Far Wise in Knowledge Management

KM and innovation

Nick Milton from Knoco stories poses an interesting question: How are KM and Innovation related? Are they opposites, or the same? Or maybe two sides of the same coin? In the blog posting, he lists some thoughts and potential answers.

It's an interesting question and an important one as well, since innovation is so important for many organizations and innovation gets a lot of attention. Here is my thought, based on the assumption that innovation starts with ideas.

KM (in general) can help organizations in three moments in time: 

1. the past: preserving knowledge, learning from what is done so whatever went wrong is not done again and what went well is remembered.

2. the present: using knowledge to get work done. Sharing, collaboration, finding people, retrieving knowledge, etc.

3. the future: learning something new for future use, identifying gaps in knowledge for the direction the organization is heading and bringing people together to generate ideas for new products and services.

In the past I thought too that KM could help make people's work more efficient so they have time for creativity, but I don't believe any longer that making time free (automatically) leads to new thoughts, ideas and so on. Often something (more) needs to be done to and I think that KM can provide the tools to bring people together, like a community or a World Cafe type of setting. 

I have good experience with a World Cafe set up, which we called "Innovation Cafe". We brought people from the same department (voluntary, open registration) together, most of whom hardly knew each other because they were in different teams on different locations. We had organized the conversations around four themes (People, Process, Tools, Product/other) and participants would rotate. It generated a lot of ideas, often based on issues that people had in the work environment. The question in that arose in the post-discussion was if this is innovation or continuous improvement? 

Going back to Nick's posting, I think my thought is most closely to the second item in the list: 

Innovation takes over from knowledge management when there is no knowledge to fit your business need, and you need new ideas. New ideas can often spring from old knowledge combined in new ways - the Remix approach to innovation. 

 

 

Crash course on brainstorming

Some time ago I gave a short course on brainstorming at my boyfriend's company. Most people there (engineers, software developers) are not used to brainstorming and my boyfriend had some  experiences that lead to nothing, only frustration. So when the project manager announced she  wanted to organize a brainstorming session, he made a sceptical remark and he suggested that she talks with me about brainstorming. We agreed that I would give a, as she called it, "crash course" on brainstorming for a small group of interested people in the company.

Believing impossible things

I like this quote from Lewis Carroll's Trough the Looking-Glass, which I read in a novel of Jodi Picoult:

 Alice laughed.  "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."
"I dare say you haven't had as much practice", said the Queen. "When I was your age I did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast".

When we say creativity is so important, shouldn't we start with believing (again) the impossible?

Methods for idea generation

Via Column Two, I saw this extensive list of idea generation methods by Martin Leith. Most of them I've never heard about (Bunch of Bananas, Creative Whack Pack, to name a few), but Martin says about it:

my many sources include books, management journals, websites, academics, consultants and colleagues. The methods have been drawn not just from the worlds of creative problem solving and innovation, but also from other worlds such as organisational change, strategic planning, psychotherapy, the new sciences and the creative arts.

You can contact Martin Leith if you have a method that is not on the list (which sounds hardly possible to me)

Creativity and originality

Yesterday evening, I read the "How to be creative" book of Hugh MacLeod, which I mentioned yesterday. It's really worth reading, his experience with the business card cartoons (lots of them in the book) is interesting - how the idea came for drawing on such small pieces. Hugh also gives loads of tips, mostly based on his experience, illustrated with stories and pictures.

Many of the things are supported by what Mihaly Csiskzentmihaly writes in his book on Creativity, which is still in my reading list (I had to return it to the library, but now decided to order it and now waiting for it to be delivered). For example, it is hard work (Hugh: "Put the hours in"). Creativity doesn't come suddenly out of the air, it comes when there is a base (of expertise, knowledge) and you are able to see connections. Or, find your own style (in drawing, writing).

Which brings me to the question I have, and didn't find an answer on yet: the relation of creativity and originality. Can you be creative without being original, or does it have to be original what you do in order to be creative?

To give an example. Last year I saw Picasso's work in the Barcelona Picasso museum, things he painted from his younger years till his death. A really impressive collection. When he was young, his work was (technically) very good, you can see how talented he is, but it is not what you would call "original". The paintings could have been made by someone else as well. Later he develops the style he is famous for, which makes him original in my view. But was he only then creative? This is where I'm in doubt.

In the case of Hugh MacLeod, his creativity is not only in the business card format (which is a very original idea, but can be copied easily), also in his style of drawing cartoons. You can recognise the drawings are his.

So my (vague) feeling is then more that it is the personal style what makes someone original or creative. In writing, drawing, maybe even managing. In addition to the book of Hugh MacLeod: Tip 27: Develop your own style.

How to be creative

Hugh Macleod writes in his weblog that his book ("How to be creative") is off to the publisher. Hurray! I printed the PDF and it looks very nice (ok, I only looked at the cartoons). The frontpage says: "MacLeod highlights the value of authenticity and hard work, and reveals the challenges and rewards of being creative". Creative work is exciting; I wish I could do more of it. Maybe the book is an inspiration.