Day two of the conference started with the keynote presentation of Larry Prusak. I was the evening before in the lucky position to be placed across the dining table of Larry. I can't remember well what we talked about, but it was nice to notice that Larry started his presentation with something we discussed during diner (but again, I forgot what it was).
The title of the presentation was "The past, present and future of knowledge management". Around 1990 Davenport was one of the first who said that information is not the same as knowledge. People (among them Larry at IBM) started to talk about it, trying to understand knowledge. IBM though didn't see much in it in the beginning, according to Larry. People prefer to talk to each other instead of reading document.
It was the start of what Larry Prusak calls the "first generation knowledge management", with a high empasis on explicit knowledge and command & control type of models. These models originate from the 19th Century, from military and the church, worked for land, labour and capital, but were worthless for managing knowledge. So, on the one hand there became a need for new models. Next to that, there was a focus on technology. "Managers rather write a cheque for Lotus Notes than think". But the systems that were developed for a social behaviour were placed in individualistic enterprises. Technology alone does not change behaviour.
The "second generation knowledge management" came up. Knowledge here is profoundly social, and all kinds of groups were developed (communities, networks). Larry said about these groups that it is better to discover and enable them than to build them. Issues here: trust and social norms.
With regard to the future: space becomes more important. Not only physical space, cognitive and social space as well. Larry just visited a company in Basel (Switzerland) that built a building around knowledge (a knowledge building), with open spaces, cafets et cetera, in order to stimulate interaction.
During the conference, a lot is said about knowledge productivity, innovation. It is difficult to measure it, but Larry thinks we should (try to) measure it, otherwise you are dependent on coincidence.
It was nice to finally see and hear "the famous Larry Prusak" speaking. I read things he wrote but never saw him live. Maybe not much new in what he said, but he knows how to engage his audience. There is one story that I remember well what he told. It was in a company where he saw one man behaving completely different than the rest of the employees. While the others were working in cubicles, this man had his own office. And Larry couldn't find out what he was doing there. Appearently the man did nothing: sitting with his feet on his desk he looked relaxed. When finally Larry had the guts to ask who this man was and what his job was, the answer was: "Don't disturb him! This man had a brilliant idea 7 years ago that brought a lot of money to the company. So now we leave him in quiet and wait till he comes with a new idea".
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