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APQC Hosts Groundbreaking MENA KM Conference in Dubai
In November 2015, APQC hosted a two-day MENA Knowledge Management Conference in Dubai, bringing high-caliber speakers from APQC’s membership to share their experiences and expertise with an eager international audience from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Cindy acted as MC for the event,…
How Wise Are Your Leaders?
As the end of the year approaches, I have been reflecting on the concept of wisdom. Supposedly wisdom results from knowledge and experience. What are the characteristics of wise leaders? Here is what I think is the #1 characteristic: They don’t sacrifice our collective future for their…
What KM Can Learn From Airplane Pilot Training
Let me alert you to a fascinating interview I did with Elizabeth Swan on how people learn and the implications for knowledge management, innovation, and accelerating the rate of organizational learning. The conversation started because we discovered that we both enjoyed the same book, How…
‘The Martian’s’ Andy Weir on premortem planning for a manned NASA mission to Mars
Like many of you, as the weather cools and the summer fades, APQC is knee-deep in strategic planning. Since APQC has access to many best practices, we try to follow them. One is to conduct a premortem on planned investments, a technique borrowed from project planning, in which one attempts to…
Want Change Management That Works? Have a Clear Simple Message
I know I am not Steve Jobs. But I am a pretty good version of myself. According to Nick Tasler, change management consultant and keynote speaker at APQC's upcoming 2015 Process Conference, that might be ok. In a recent interview, Nick shared with me that we don’t have to be charismatic to be a…
To Make Change Management Work, Clean out your Organization's Closets (aka priorities)
Have you noticed how hard it is to get rid of things even though you never use them? Think about the last time you cleaned out your closet or garage. Are you still holding on to an out of style sweater or a bicycle you never seem to get around to riding? Psychologists call this common human…
‘The Martian’ author Andy Weir on Learning and Applying Knowledge
"I'm gonna have to science the ##$^ out of this!" So says Mark Watney, lead character in the best-selling book and soon to be released movie The Martian starring Matt Damon and Jessica Chastain. Faced with death, Watney had compelling motivation to become an expert in survival on Mars. I was…
Unlearning: NASA Meets SpaceX
As part of my quest to understand how people become experts more quickly in complex scientific and technical disciplines, I interviewed Edward J. Hoffman, chief knowledge officer (CKO) at NASA. This is the second of two blogs on my conversation with Ed. You can check out the first one and learn…
How NASA’s Chief Knowledge Officer Drives Change
As part of my quest to understand how people become experts more quickly in complex scientific and technical disciplines, I interviewed Edward J. Hoffman, chief knowledge officer (CKO) at NASA. Ed ought to know: he founded the NASA Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership and…
Smart Machines: Could This End Badly for Knowledge Workers?
In the movie Her, Joaquin Phoenix has a virtual affair with his lovely artificial intelligence (AI) program, voiced seductively by Scarlett Johannsson. (Spoiler Alert: This ends badly for the human.) In the new movie Ex Machina, a hot shot programmer falls for Ava, an…