November 2016 Seminar: Evidence-based Decision Making

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Summary

We all have biases. It’s perfectly natural for the decisions we make in life and work to be influenced by knowledge gained through prior experience and intuition. Most of the time this serves us well. However, we would not expect major business decisions to be made just on ‘gut-feel’.

Using an open and rational evidence base for decision making is now common practice in the Health and Third sectors and increasingly in Government policy making. Quality and timely data is becoming increasingly more important and available to provide that evidence. There’s certainly no lack of data and information around us – but are we sure we have the necessary skills and tools to effectively analyse and interpret it? Do we apply critical thinking to the data we are presented with, or do we accept it at face value?

This event challenged some commonly held assumptions on how we make decisions, and how ‘gut feel’, cognitive bias, ‘rule of thumb’ and heuristic assumptions can distort our interpretation of the data and evidence in front of us, leading us into making decisions we may come to regret.

There were some fun practical exercises. These are attached to linked here, together with Steve’s introduction; they will reveal what sort of decision maker you are!

Speaker

Steve Dale is Founder and Director of Collabor8now Ltd, an organization focused on developing collaborative environments (e.g. Communities of Practice) and the integration of knowledge management tools and processes to support business improvement. He is a ‘KM Institute’ certified knowledge manager and one of three community facilitators for the Warwick University affiliated ‘Knowledge and Innovation Network (KIN)’. He is the author of several published research papers on collaborative behaviours.

Time and Venue

2pm, 3rd November 2016, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Slides

Not available

Tweets

#netikx82

Blog

See our blog report: Evidence-based Decision Making

Study Suggestions

None

September 2016 Seminar: Connecting Knowledge Communities: Approaches to Professional Development

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Summary

At an earlier meeting, a plea was made to examine the way professional development (and, indirectly, training) is managed for knowledge and information managers. This meeting therefore examined possible approaches to such professional development.

A year previously, NetIKX, with the cooperation of a number of other organisations in the field of knowledge and information management, ran a meeting called Connecting Knowledge Communities, at which representatives of these organisations, as well as NetIKX itself, talked about their membership, their focus and their mode of operation.

The organisations were: Henley Forum for Organisational Learning & Knowledge Strategies, the Knowledge and Innovation Network (KIN), IRMS (the Information and Records Management Society), ISKO UK (the UK Chapter of the International Society for Knowledge Organization) and KIDMM (the Knowledge, Information, Data and Metadata Management online forum). This meeting was intended to take that relationship one stage further by examining an area that is likely to be of interest to all these groups.

Luke Stevens-Burt, talked about CPD at CILIP and the PKSB (Professional Knowledge and Skills Base), which can be used to rate knowledge and skills levels and identify areas for improvement. Christopher Reeves and Karen Thwaites from the Department for Education, talked about CPD, particularly focusing on the new Government KIM framework and how it was produced – there was a unique opportunity to see this from the perspective of the Department for Education because Chris did a lot of the coordination to ensure consultation there and experienced the challenges that this raised.

Speakers

Luke Stevens-Burt is currently Head of Business Development (Member Services) at CILIP. His role is focused on delivering value and support to the library and information profession through his overall responsibility for membership development. Primarily, he manages this through CPD activities, Professional Registration, career support services and Member Networks, all of which are central to the CILIP membership offer, something that he is also responsible for shaping over time to meet the wider needs of the profession. Luke also plays a key role in overseeing engagement with employers and employer groups, accreditation of information and library related degree programmes, membership recruitment and retention strategy, and business growth and development.

Christopher Reeves is a Records Manager and Records Reviewer for the Department for Education; his responsibilities include the day to day management of departmental paper records and the appraisal and selection of these records for public access at The National Archives. He is part of the Government Knowledge and Information Management Profession and has recently been involved, as part of a cross-Government working Group, in the review and revamp of the professional skills framework. Chris has a degree in law and is currently taking steps towards his own professional development, through enrolment on the industry recognised Diploma in Records and Information Management.

Karen Thwaites is part of the Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) team in the Department for Education; she has been part of the team since August 2015. Karen helps to manage the Department’s collaborative digital workspace and provides training and support to develop users and administrators in its use. Karen is currently participating in a talent management scheme aimed at improving the prospects of individuals identified as capable of achieving a higher grade.

Time and Venue

2pm on 21 September 2016, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Pre Event Information

Intended Learning Objectives
• To understand the significance of professional development
• To identify alternative approaches to professional development
• To explore ways in which organisations may be able to cooperate in implementing such approaches

Slides

Not available

Tweets

#netikx81

Blog

See our blog report: Connecting Knowledge Communities: Approaches to Professional Development

Study Suggestions

None

July 2016 Seminar: Understanding Networks – and how to win friends and influence people

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Summary

If you were to ask your CEO or manager how knowledge and information flows through your organisation, you will probably be shown an organisation chart. This is all very well in theory, but the days of strict hierarchies for communicating and sharing knowledge and information have long been consigned to history. In today’s global economy, working practices rely almost entirely on networks and networking. Today’s networks include both business and social interactions, making possible new types of insight and intelligence. Trends and patterns that could never be detected by human intelligence alone can be made visible in a network.

But do we really understand what our networks look like, and our place in them? Why do some people appear to have more influence than others? Why do some teams collaborate and share knowledge more effectively than others? How can we become more effective networkers and what interventions are required to improve the social and professional networks that we belong to?

The importance of networks and networking in our personal and professional lives cannot be understated. Yet there is still widespread ignorance on this topic. This seminar explored the theory and practice of networks and networking and provided delegates with insights into how they can exploit network thinking in order to become more productive, better engaged and – perhaps – more influential!

Speakers

Drew and David are currently on the Joined Up Digital project for the Centre for Ageing Better, following an exploration into Living Well in the Digital Age with the Age Action Alliance. They have developed social network mapping for the Croydon Best Start programme and other clients, and also created a suite of workshop games and simulations to support co-design. They used these projects to illustrate their approach.

Drew Mackie is a recognised expert in the Kumu online system of network visualisation and is particularly interested in using network methods to evaluate changes in connectivity over the life of projects.

David Willcox has been a print journalist, consultant in regeneration partnerships and community engagement over the past 40 years. David’s work recently has focused on how to mix face-to-face and online activities for collaboration.

Time and Venue

2pm, Thursday 14 July 2016, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Pre Event Information

• To provide an understanding of network building, network analysis and networking
• To give a practical introduction to network visualisation and analysis tools
• To recognise the importance of networks and networking for more effective team building, user/customer engagement, professional development and knowledge sharing

Slides

Not available

Tweets

#netikx80

Blog

See our blog report: Understanding Networks

Study Suggestions

None

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

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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

March 2016 Seminar: Storytelling For Problem Solving & Better Decision Making

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Summary

A story is a recounting of events based on emotional experience from a perspective.
We use stories to:

• build maps of the world we experience so we can make decisions about how to act;
• make decisions about what to believe in, what we see and hear;
• transfer knowledge and information;
• playfully simulate possible outcomes before we commit to a course of action;
• condense experience into packages that re-expand in the minds of listeners.

Stories engage our attention, influence our beliefs or actions, and provide a “partial suspension of the rules of the real” that helps us safely explore the future. Participatory Narrative Inquiry (PNI) is an approach in which groups of people participate in gathering and working with raw stories of personal experience in order to make sense of complex situations for better decision making.

Ron Donaldson, an expert practitioner in the art and science of storytelling techniques, facilitated a highly interactive and engaging workshop demonstrating the use of PNI in exploring a topical issue relevant to knowledge and information sharing. Delegates obtained new insights into the topic, as well as practical experience in how to apply storytelling techniques to issues and problems they face in their own organisations.

Speakers

Ron Donaldson is a knowledge ecologist and facilitator, experienced in applying Participatory Narrative Inquiry (PNI), Cognitive Edge ideas around complex systems and TRIZ, the Russian Inventive Problem-Solving methods.

Taking an ecological perspective means that you focus at the community level and catalyse the flow of meaning, knowledge and realisation of insights within a narrative landscape. The sharing of knowledge in an organisation is much more analogous to an ecology that needs to be nurtured than a precisely defined machine that can be managed. Ron is particularly fond of the idea that Ecology has at times been called the ‘subversive science’, since it subverts our egocentric insistence on separateness, and with it, our inclination to ride roughshod over the rest of the natural world.

Time and Venue

2pm on Tuesday 22nd March 2016, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Pre Event Information

Learning Objectives:
• To understand how to create the starting conditions for new relationships and collaboration
• To understand how to remove constraints and disrupt linear thinking, to allow an anticipatory awareness of the present to emerge
• To know how to seed, trigger and encourage creative thinking and to experience storytelling as a way to share knowledge and ideas

Slides

Not available.

Tweets

#netikx78

Blog

See our blog report: Storytelling for Problem Solving and Better Decision Making

Study Suggestions

Ron Donaldson’s website is https://rondon.wordpress.com and his Twitter account: https://twitter.com/rondon. To find out more about PNI see https://narrafirma.com/home/participatory-narrative-inquiry/.

See also Past Event Information September 2020 where Ron discussed his involvement with TRIZ

January 2016 Seminar: Human Capital – The Last Differentiator

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Summary

How do you keep your skills relevant in an ever-changing environment? Can Social Knowledge Management provide answers?

As we adapt to new workplace challenges (or opportunities) at a time when organisations are looking to increase productivity and make savings through automating routine work, we need to think about the ’human differentiator‘; in essence, ensuring that we are all still employable!

In this interactive presentation, Social KM expert Rooven Pakkiri, discussed how we can transform the way we engage in our work, with radical strategies based on ‘Social Learning’, ‘Talent Insights’ and ‘Decision Sourcing’. As we move forward, a key differentiator of successful organisations will be whether and how they are able to leverage in a consistent way the talent and knowledge of their workforces so as to meet their objectives. Companies that are bound by tradition and hierarchy will struggle to compete. This session prompted us to consider how we fit within this changing environment and how we can continue to learn new skills and remain relevant.

Speaker

Rooven Pakkiri works with clients to deliver sustained adoption strategies for collaboration platforms such as Yammer, Jive and Connections. His focus is on engagement (often through HR) with the business managers in an organisation. Together they design, develop and deploy a highly customised Social KM road map that revolves around the use of the social tool set in order to solve client-specific business/organisation problems or to address current opportunities. Everything Rooven does is led by business/organisation requirements and user adoption and not by the features and functions of the chosen collaboration technology.

A veteran of the dot.com era, Rooven is a digital evangelist who focuses on the way technology changes organisational communication and collaboration. He is an author and regular speaker on the subject of Social Knowledge Management and how it is transforming the corporate rule book. Rooven is also the co-founder of a regular thought leadership event in London at which independent thinkers discuss issues of user adoption and cultural transformation.

As a Social KM consultant, Rooven is responsible for developing client-specific adoption strategies and immersion programs. As part of this process Rooven employs a number of techniques such as scenario modelling, content seeding, champion identification and community development.

Time and Venue

2pm on Tuesday 19 January 2016, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Pre Event Information

None

Slides

None

 

Tweets

#netikx77

Blog

Blog by Lissi Corfield
Blog by Conrad Taylor

 

Study Suggestions

For a useful book, try Plain Words by Rebecca Gowers, Ernest Gowers

Human Capital – The Last Differentiator – Tuesday 19 January 2016

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How do you keep your skills relevant in an ever changing environment?

Can Social Knowledge Management provide answers?

As we adapt to new workplace challenges (or opportunities) at a time when organisations are looking to increase productivity and make savings through automating routine work, we need to think about the ’human differentiator‘ – in essence, ensuring that we are all still employable!

In this interactive presentation at the next NetIKX meeting, Social KM expert Rooven Pakkiri, will discuss how we can transform the way we engage in our work, with radical strategies based on ‘Social Learning’, ‘Talent Insights’ and ‘Decision Sourcing’.

As we move forward, a key differentiator of successful organisations will be whether and how they are able to leverage in a consistent way the talent and knowledge of their workforces so as to meet their objectives. Companies that are bound by tradition and hierarchy will struggle to compete.

This session will enable us to consider how we fit within this changing environment and how we can continue to learn new skills and remain relevant.

Speaker

Rooven Pakkiri works with clients to deliver sustained adoption strategies for collaboration platforms such as Yammer, Jive and Connections. His focus is on engagement (often through HR) with the business managers in an organisation. Together they design, develop and deploy a highly customised Social KM road map that revolves around the use of the social tool set in order to solve client-specific business/organisation problems or to address current opportunities. Everything Rooven does is led by business/organisation requirements and user adoption and not by the features and functions of the chosen collaboration technology.

A veteran of the dot.com era, Rooven is a digital evangelist who focuses on the way technology changes organisational communication and collaboration. He is an author and regular speaker on the subject of Social Knowledge Management and how it is transforming the corporate rule book. Rooven is also the co-founder of a regular thought leadership event in London at which independent thinkers discuss issues of user adoption and cultural transformation.

As a Social KM consultant, Rooven is responsible for developing client-specific adoption strategies and immersion programs. As part of this process Rooven employs a number of techniques such as  scenario modelling, content seeding, champion identification and community development.

Intended Learning Objectives

  • To be aware of how we fit within the changing organisational environment
  • To learn how to keep our skills relevant in this ever-changing environment
  • To understand how Social Knowledge management can provide answers

Venue

The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS (The nearest London Underground Station is Bond Street)

Registration is at 2.00 pm and the meeting will run from 2.30 pm to 5.00 pm, with a glass of wine and light refreshments to follow until 6.00 pm.

Seminar Costs

If you are a NetIKX Member or join NetIKX when you register, there is no charge.

Non-members are welcome to attend.

Please register at https://www.netikx.org/content/human-capital-last-differentiator-tuesday-19-january-2016.

Athough the normal rate for non-members is £50, there will be discounts available for returning members and others. For further information, please send an email to web[at]netikx.org.