will shift away. Either way we change our position or our position is changed for us.
The trick is to be competitive and thrive rather than try to maintain the status quo and merely survive.
It is not only cyber-communities or organizations at risk - it is the physical world as well - and physical encounters virtual reality sooner or later. It is hard to be a social isolate in the age of incessant communication.
That is why it is imperative that we know the critical success factors for knowledge environment design, technology selection and process management to ensure a successful knowledge atmosphere in our enterprise. George H. Stevens and Scott M. Krasner give us the benefit of their experience in this area in their three part series on Knowledge Management: Bedrock of Enterprise Strategy.
In Vol. 2, No. 2 of KnowMap they presented Part I - Practical Definitions and Part II - Scope and Components. Now in Vol. 2, No. 3. they conclude with Part III - Critical Success Factors.
| Figure 9: Crystal Ball for the Future |
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The myth that competitive intelligence is just glorified research is shattered in Darwin Nickel's series Intelligence Analysis. In fact, the theory that the next step beyond information is knowledge is also questionable when you examine his premise that it is really intelligence we should seek. Just because we were information managers and are now knowledge workers doesn't mean we act with intelligence.
Nickel shows us how we can turn our information into intelligence for better decision-making through reducing risk and predicting the future in Part I - Turning Information into Intelligence and Part II - Reducing Risk published in Vol. 2, No. 2 and now in Vol. 2, No. 3 Part III - Predicting the Future.
More on mutual profits - shared at least three ways, see our new KM Markets & News page by clicking on the banner so labelled on the upper left-hand side of the cover page.
There you will find our list of sponsors and general advertisers, our featured Events, Jobs and Reviews. We also give our Challenges and Links.
The advantage to the advertiser is visibility and exposure to our audience - interested people who can profit from purchasing the products and services. The advantage to all - advertisers, you - our audience - and us is sustainability.
What better world will we craft together today and tomorrow?
Figure 2: A signature image for SEC, taken from the Boulder Observatory telescope of an enterprising SEC staffer and the Sun setting behind the Flatirons mountains in Boulder. Image ID: wea01038, Historic NWS Collection.
For further details on the articles this issue, see the Vol. 2, No. 3 Cover Page with title, author and abstracts or check Back Issues for a listing of titles and authors for articles found in Vol. 2, No. 3.
Anthony, Dr. Robert. Source unknown.
Amidon, Debra M. The Global Knowledge Primer. Boston, MA: Entovation International, 2001. Available at www.entovation.com/info/index.htm
Amidon, Debra M. The Innovation SuperHighway: Harnessing Intellectual Capital for Collaborative Advantage. Butterworth-Heinemann, Release date: October 2002. To read the sample chapter for free go to www.entovation.com/forthcoming.htm
Heraclitus. Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus, translated by Brooks Haxton. New York: Viking Penguin, 2001.
Lindbergh, Anne Morrow. Source unknown. Could be in Gift from the Sea. New York: Random House Inc., 1955
Schaar, John, now retired professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz, wrote many books and articles. The above is often quoted - however, none give the original source. Could be from "… And the Pursuit of Happiness", The Virginia Quarterly Review, V46, 1970.
Read more about Xenia Stanford and members of the KnowMap Board. See also the biographies of our Contributors.
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