Far Wise in Knowledge Management

I notice that many people mix up what is meant as a goal or as a means (to a goal). Hybrid work, knowledge management (and there are more of course) - to me they are a means, not a goal in itself.

KCS resources translated into Dutch

A few months ago I worked on a translation into Dutch of a selection of the materials created by the Consortium for Service Innovation for Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS). After review by a colleague, the wiki pages for the KCS v6 Principes en Kernbegrippen (KCS v6 Principles and Core Concepts) and Engels-Nederlands Woordenlijst (Glossary) were created online and they are now available for everybody. The pictures still need labels in Dutch, but overall it's done! I'm happy with this and hope I'll have time to translate other KCS items as well (note that there are translations of all materials in German already!).

Buy it, or not?

A friend of mine told me she's doing 'a whole year of not buying things'. So, no new clothes, no books, no stuff for the house. The goal is become aware of the things we have, repair or make what we can instead of buying something new. She reads a lot of books, so to get new books, she now exchanges books or borrows them from little libraries. I asked her if knitting something that falls within the "rules". She's not a knitter, so didn't consider this before but thinks it is okay to knit a sweater instead of buying one. 

I really like the idea of being aware and asking oneself "Do I really need this new piece?" (the answer probably being 'no'). And perhaps first read the books that I have unread in my book case before bying a new book, or knitting the yarn I have in stock before buying new wool. I can start with that right now. For clothes, I try to repair (or have it repaired) already. The only thing I wouldn't skimp on, is running shoes, for reasons of injury prevention. 

At the same time I find it hard to stop buying from local (small) shops. I live in a small city with many small (non-chain) shops that had a hard time during covid lockdowns. Not buying anything would not help them. I know, I'm just a single consumer, but if we all would do the same challenge, what would this do to those small stores? 

So, I'm trying to find a middle ground that feels good to me. I'm trying to be conscious of what I have and what I replace or not. Also I want to read more books this year that I already own and finish knitting projects. However, if I need something new (when the things before don't apply), I don't want to feel guilty. 

Developing a storytelling workshop for colleagues

Storytelling was one of the topics that I worked on/ researched years ago. And I really mean years ago, I saw that I posted in this blog a few times in 2004 and 2005 about it. Well, storytelling is back on my radar, as I was asked to organize a Storytelling workshop in my company. This was a few months ago, I forgot the context, how we came to the idea of a workshop on storytelling. Anyway, I said "Yes, of course, I can do that", but was a bit scared at the same time. On the one hand, I think I know enough about storytelling to talk about it, but I never gave a workshop about it before. A workshop means interaction, so I really had to think about setting up an interactive session about storytelling in business. Luckily I had some time to prepare and I asked a colleague to help me out. I started with the layout: what is the goal of the workshop, what are the topics to discuss and what can we do to practice the different elements of storytelling. I looked into the old materials that I still have, looked online for examples (YouTube, TED.com). From the beginning it was clear to me that it should be about storytelling in business, and not so much marketing/branding (although there are plenty of examples for that).

Last week Friday, we held the workshop with 7 participants, all colleagues of mine. We had planned for half a day, but with the materials we collected we could have filled more time (during the workshop we decided to skip a few videos). What worked really well, was to look at a few corporate stories and analyse them. What worked less was that most participants were too hesitant to tell the story they created (in the end). I wasn't sure: should we have pushed them to tell it? We didn't, but then it felt too easy to say "I'm not going to do it". Something to think about for next time: how do we pursuade more people to tell their created story.

No pictures taken, sorry, I was too busy!

 

 

30 Books in 30 days challenge

Talking about books, I did a challenge in August: read 30 books in 30 days. I heard about on YouTube (or rather BookTube) and didn’t think I could do it. For me, one or two books per week is already a lot, let alone a book a day. As August is usually a quiet month, I thought I would give it a try. Why not, I thought, I can always stop! One advice I heard was to make a list of (short) books to read. In my book case I have a few thin free “Boekenweekgeschenk boeken”, books that are a gift when you buy a Dutch book in the Week of Books in the Netherlands, written by well-known authors. Those little books have less than 100 pages and I decided that after reading, I could donate them to one of the free libraries that my city has. So I made an excel-sheet with potential books to read. I figured I could do a maximum of 200 pages, probably less in English. The only rule I set for myself is that I can start multiple books a day, as long is I finish one every day (except for one day, an ‘escape day’).

It’s no longer August, so I can tell you that I managed to complete the challenge. In the end I was struggling a bit, as I had read the books that I wanted to read and then had to find a few more. Also, I noticed that there were some books that I had selected, I knew I wouldn’t be able to read fast enough. Some categories are easier to read (feel-good, romance, for example), but I didn't want read them every day. Also, books in my own language are a quicker read than English books.

The good part was that I was able to discover many authors unknown to me in a short time. And I was able to get rid of several books, like the ones I mention above. I liked the feeling of ‘read & donate’. The down side is that in September I hardly read any book at all, so my conclusion is that it was a bit too much. At some point I wasn’t reading for the joy of books and their content, but for the challenge. It took away the fun. Will I do it again? Probably not.

I haven't posted for a long time, I'm rethinking what to do with the blog. My work is less in KM these days, so inspiration mainly comes from books or what I read elsewhere. Hope to be back soon!

Favourite useful books

 Managementboek.nl, a Dutch online book seller for management books that sends me books to review, asked if I could make a list of favourite books. It was much harder than I thought. I actually want to make two lists: one of books that I often go back to and another with knowledge management (related) books. Here is list number 1, the books that are most useful to me. It's not a 2021 reading list, as most of the books are much older and I only read one of them this year. 

Even though I read a lot of books, there are not many books that I keep on my bookshelf (due to lack of space) and even fewer books that stay with me. Those are the books I keep going back to, even if sometimes just in my mind. The books that I have been able to get something out of, that I can relate to. It doesn't even have to be a method, but it can just be a realization, a thought that lingers and helps me every now and then. It probably won't surprise you if many of those books are in the psychology, time management, and self-help category. What did surprise me though, is that all these books are English (no Dutch authors).

It started with a problem they had in common, or: How KCS started

I have so many blog posts in draft, I don't know what holds me to post them, why I don't think they're ready for posting. It's been too long and there are always new thoughts or new things that I could blog about - I just have to finalize the post and click on 'Publish'. So this is the plan for the coming period: publish. The first one now is one that I wrote for the Sequal Consulting blog (in Dutch) about KCS (Knowledge Centered Service). We’re in the process of publishing them and I’ve translated the first blog post for this blog. I’ll leave out the company information and the call to action (my personal blog is not meant for generating business). This first post about KCS digs a bit into the history of the method and the Consortium for Service Innovation.

Staying motivated when there is no clear goal

Although the level of lockdown when the Corona pandemic started varied for different countries (and still varies), in most cases people stayed home as much as they could. In the Netherlands, we are still in lockdown: allowed to go out for a walk, bike ride, run, but not in groups, keeping 1.5 meters distance and staying at home after 9PM (when curfew starts). Staying healthy is important, and especially now most of us are working from home and sit for too many hours, so it is great we can go out and do something. No organized forms of sports are allowed though, so no races, no club training. Running is easy, I can do it from home and I can easily do it on my own.

However, I’m running much less than before and I hear the same from my training mates. Last year, I was training for a trail race in France in March and when that got canceled, I didn’t have a goal any longer. Plus nobody knew how long we would be in this lockdown. So at that time, it felt better to slow down, give the body rest and pick it up later when races are allowed again. That sounded reasonable, but I forgot about the mental part. My motivation to run dropped to a low point. Why would I go out anyway? My reason to go out seemed gone. I had nothing to work towards, as there were no races! It took a while to realize that I had to change my reason for running to a more internal reason: feeling good. I go out for a run because it feels good to move, it makes me happy and makes me feel fit. That’s reason in itself to go, which I had almost forgotten.

I started writing this posting during summer 2020, I think. Almost a year later, even though there seems light at the end of the tunnel, it’s still the same ‘stay at home as much as you can’ situation. I came across this article in the New York Times, titled “Why I stopped running during the pandemic (and how I started again)”, by Lindsay Crouse. She was running a lot when the orders to stay at home came. She stopped running at all, she just shut down and could only sit on her couch. It wasn’t rest, it didn’t make her feel better. Her question “What can we do to feel better in the midst of a crisis that seems like it won’t end?”, sounds familiar to me and probably to many others (runners or non-runners). She heard that when you’re in a rut, you need a nudge to take action. Waiting to feel better doesn’t work. The author found that for her to deal with the pandemic burnout isn’t going easy, it’s trying something hard.

What helped me is creating a new routine. Some of my running friends participate in online challenges. As we don’t know when everything is back to “normal” (whatever that looks like), we need to find different motivations and give ourselves a nudge (or just a kick in the but!, however hard it is to kick yourself). Go out, do something, don’t stay on that couch.

Note: the picture is me in my first 50 kilometer trail run, in 2019. I was super motivated for this run, to run long distances. It reminds me of a state of mind that I haven't had since (and I hope will be back soon)

Knowledge Management hard to sell?

Last week I met online with Aprill Allen. She’s a KCS practitioner and trainer as well, located in Australia. We met at the (virtual) Member Summit from the Consortium end of September (watch the recap) and Aprill invited me for a chat. Aprill has a fantastic website and blog, Knowledge Bird, and she’s very active in knowledge management communities and on Twitter. As for visibility and showing one’s expertise, I can learn a lot from her!

It was great to talk to Aprill, to hear how she discovered KCS (as this method is not well advertised, it’s always interesting to hear how sometimes coincidently people stumble upon it) and how, as independent contractor she tries to sell the training and workshops. Trying to sell the KCS training by announcing it (online or through a training institute) doesn’t give much results, as we also found out here. KCS is not well-known enough, like ITIL or PMP as (different) methods are. I found that when we talk to potential customers, they think KM is important, just not urgent (enough, for getting budget). Making a mess of your knowledge base probably doesn’t hurt enough and I think employees are smart enough to find workarounds to deal with lack of structure. We try to sell KM/KCS in combination with an ITSM platform, because then the organization is more willing to rethink their way of working, as they have to do with the new platform anyway. It’s helpful to know how other trainers, even on the other side of the world, approach the sale of knowledge management, or more specifically KCS.