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Three Ways to Strengthen a Collaborative Culture
Collaboration is like a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it gets. And research is clear that organizations and teams with a collaborative culture feel better and produce more. So, how do you create and strengthen a collaborative culture? In a recent visit to the Gladstone…
Celebrating 40 Years of RENEWAL and Reinvention
This year marks APQC’s 40th anniversary, so all year long we could hardly wait for the big team party we were planning for the fall. But Hurricane Harvey had something else in store for us, and so our celebration plans ended up underwater – quite literally in this case. Yet our team’s response…
A Multi-Generational Model for Collaboration
The main reason I go to the Aspen Ideas Festival is for the new ideas, models, and people. I never would have met Henry Elkus elsewhere. Henry is a twenty-something entrepreneur who envisioned a global network in his Yale dorm room. His “big thinker” network, now called Helena,…
The Future Is Here, Are You Ready?
Digital transformation is on the strategic agenda for many organizations. However, there is confusion about how to differentiate true digital transformation from discrete digital projects shrouded in hyperbole. Process automation is nothing new. However the sheer scale of processes that can be…
How Do Productive People Do It?
Why are some people more productive than others? To find out, I asked two stellar and productive past Big Thinkers to “Describe the circumstances under which you are most productive.” Charles Duhigg is a husband, father of two young children, Pulitzer prize winning NY Times reporter…
What Do Millennials Want Out Of Work?
This year's Aspen Ideas Festival was highly tweetable, especially two tracks particularly relevant to the future of knowledge management (KM) and knowledge work in general. The Thinking Machine: “Artificial intelligence (AI): now, next, and never going to happen” I believe that AI is…
Why Knowledge Management Should Embrace Budget Constraints
As budgeting time approaches, our thoughts turn to how to wrangle more money for knowledge management (KM). Think of all the things we could do if we had a few more bucks. Maybe we should be careful what we ask for. Don’t get me wrong: while money won’t buy happiness, a bigger KM budget…
How Knowledge Management Knows If You Are Interesting
The technical answer to “What is interesting?” was interesting enough that IBM took out a patent on it in 2013. It should also be of great interest to you…that is, if you want to get recommended for a project, lure an executive to open an email from you, protect yourself from unwanted email, find…
How Airbnb Uses Analytics to Build Trust
Trust is the currency of today’s digital marketplace whether you are exchanging lodging or knowledge. Imagine this: You are traveling to a foreign country for vacation and you are renting a home sight unseen from a person you have never met. Or (stranger danger alert!) you are letting a stranger…
Deep Work: Is Knowledge Management Friend or Foe?
In my last blog, I introduced Cal Newport and his concept of deep work, which raises some uncomfortable dilemmas for KM. Cal is author of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, a very provocative work from the perspective of KM. Here is his definition of deep work and why it…