Week 2 Class: Networks and Nodes I

I thought today’s (April 8th) class was a very interesting and unique take on knowledge. I’ve already blogged about the knowledge and truth debate, so I want to focus more on personal knowledge, networks, and nodes. I really enjoyed the breakdown of the Steve Jobs commencement speech. The way the different major topics/important information was basically broken down into a sequenced chain was interesting. It also got me to thinking about how this could be an effective tool for our KMS project. All too often when I work with a KMS, they’ll give me the information I might need for a specific step in a process, but afterwards I’m always wondering “Ok what next.” I think it would be cool if a KMS could “chain” knowledge base articles so that after you solve problem one you don’t have to go back and reinitiate a new search for the next step. Instead, I should just have a link that can take me to the KB article for the next step.

All in all though, I’m starting to realize that proper KM for an organization is a very very difficult process. I think the key though will always be A) an organization that is always committed to KM through and through and B) a disciplined approach to KM. I think sometimes A) might be true but B) falls to the wayside, especially when a project is facing tight deadlines. Sure, it would be great to document everything for a KB, but that might mean adding extra time into a project plan to ensure that happens.