Dorothy Leonard’s excellent insights in her recent CLO article 5 Ways to Ensure Critical Knowledge Transfer were a great reminder of the importance of “getting ahead of the game” when it comes to retaining an organization’s knowledge. But why was it even necessary to write it? After all, [cue the…

Recently, I was asked to find organizations with CKOs (Chief Knowledge Officer). It occurred to me that I haven’t really heard of one in recent memory. So why is that? While I don’t have a definitive answer, I have a suspicion (a hope really): not only are CKOs not needed, we shouldn’t want them.…

In my last musings, I pondered the impending death of knowledge management but never really came to a conclusion regarding its health: that is, whether or not we find it today on life support. The reason was due to a trip down memory lane, but that’s simply because I see that the parallels between…

Recently, Ralph Malbrough reminded me of a blast from the past due to the SNL40* special that aired with great fanfare. It occurred to Ralph that the ebb and flow of the show over the years included premature reports of its demise, not unlike that of knowledge management. Pondering about that…

Phyllis Korkki’s New York Times article "When Those Who Know Won't Share" was summed up very nicely in the quote by David Zweig, an associate management professor at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. What did Zweig say? “Put in incentives to reward people on team outcomes versus solely…

The workplace of the future won’t be a place at all. It will be anyplace, anytime, by any technology. Of course, the mantra of “always on, always connected” is well known by many already so why aren’t we there yet? It’s about the business rules; the rules that have yet to be written. To wit, one…

So the question is: “Culture or structure?” Now many of you may have heard the phrase, or its variant, something like: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” If that’s so, then certainly at the very least culture must be having structure for lunch then. My take on this is that even if both are…

I was recently asked to ruminate on the warning signs of a failing community of practice and it occurred to me that maybe a better topic to start would be the de(signs) of CoPs to keep them from failing in the first place. After all, if you do these things first, you won’t have to worry as much…

Okay, truth be told, this blog is really about big data analytics and the Cleveland Browns. However, if you’ve read even this far, then you’re probably either a Browns fan or a Browns hater. It really doesn’t matter to me which though, so long as you keep reading because it really is an interesting…

The short answer? Because they don’t start with the business goals in mind! As simple and as common sense as that seems, it’s analogous to the sales person who talks to a prospective customer about why the sales person’s company is so good—without ever asking for the sale itself. That is, the…