Blog for September 2022 Seminar : Conversational Leadership Café : Is this our Gutenberg moment !

This seminar was presented by David Gurteen who has been running Knowledge Cafés for 20 years. He has a growing interest in the power of conversation. He has written a blook on conversational leadership. He has researched, reflected upon and written about ‘conversations’. Conversation is a potentially powerful response to the problems that we face in the world.
Two questions : What are the roots of our problems ? What role does the individual and conversation play in responding to our problems ?
https://conversational-leadership.net

Now, when did Knowledge Management start ? Did it start in the 1990’s ?
No. it did not. It started 60,000 years ago with a ‘cognitive revolution’ which incorporated a great leap forward and a cultural big bang. Before the cognitive revolution humans evolved slowly. After the cognitive revolution anatomical evolution ceased and and we started to evolve culturally and linguistically. In the cognitive revolution we started to learn from each other through teaching, imitation, and other forms of social transmission. As a result we could pass knowledge on from generation to generation. Thus we see the birth of Knowledge Management (KM). Summing it up :-
60,000 years Before the Christian Era (BCE) – Cognitive Revolution.
10,000 years BCE – Neolithic Revolution.
9,500 years BCE – First Cities.
4,000 years BCE – First Empire
3,500 years BCE – Invention of Writing
700 years BCE – First Library
470 years BCE – Socrates
476 years AD – Dark Ages
1,300 years AD – Renaissance
The Gutenberg printing press was invented in Germany in 1440.

History of Knowledge
1440 Printing Press
1500’s Protestant Revolution
1543 Copernican Revolution
1600 Scientific Revolution
1618 Thirty Years War
1650 Enlightenment
1760 First Industrial Revolution
1870 Second Industrial Revolution
1945 Information Revolution
2011 Industry 4.0

Going to the Information Revolution :-

1945 Early computers
1969 Internet
1981 IBM pc
1989 World Wide Web
2000 Social Media
2007 Smartphones
2011 Zoom

Looking at the impact of the web and social media as a paradigm – 1,2,3.

1) Read / write access to the world’s knowledge (the web/social media).
2) Ability to converse with anyone, anywhere in the world (social media/zoom).
3) Soon different languages will no longer be a barrier (language translation in real time).

So we have four Mega knowledge revolutions. Language led to the Cognitive Revolution. The invention of writing led to the First IT revolution. The Printing Press led to the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.
Is social media (Zoom) leading to yet another Knowledge Revolution ?

A better world

Problems – Capacity to respond
Hyperlinked Complex VUCA world – High degree of literacy / education
Disruptive technology – High degree of awareness / willingness
Global warming / pollution – Cognitive Surplus
Existential crisis – Conversation revolution

Is this our Gutenberg moment ?

The printing press led to the Protestant revolution which undermined the authority of the Catholic church which in turn led to the 30 years war.
But it also led to the Scientific Revolution and the enlightenment.

Social media is leading to a polarization of society and the undermining of the
authority of experts and many of our governmental institutions.
But maybe it is leading to a second Scientific revolution and enlightenment ?

Will social media have as great an impact on the world as the printing press ?

Gutenberg revolutionized the world. Is this our Gutenberg moment ?

Where each and everyone of us can share our knowledge and can converse and collaborate globally ?

We then split into two groups and had ‘conversation’ within our group .
Then the two groups assembled all together and we discussed our ideas in a conversational manner rather than the standard ‘feedback’ mode of behaviour.
These are the salient points made during that conversation which involved every participant. N.B. The points here summarise in a sentence or two what the individual participant said.

• Is it really a revolution if it affects only a part of the population ?
• Many people are excluded from this revolution by powerful people who exploit technology for their own ends.
• What are we not allowed to say on social media ? What are we being dislocated from ? How about ‘mindfulness’. Any technology that encourages you to go out into the world is good.
• It is a complex picture – Utopia or Dystopia.
• More like dystopia when a few financiers can speculate at the expense of everyone else.
• Religion aims at morality and better standards of behaviour. Can social media help us to become moral beings. Is ‘computing’ replacing monolithic religions.
• Small minorities can get a ‘very loud voice’ on social media.
• It is often about gender.
• Marshall McLuhan predicted the world wide web almost thirty years before it was invented. ‘The global village’. ‘The medium is the message’.
• Huge social changes are not done by majorities. Well organized minorities are the most influential.
• Most people in the world don’t live in democracies. What do people who live in non-democratic countries make of their world and what do they make of our world ?
• A sort of tribalism seems to have come back and it is evident in social media.
• ‘Hate speech’ comes from a few people piling into an issue. It is not a real discussion. If your comment gets more ‘likes’ than the original comment then you have won your argument. You have ‘ratioed’ the other person.
• It is difficult to have a conversation in ‘real time’. Real conversation is ‘nuanced’ – digital conversation is not.
• The whole issue of inclusion and accessibility being tackled by ‘a technology’ is difficult.
• There has been a rise in the use of voice messaging which has led to a rise in the use of texting to answer it. Some people are uncomfortable with talking so they rely on ‘CHAT’. This is where moderators are needed.
• Will Zoom be the driving force for this revolution ?
• Most teenagers in the USA cannot read cursive text, so they cannot read letters.
• What sort of future is there going to be for ‘the book’ ? Barrack Obama’s Presidential Library is going to be digital.
• Actually, digital books have ‘plateaued’ at 15% of the market. Books are still being published.
• One participant used a kindle for a few months and then went back to books.
• It is about ‘choice’. Some people cannot access books. Digital books can be used by poorly sighted people. Books will not go away.
• One participant preferred reading digital books on train journeys or when travelling away from home. She has joined Saffron Walden Library. She has read ‘Game of Thrones’ in book form and preferred it to the TV series.
• There is still the issue of book fines with library books. Two participants feel the pressure of reading a book quickly enough to avoid a fine on returning it to the library.
• One participant commended cafes which offer little magazines, poetry to their customers. Perhaps little art exhibitions. People are being reached in these environments.
• One participant has so many books (some of which he has not yet read) that he does not go to the library.
• ‘More of the same’ was one conclusion. We are experiencing ‘information overload’ once again. It is better to read a good novel than to consume ‘threads of information’.
• We all have different forms of ‘information consumption’. One participant subscribes to blogs and other things in magazines. He employs a ‘speed reader’ to flag what he is interested in.
• One participant uses podcasts. The best podcasts are ‘conversations’. This is a different experience from slagging people off on Twitter.
• ‘Little Discourse Project’ was mentioned. One participant attempted to define the spectrum of conversations online. This covered audio and visual. For example :- interviews, debates, podcasts. Polite / aggressive debates etc.
• Is this amazing technological revolution going to improve our world ? There is a desire within us to be taken away from ‘words’. We communicate on so many levels. We communicate via Art, Music. Also, by activities such as digging the garden, riding the bike, going to the Park.
• Everyone sees the home / office duality of working as a good thing. But are we getting out of the house enough ? Are we socialising enough ? Is this a bad thing for our mental health ?
• Yes, this is a ‘Gutenberg Moment’. However, although it may well be a good revolution in the long term so far as the short term is concerned there will be more ‘social turbulence’ and a regression to a form of tribalism or clique mentalities.
• What about the environment against which this revolution is taking place. How much real social interaction takes place in Britain’s towns and cities ? In places like Antwerp and the Netherlands they have a ‘mixed culture’ expressed partly in the built environment which works well. It fosters social interaction. We do not have that sort of built environment here.
• ‘Advertising’ was seen as part of the problem. Advertising helps perpetuate myths such as ‘the earth is not burning’; ‘biodiversity has not collapsed’.
• One participant pointed out that the Chinese government has managed to control the web and social media in China. Many outsiders thought that this was an impossible goal. So totalitarianism can operate within social media.
• We are talking about a tool – social media – it can either be a good tool or a bad tool.
• One participant talked about the very different story he heard from a Chinese guide about the Tienanmen Square protests.
• One participant talked about his parents information on the world way back in the 1950’s. No TV, no internet, no car. BBC Home Service (now Radio 4) and the ‘Daily Mirror’. Any book came from the library. TV came later. Advertising back then was ‘propaganda’. How much ‘power and control’ advertising executives had in those days. However, the internet has undermined this as everything these days is much more fragmented.
• So it is ‘Gutenberg moments’ not a ‘Gutenberg moment’. It consists of spontaneity, different revolutions, different scales and times.
• Scientifically, ‘moment’ has a meaning in physics. It means – mass (strength) x velocity and you apply it across the piece. How important is it ? and how is it changing ? An interesting analogy.

Finally, David Gurteen concluded that it had been an enjoyable session.

He also said that the group had understood how complex it is, how fragmented and difficult it all is and … where are we heading ?

Looking back on the session we were all ‘bubbling over with ideas’.

Resources :-

Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language. Robin Dunbar. Harvard University Press. 2020.
The Printing Press as an agent of change. Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. Cambridge University Press. 1980.
Religion and the rise of Capitalism. R.H.Tawney. 1926 re-published by Verso World History Series. 2015.
The Real England. Paul Kingsworth. Granta Books. 2009.

 

RR 12/10/2022

 

Blog for May 2022 Seminar: MS Teams – The Case for Information Architecture and Governance

This seminar was given by Alex Church a Senior Consultant with Metataxis. Metataxis has clients in central and local government; charities and non-profit organisations; the private sector; higher education and much more. Metataxis is in the business of managing information.

What is Teams ?  Teams is all about communication (chat, audio/video conferencing, telephony) and collaboration (content sharing, storage, task mangement etc ).  Teams is only one part of Office 365 – which is a whole set of cloud business applications. Now there is both an ‘upside’ and a ‘downside’. A good thing about Teams is the fact that it can be set up and used straightaway for collaborative working. This fact can also be a bad thing because if you simply turn on Teams and then let everyone ‘get on with it’ – it can very quickly become messy and chaotic. Teams requires an information management strategy. SharePoint underpins Teams. Teams has to have both governance and information architecture.

You cannot permit ‘self creation’ in Teams. An approval and provisioning process is necessary. You can build your own (manual) or use 3rd party apps. Begin with a simplified Teams architecture :- chat can be stored in a personal mailbox and in One Drive up in the cloud. Team can create an M365 Group with a Group mailbox and files can be stored in SharePoint. Every Team has a SharePoint site behind it. Therefore a document library is created by default and a folder is created for each Channel. So Teams Information Architecture imposes a Teams/Channel = Library/Folder Information Architecture. You get a ‘General’ channel/folder which cannot be removed. Do note that Private Channels are accessible only to a sub-set of Team members. Teams need to be ‘named’ so you will need a Teams naming convention – you will need to stop two Teams having the same name. A ‘Group Naming Policy’ can be enforced via Azure AD. Are the teams going to be Public or Private ? Public teams are visible to everyone and can be joined without the team owner’s approval. Private teams can only be joined if the team owner adds you. Public or Private is also relevant regarding SharePoint permissions. Particularly check permissions of a Public Team SharePoint site to prevent unauthorised editing and/or deleting of files.

An important part of governance is managing Teams Lifecycle:-

Expiration Policy –  This applies to the Group and requires Azure AD Premium. Deletes all Teams content and apps. It can be a set time period or be based on last activity. Team owners have the option to ‘Renew’.

Retention Policy – This applies to messages/chat; files. Set at Team/Site level by admins. It can retain content for a certain period or it can delete content after a certain period.

Retention Labels – This applies to files. Admins can set defaults/ auto application. It is applied at a document level. It can retain content for a certain period or it can delete content after a certain period.

Chat and Channel Messages – You can only use Retention Policies not Retention Labels. What is the value of  Chat and Channel Messages ? There has to be a balance between the desire to delete them with the need to keep them for reference or evidence.

Archiving – This can be done by a Team Admin or Owner.

To sum up : Teams is a great tool and is the direction of travel for Microsoft.

 

Rob Rosset 24/06/22.

 

May 2022 Seminar: MS Teams – The Case for Information Architecture and Governance

Summary

This meeting was about MS Teams and, in essence, MS Teams are about communication (chat, audio/video conferencing, telephony) and collaboration (content sharing, storage, task management etc.). Teams is just one part of Office 365 which is a whole set of cloud business applications. However, before deploying Teams you will need an Information Management Strategy, you will need to create a Team and have a proper Teams architecture. Also, every Team has a Share Point Site behind it.

Speaker

The speaker was Alex Church of the Metataxis Consultancy.

Time and Venue

Thursday May 26th, 2022 at 2:30 pm via the Zoom online platform.

Slides

Will be made available to members.

Tweets

#netikx115

Blog

NetIKX blog for this event.

Study Suggestions

No study suggestions

January 2022 Seminar: Introduction to Radical Knowledge Management

Summary :

With the ongoing development of technology and its impact on every workplace in industry and commerce we must seek to radicalise the effectiveness of Knowledge Management by learning lessons from the creative essence of art and artists. In this way we can increase productivity and liberate insightful improvements to industrial and commercial processes by encouraging innovation.

Speaker :

Stephanie Barnes is an Independent Consultant based in Berlin, Germany.

Time and Venue :

A Zoom lecture held on Thursday January 27th 2022.

Slides :

Slides will be made available to members.

Tweets :

#netikx114

Blog :

A blog is available to members

Study Suggestions :

The following suggestions are made :

 

 

January 2021 Seminar: Managing Knowledge in Project Environments

Summary

This meeting was about Knowledge Management which is widely practised in project environments, but not always recognised as such. What is recognised as knowledge management is often information management – and tends to be treated a series of unconnected activities.

Members joined us to find out where knowledge management has been hiding, and how to use knowledge management thinking to solve common project problems.

Speaker

Our speaker was Judy Payne. Judy is a management consultant – she is a Director of Hemdean Consulting – and an academic – BPP University, Associate Faculty, Business and Law Schools. She was formerly a director of the Henley KM Forum and preceded that by being Visiting Executive Fellow where she undertook research, supervision of MBA dissertation students and occasional teaching.

The focus of her work is on KM and organisational learning – how to get people to work together effectively and efficiently to get things done, to come up with new ideas, to make better decisions and generally make the very best use of what they know. In practice, she runs workshops and undertakes consultancy assignments. The former involves designing and facilitating the workshop itself, the latter involves several months work.

She is Chair of the BSI Knowledge Management Standards Committee. She is Co-Chair of Knowledge SIG – Association for Project Management. Her mission is to open up project management thinking to knowledge management. She has a 1st Class Honours Degree in Water Resources and Computer Science from Aston University. She has a PhD in Sustainable Urban Drainage, also from Aston University. She has an MBA from Henley Management College.

Time and Venue

This was a Zoom meeting held on Thursday 21st January 2021 at 2:30 pm.

Slides

No slides available

Tweets

#netikx108

Blog

See our blog report: Managing Knowledge in Project Environments

Study Suggestions

None available at present

July 2020 Seminar: Time critical user centred library web design

Summary

Antony Groves, from the University of Sussex gave a lively account of how his team have made ten changes to the library website since lockdown. He talked about benchmarking, user surveys and feedback and plenty of iterations to get things right.
They have had two aims: to make the site accessible to meet Government requirements and also to make the site as useful as possible during the lockdown period. This was a huge challenge in difficult circumstances, but the efforts were rewarded by a ‘Customer Service Excellence’ award.  Antony gave us sufficient details to really bring home the challenges that were faced by librarians in the lockdown, particularly in the specific context of the range of users who needed resources for their study, research and their daily tasks. NetIKX members have commented on how valuable the session was for their own work in this area and there were plenty of questions to Antony to complete the session.

Speaker

Antony Groves is Learning & Teaching Librarian in the Academic Services department at the University of Sussex. He is the  person who co-ordinates teaching for undergraduates and taught postgraduates across all schools of study. This includes embedded teaching, providing student support and organising the Digital Tuesday’s programme.  He has developed the Library website, Library Subject Guides, Skills Hub and curated content for LinkedIn Learning; and supports students in using the Library resources and services.  He also runs a Library chat service and also blogs for CILIP’s Multimedia Information and Technology Group.
He is a Fellow of the HEA and committee member for CILIPs MmIT.

Time and Venue

2.30 pm Wednesday 22 July 2020. Antony’s talk was delivered via Zoom.

Tweets

#netikx104

Slides

Slides will be available to members soon

Blog

See our blog report: A Library during lockdown

Study Suggestions

MMIT blog: https://mmitblog.wordpress.com/2020/03/16/revisiting-ranganathan-part-1

MMIT blog: https://mmitblog.wordpress.com/2020/03/19/revisiting-ranganathan-part-2

MMIT blog: https://www.visucius.org/2020/07/27/time-critical-user-centred-library-web-design/

May 2016 Seminar: SharePoint and Office 365: getting value from enterprise collaboration solutions

Summary

The shift from traditional ‘document management and information push’ Intranets to more socio-collaborative technologies continues to accelerate, as organisations embrace new Social Business Models. Microsoft has cemented its place as one of the key players in the enterprise technology space and is well positioned to influence greater productivity and increased value through more seamless integration between Sharepoint and Office365.
But end users are often caught in the middle of these strategic changes and are left confused or remain disengaged from these new collaborative tools. They perceive Sharepoint as a “Swiss Army Knife” solution, built for flexibility but requiring lots of effort to make it do what you want it to do, rather than an out-of-the box solution. The first speaker at this seminar, Nathaniel Suda, explored Microsoft’s overall direction of travel and what changes to working practices can be anticipated over the next 2–3 years, as organisations upgrade their Sharepoint and Office products. The second speaker, Cerys Hearsey, discussed some examples of where Sharepoint/Office365 is working well and provided some ‘best practice’ tips to aid usability and encourage engagement.

Speakers

Nathaniel Suda is the only consultant in the UK to simultaneously hold a strategic advisory position at Microsoft UK in both Business Intelligence and SharePoint, on Advanced 365.

Cerys Hearsey is the Lead Consultant and MD at Post*Shift.

Time and Venue

2pm, Thursday 19th May 2016, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Pre Event Information

None

Slides

A copy of Nathan’s slides are available to current members in the Members’ Document Store.

Tweets

#netikx79

Blog

See our blog report: SharePoint

Study Suggestions

None

November 2014 Seminar: Wider horizons for information audit

Summary

It was wonderful to have Sue Henczel as one of our speakers as she had recently flown in from Australia. She joined with Graham Robertson, a NetIKX Committee member to discuss with us the value of information audits. Sue took the lead to update us on recent developments in the field, and Graham introduced the River Diagram and talked us through its practical applications. This was followed by our own attempts to apply the concepts to our own organisations in small group discussions.

Speakers

Sue Henczel is the owner of Infase Training (Australia) Pty., Ltd. Sue’s company provides training and consulting services to libraries, information organizations and professional associations. She specializes in strategic and project planning, information and knowledge audit, impact assessment, statistical frameworks, performance measurement, service review and social research.

Graham Robertson is Principal Associate of Bracken Associates. Graham’s company focuses on change management, knowledge management, information management and requirements analysis.

Time and Venue

November 2014, 2pm The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Slides

No slides available for this presentation

Tweets

#netikx62

Blog

Blog not available

Study Suggestions

Sue Henczel has written extensively on KM for example: Information auditing report and tool kit 2007 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275716755_Information_Auditing_Report_and_Toolkit

May 2014 Seminar: Information on the Move

Summary

The first speaker, David, spoke about ‘The second digital transition’ which means that there will be no librarians (as we know them) by 2022. ‘The first digital revolution’ took place in the office or in the library. The device – the PC – was desk bound, office bound. ‘The second digital revolution’ is taking place in the street. Mobile is now the main platform for accessing the web. They are not computational devices but access devices. Mobiles are social, personal, cool and popular. The horizontal has replaced the vertical, reading is ‘out’ fast ‘media’ is in. As a result, abstracts have never been so popular and we can now all online to avoid reading and there is an emphasis on shorter articles, which have a much bigger chance of being used.

Max, followed on from David, by talking about his company that specialises in creating apps which are interactive and provide information or assist in education. The ideas illustrated the power of the new mobile technologies.

We could not have come further from the initial concept of libraries : no walls, no queuing, no intermediaries! Ask any young person about a library and they will point to their mobile. It is ironic that mobiles were once banned from libraries – now it is the library. The mobile, borderless information environment really challenges libraries and publishers. It constitutes another massive round of disintermediation and migration. The changed platform and environment transforms information consumption. For a final reflection, David asked us: Is the web and the mobile device making us stupid ? Where are we going with information, learning and mobile devices ? This led to a lively conversation for our table discussion groups!

Speakers

David Nicholas runs CIBER a pan-European research outfit.
David Nicholas is one of the original CIBER founders. His interests include use and seeking behaviour in virtual spaces, the digital consumer, the virtual scholar, mobile information (information on-the-go), e-books, e-journal usage; the evaluation of digital platforms and scholarly communication and reputation.
Professor Nicholas was Director of the Department of Information Studies at University College London (2004–2011) and prior to that Head of the Department of Information Science at City University 1997–2003. David has been principal investigator on 60 research projects worth more than £6M and published around 500 peer evaluated papers, report and books

Max Whitby comes from Touch Press, an app development organisation.
Touchpress is an acclaimed app developer and publisher based in Central London. The company specialises in creating in-depth premium apps on educational subjects including the Periodic Table, Beethoven, the Solar System, T.S. Eliot, Shakespeare, and others. Their app “Barefoot World Atlas” was named one of the top 10 apps of all time by Apple. Of Touchpress’ “Disney Animated,” which was named the best iPad app of 2013 worldwide by Apple, iTunes’ App Editor noted, “We’re absolutely spellbound.”

Time and Venue

2pm on 16 May 2014, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Slides

No slides available for this presentation

Tweets

#netikx65

Blog

Val Skelton, Editor of ‘Information Today, Europe’ has written a very good blog post on this seminar.

See our blog report: Second digital revolution

Study Suggestions

You can visit the CIBER website for more information: CIBER website

November 2013 Seminar: Knowledge organisation past present and future

Summary

This event was all about information and knowledge management within organisations. The speakers looked at how IKM has evolved and where it’s likely to go next.

David Skryme talked about capturing the most important information as being a vital part of knowledge management. Communities are essential for developing tacit knowledge, through people talking to other people and sharing their knowledge. Work organisations are really social places, about human relationships and people. Storytelling has come back into popularity as a tool for knowledge managers to bring knowledge management to life. There are many new KM challenges now – social media, visualisation, ramification, co-creation with customers. David encouraged us to look beyond the appeal of new innovations to remember that there was a good amount of solid knowledge management techniques already out there.

Next Danny Budzak talked us through how he is developing data, information and knowledge management at the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), in his role as Senior Information Manager. He drew out useful tips that would be relevant to his audiences’ own workplaces.

In conclusion the speakers suggested that: “The true success of knowledge management is when it disappears”. KM will be stronger when it becomes part and parcel of working life.

Speakers

Dr David Skryme, Analyst and Management Consultant at David Skryme Associates, is a world recognized expert on knowledge management. In a 22-year career with Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), he held a variety of management roles in marketing, strategic planning and product management. During his career he was responsible for introducing new thinking, new products and services, new methods, and new initiatives.
He set up his own company in 1993 with three strands of activity – consultancy, workshops, research/writing. He has had clients across the world, ranging from large multinationals to small charities. He is a member of the ENTOVATION Network. The ENTOVATION Network is an international network of theorists and practitioners dedicated to developing a sustainable future through knowledge and innovation.

Danny Budzak, Senior Information Manager at the London Legacy Development Corporation is our second speaker and is Currently working at the London Legacy Development Corporation on the review, transfer and disposal of electronic and paper records; information transfer approach, retention and disposal schedule, stakeholder engagement, information governance and information security.

Time and Venue

2pm on 26th November, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Slides

No slides available

Tweets

#netikx56

Blog

See our blog report: Knowledge organisation – past, present and future