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Home > Vol.
1, No. 6 > Open Articles |
Sep 2001 | |
The Virtual Dinner Partyby Xenia Stanford, Editor-in-Chief, KnowMap and President, Stanford Solutions Inc. Although I have called this article the Virtual Dinner Party, it
is not just about our latest adventure, which will be to join the Global
Learn Day journey around the globe on October 7, 2001. We have already journeyed the globe in sharing knowledge through KnowMap: The Knowledge Management, Auditing and Mapping Magazine. We already have a virtual Board with six members representing several different provinces and the United States. Our subscriber base, which encompasses six continents and many countries, is also a virtual party as they tap into the knowledge in this magazine entirely through the Internet. Yes we were already virtually there before we joined our ship with those set to sail as part of the GLD V armada. We now are very ready to celebrate our virtual dinner party in honour of our one-year anniversary of six complete issues. Our Perfect SixesIn fact, it is our magical or perfect sixth reason to celebrate. Perhaps you noticed, I already pointed out several sixes above. It seems that as we prepare to celebrate the year that brings us to Volume 1, Number 6, that six is our magic number. Hal Fulton has collected several reasons why six is a joyful number, such as "6 is called a perfect number since it has the unusual property that the sum of all its factors (excluding itself) equals itself, i.e., 1+2+3 = 6." We have our own reason for relishing the perfect six as you can see from the six subheadings below:
Six Issues Marks Completion of First YearVolume 1, Number 6 marks the completion of a full year of KnowMap issues. We brought out our first issue this time last year. Although it is marked July 2000, we did not actually announce it until September. The first announcements and the complimentary copies went out to those who had helped us by completing the survey, which had been conducted by Stanford Solutions Inc. to see what type of gap existed in the field of knowledge management, particularly in our field of expertise: knowledge mapping. The conclusion from the results gathered through the Internet, focus groups and talking to others in the field was that the area most lacking was in practical tools by which knowledge management professionals and practitioners could make knowledge management happen. We heard that there were other companies and publications addressing the needs of the executive and the technology groups but not enough was aimed at the human resources, library, records management and other professionals in our focus groups. It is interesting to note that many of our subscribers are executives and those in information technology fields as well as from human resources, libraries and other groups within a wide variety of organizations from restaurant chains to government departments. The topics defined as lacking sufficient coverage formed the topics of our focus: roles, culture, toolkit (including both mapping and auditing) and case studies. Later due to demand we added standards and strategy to the list of topics. The most popular means by which we were told people wanted to learn about these was through reading, with workshops and consulting as the next two in that order. Learning through software was the fourth option though others added learning through communities of practice and web groups. The preference for reading was through magazine or other frequently updated means. Weekly was the most popular but first we had to establish a proof of concept. Thus we decided to aim for the middle of the next two choices, which were quarterly and then monthly. We chose to aim for a bimonthly and with a little extra start-up time for our first issue, we have accomplished that. In our six issues we have brought you 74 articles of which 17 are open (that is, open to all visitors without fee or signup) and from the wisdom of 28 different writers, all of whom are very accomplished in their own specialities within the field of knowledge management. Also we have brought you many knowledge management related jobs, events and reviews. Again these are open to subscribers and visitors alike. Thus we have just cause to celebrate our sixth issue, which completes our first year of publication of this bimonthly magazine. Six News Releases Measure Major MilestonesSix news releases later. It is easy to see from the headlines what stepping-stones and major accomplishments brought us to this day. From our News Releases Page you can link to read each of the following releases but here we will just list the title and date to give you an indication of our major milestones:
As you see we have had a busy and productive year from our September 2000 release to attracting interest around the globe, adding access via Internet Protocol recognition, having the Editor-in-Chief recognized on the exclusive Global Knowledge Leadership Map and finally culminating in Debra M. Amidon graciously agreeing to join our Board. Six Continents Covered by KnowMap
Through the year we have grown by nearly 800% from the number of subscribers we had for our second issue to this our sixth. We have also increased the territory our subscribers cover to include many countries in the six following continents:
Besides 6 provinces in Canada and 39 states in the United States, we have subscribers from the following countries (listed in alphabetical order): Australia, Bermuda, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom (including from England, Scotland and Wales), Ukraine and Venezuela. Of course, there could be many more as not all subscribers have identified their location. However, we have not been able to identify that any of our subscribers are from Antarctica and my offer to give the first one to contact me from that continent a free Sapphire subscription (one year) still has not produced a subscriber. That will be our next frontier! The offer is open until the first person from that continent contacts us. Six Directors Comprise the Virtual Board
The addition of Debra M. Amidon as Global View Director made six the total number of places around our virtual boardroom table. It also added the first director outside of Canada as Debra is located in the United States when she is not travelling around the world. Due to her global travels to speak to and meet with knowledge management professionals, her perspective is truly a Global View, which explains her title. The second most recent addition was Laurie Laliberté as our Media Director. With her help we went off in the sixth month of the year to a major conference in the United States (the 91st annual Special Libraries Association Conference in San Antonio, Texas) from which we saw a doubling of our number of subscribers. Thank you for the great advice, Laurie! Before that the newcomer was Michael J.D. Sutton, Standards and Certification Advisory Director, who joined us in time for the second issue. Judith Rempel, Systems & Strategies Director, and Al Mierau, Positioning Director, have been with us since the beginning. Of course, as founder and Editor-in-Chief, I have been at the table since the inaugural issue. However, in the aim to be not just another e-zine or newsletter, but a real magazine or "journal" (in the looser form of that term as we are not formal scientific nor peer-reviewed), it would have been far from possible without the talents of the other members of the Board. Is that not what knowledge management is all about anyway - pooling the knowledge, talents and skills of many to share, build and leverage knowledge? A major component of our success also goes to those dedicated writers and other contributors who shared their knowledge with us and in the word us, I include all of you subscribers and visitors who have read the articles. Although you will see 28 writers (24 on our Contributors' page and 4 on our Board) of articles, in addition there were those who spotted examples of maps to profile and others who allowed us use of their maps, material from their sites, photos or made other contributions without which we would have not had such a bountiful feast. Thank you to all! Mere words cannot express the appreciation we feel. We will just keep waiting to break the 7-digit mark or as my bookkeeper calls it, the perfect 6 zeros following the magical 1! Six Special Guests to Gather at the Virtual Dinner Table
As we have mentioned in other articles we have been setting the table for the Virtual Dinner Party I am hosting for Global Learn Day V on October 7, 2001. As you can see from the place cards at the virtual table, there are 6 of us identified by name but as your host, the sixth special guest I am inviting is you! Any and all of you interested in distance education and, in fact, education of any kind as a way of increasing the intellectual capital in your organization or your own head, are invited to partake of our stimulating dinner conversation. Read the other articles on Global Learn Day V, such as mine on the topic of our dinner party conversation, The Education Scare: The Monster is Out There! Then join in through the Internet, telephone, radio or other means as described at the upcoming GLD website. Be sure to drop by our party on your way from and to other stops in the progressive dinner. We'd love to have you. Your place at the table is already set! Six Degrees to Integration
In 1967 through his research, eminent psychologist, Stanley Milgram proposed the small world theory showing from his studies that any one person is connected to any other through from 2 to 10 links with the average being 5. Thus including the original person this means the average is 6 links in the total chain. John Guare, popularized this theory in his play called the Six Degrees of Separation, which led to the party game called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. However, rather than as degrees of separation, I prefer to look at it from a KM perspective as six degrees to integration. If any one of us is only six acquaintances away from anyone else, then it must take an average of six people in a virtual network to find and accumulate the necessary knowledge. These six then form an integrated network of knowledge. In this theory, there are some people who act like hubs connecting 6 spokes of the wheel, such as Kevin Bacon among movie stars. These hubs form faster and closer connections than the average. Thus instead of an average of six people from beginning to end, the hubs shorten the distance to an average of two or even a one-to-one connection, called the first degree. (A person to himself or herself is, of course, 0 degrees away.) We believe that KnowMap is in a position to act as a hub shortening the route from the person who has the knowledge to those that need it. Thus we can connect people around the globe in collaboration to share, create, use and leverage knowledge. With the doubly magical number of about 6 billion people on Earth (6 zeros following the magical 6 in the first spot), if we can help make it possible to reach the knowledge of any person in less than the average six steps, wouldn't you want to be aboard for the rest of the ride? Works CitedFulton, Hal. "The Joy of Six", My World. (September 2001) http://hypermetrics.com/misc/six.html Guare, J. Six Degrees of Separation: A Play. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Read more about Xenia Stanford.
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