Collaborative Story Telling

Image Source: educ.csmv.qc.ca/.../story/storyteller2.htm

Story telling is one of the oldest forms of teaching and learning practices. Story telling is popular as it provides the learner to think, extrapolate, derive meaning and context and relate to ones experience.

This year my son got into Grade-I. He has started reading short sentences with 3-4 letter words and shows eagerness to read the new stories. I was also eager to read his English textbook. The present text books have undergone undergone positive change.

The first story in the book was titled “The Thirsty Crow”. I read the story and found that the only change in the story line was that the crow after drinking water passes on the message to other birds.

I read the story from the book and replied to his queries based on the illustrations. I told the story in the usual approach:
· narrated the characters.
· Explained the Context, Set the scene. (Location, time and background)
· Explained the sequence of events and how the situation resolved itself.
· Conclusions or lessons learnt.

But I was wondering later, whether there can be some different approach to telling stories. Some days later, I tried telling the same story differently.

I brought white sheets with few colour pencils. I started by drawing a sketch of bright Sun, Tree, Cloud and a character 'Crow'. I scribbled words around these elements by reading aloud. My son coloured the Sun, Tree and others elements quickly. The story moved forward, since the crow was wandering in hot afternoon, he became thirsty and started looking for water. We drew the sequence of the events; I drew a pot with little water lying under the tree. During this story telling exercise another participant joined us. The story went on as usual and ended with crow drinking water.

How was this story telling session different from the previous sessions?
During the course of this exercise, my son drew a black worm which the crow ate before drinking water. He added few more words in his vocabulary. He got engaged and involved in the process and became crow himself. The crow in the story also felt that he could fly in the clouds and sip water from the clouds. The other participant added and sketched; the crow waiting for clouds to rain and the crow directly sipping water by opening his beak.

This approach of storytelling I feel, offered flexibility and the freedom to interpret it the way the learners thought. In fact, the character started thinking and took decisions.

I have started thinking that more than the story; the approach to storytelling can offer experience and make you think.

Taking the clue, I felt the need to google to see what are the new approaches of storytelling in collaborative way. The first Google result connected me to http://www.storybird.com/. Story birds are short, visual stories that you make with family and friends to share- the site reads. The users can use characters, cartoons, colours to make stories in the form of slide. The site is fantastic. But I am looking for a service where more than one participants can write, sketch, colour, add sound in collaboration and online.

Abilene Paradox

Recently in an office meeting, I came across a situation, where I felt that many members within the group where restraining from expressing themselves. This kind of situation is not uncommon for me. Some members reserve their comments thinking that the team may not appreciate or counter to it. But more often then not, they express themselves privately or publicly or when the decision does not appear to yield desired result. I always feel that we need to overcome this kind of communication barriers to helps us make right decisions. This kind of situation (inferred) is also referred as Abilene paradox.

From Wikipedia:---
The Abilene paradox is a paradox in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group. The Abilene paradox was introduced by management expert Jerry B. Harvey in his article The Abilene Paradox and other Meditations on Management.

On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time."
The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.
One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it?" The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.
The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.

A technique mentioned in the study and/or training of management, as well as practical guidance by consultants, is that group members, when the time comes for a group to make decisions, should ask each other, "Are we going to Abilene?" to determine whether their decision is legitimately desired by the group's members or merely a result of this kind of groupthink.

THE PERFUME STORY

As she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children an untruth. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same. However, that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.
Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he did not play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. In addition, Teddy could be unpleasant. It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X's and then putting a big "F" at the top of his papers. At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child's past records and she put Teddy's off until last. However, when she reviewed his file, she was in for a surprise.
Teddy's first grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is a bright child with a ready laugh. He does his work neatly and has good manners... he is a joy to be around."
His second grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is an excellent student, well liked by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness and life at home must be a struggle."!
His third grade teacher wrote, "His mother's death has been hard on him. He tries to do his best, but his father doesn't show much interest and his home life will soon affect him if some steps aren't taken.”
Teddy's fourth grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is withdrawn and doesn't show much interest in school. He doesn't have many friends and he sometimes sleeps in class.
By now, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents, wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper, except for Teddy’s. His present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy, brown paper that he got from a grocery bag. Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents. Some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing, and a bottle that was one-quarter full of perfume. But she stifled the children's laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrist. Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long to say, “Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mom used to." After the children left, she cried for at least an hour.
On that very day, she quit teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, she began to teach children. Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded. By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all the children the same, Teddy became one of her "teacher's pets.” The story goes on that Teddy becomes Theodore F. Stoddard, MD.

KM/IC academic journal

Table III Final KM/IC academic journal ranking

Rank Tier Journal title
1 A+ J. of Knowledge Management
2 A+ J. of Intellectual Capital
3 A The Learning Organization
4 A Knowledge and Process Management
5 A Knowledge Management Research & Practice
6 B Intl. J. of Knowledge Management
7 B J. of Knowledge Management Practice
8 B J. of Information and Knowledge Management
9 B Electronic J. of Knowledge Management
10 B Intl. J. of Learning and Intellectual Capital
11 B Intl. J. of Knowledge and Learning
12 B VINE: The J. of Information and KM Systems
13 B Intl. J. of Knowledge Management Studies
14 B Intl. J. of Knowledge, Culture and Change Mng
15 C Knowledge and Innovation: J. of the KMCI
16 C Interdisciplinary J. of Info. and Knowledge Mng
17 C Intl. J. of Applied Knowledge Management
18 C Knowledge Management for Development J.
19 C J. of Universal Knowledge Management
20 C The Icfai J. of Knowledge Management
21 C Intl. J. of Nuclear Knowledge Management

SOURCE: Bontis, N. and Serenko, A. (2009). “A follow-up ranking of academic journals”, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp.16-26.

Knowledge is Power!

Blame vs Gain Behaviour

Source: www.odi.org.uk/rapid/Tools/Toolkits/KM/docs/blame_vs_gain.pdf

Knowledge Worker 2.0

Slides from: Stephen
Source: Slideshare.net

Knowedge Worker 1.0

Slides from: Stephen
Source: Slideshare.net

Organizational preparedness for Knowledge Sharing

Recently during an interaction with the delegates from different organizations in the government, the delegates agreed that to create knowledge sharing environment, the organization has to create a trust based environment among the employees and the stakeholders, followed by communication and collaboration among the people and stakeholders in the organizations. The organizations more than highlighting on the benefits of knowledge sharing, it must prepare the organization to create environment for knowledge sharing.

The first step would be to bring about cultural change of cooperation and commitment and create a trust based environment. But they surprised me with the idea of selective sharing among the employees and the stakeholders.

They suggested that the people in the organizations selectively share information and knowledge among themselves based on the issues they find important to themselves. In effect, the exchange culture is leadership based and may not be directly linked to cultural change.

Evolution of KM

Knowledge management has a long and distinguished history. It was as long ago as the 1960s, when Peter Drucker first coined the term “knowledge worker”.

Some of the significant events were:
1986 – publication by Swedish knowledge management pioneer Karl-Erik Sveiby of The Know-How Company (with Tom Lloyd).
1987 – ‘Managing the Knowledge Assets into the 21st Century’ round table (between US academia, business and government) – one of the first nationwide efforts to harness intellectual capital.
1991 – appointment of Leif Edvinsson as Vice President of intellectual capital for Skandia, arguably the first formal board level appointment related to knowledge management
1991 – publication of seminal Harvard Business Review article by Ikujiro Nonaka on the ‘knowledge-creating company’, later expanded and published as a book with Hirotaka Takeuchi (1995)
1993 – ‘Intellectual capital: your company’s most valuable asset’ – article by Tom Stewart in Fortune that helped raise awareness of knowledge management in the world of business
1995 – first business seminars and conferences in the USA e.g. Knowledge For Strategic Advantage – co-sponsored by Arthur Andersen and the American Productivity and Quality Center, held in Houston.
1996 – first business conferences in Europe
1998 – The World Bank chooses the theme Knowledge for Development as the topic for its annual world development report.
1999 - Blog was introduced.
2000 - podcast considered as an “audio blog.” started becoming popular. Although Internet-based audio has been around since the early 1990s when they were known as “Internet radio” or “Web radio.

Character traits of the team members

Greater emphasis is given to the essential character traits of the team leader to be successful. These are:

trustworthiness,

objectivity,

motivational,

analytical

and self assured.

But the characters of the team members equally contribute to the success of the team. The essential character traits of the team members could be:

tolerance,

flexible,

eager to learn and explore,

genuine and honest,

adaptable to change

and team player.

The team leader has to essentially educate the team members on the above character traits to bring about change in the team members as these traits may not be conscripted.

From Productivity to Innovation

On 29th January 2009, The Asian Productivity Organization released a new free KM e-book entitled “From Productivity to Innovation: Proceedings from the Second International Conference on Technology and Innovation for Knowledge Management.”

The conference was held in New Delhi, India last 12–14 February 2008. Dr. Serafin D. Talisayon of the Philippines served as the conference rapporteur and volume editor.
Ron Young started session 1 'Setting the Tone' with his paper 'Back to Basics: Strategies for Identifying, Creating, Storing, Sharing and Using Knowledge.
The book has 20 chapters, plus Q&A and technical sessions:
1: Back to Basics: Strategies for Identifying, Creating, Storing, Sharing and Using Knowledge (Ron Young)
2: Technology and Innovation for Knowledge Management (G. S. Krishnan, Arundhati Chattopadhyay and Avadh Yadav)
3: A Strategy for Library Networking in the Knowledge Economy (Dr. Prema Rajagopalan, Prof. M. S. Mathews and M. Kavitha)
4: Global Knowledge Management Trends (Dr. Rory Chase)
5: HAWK-i: Holistic Analysis for Working Knowledge and Implementation (Anne Chappuis, Luc de Golbéry, Paramita Sen, Nirbhay Sen and Sanjay Gupta)
6: Case Study: Knowledge Management in Wipro (Ved Prakash)
7: The Knowledge Economy Project: The Experience of IIT Roorkee (Prof. Harsha Sinvhal and Prof. Vinay K. Nangia)
8: Knowledge Management Framework: An APO Perspective (Praba Nair)
9: The Status of Knowledge Management in Asia: Results of an APO Survey of Nine Member Countries (Dr. Serafin D. Talisayon)
10: Critical Factors Constraining the Growth and Development of the Indian Economy: A Sectoral Study (Dr. Prema Rajagopalan, Prof. M. S. Mathews and M. Kavitha)
11: Knowledge Management in the Food and Nutrition Community in India: The UN’s New KM Initiative (Gopi N. Ghosh)
12: Participation of the International Management Institute in the Knowledge Economy Project (Prof. Ashoka Chandra and Prof. M. K. Khanijo)
13: Innovation and Knowledge Management: An Indic Play Ethic and a Global HR Model (Dr. Prem Saran)
14: Dimensions of Knowledge Management Projects and Leveraging Technology in Higher Educational Institutions (Dr. M. S. Rawat)
15: Service Quality in the Supply Chain: A Knowledge Gap Perspective (Gyan Prakash and Kripa Shanker)
16: The Intellectual Property System (N. N. Prasad)
17: Knowledge Management Systems in an Engineering Consultancy Organization (Sanjeev Kumar)
18: The Transformation of Innovation into Technology, Economy and Society (K. Kalaiselvan)
19: A New Infrastructure for Managing Knowledge in High-Value Outsourcing (Avinash Rao)
20: Knowledge Management for Competitive Advantage in the Steel Industry (Y. Bhaskara Rao and J. V. S. Sarma)

Knowledge Management 2.0

bring people together
let them share
encourage collaboration
break down barriers

Questions? -- A tool for KM

“ There are these four ways of answering questions. Which four? There are questions that should be answered categorically [straightforwardly yes, no, this, that]. There are questions that should be answered with an analytical (qualified) answer [defining or redefining the terms]. There are questions that should be answered with a counter-question. There are questions that should be put aside. These are the four ways of answering questions. ”
—Buddha,

A question may be either a linguistic expression used to make a request for information, or else the request itself made by such an expression. This information is provided with an answer. [Source: Wikipedia.org]

Questions are the most neglected tool in office setup. Questioning should be motivated and people should be trained to ask questions, respond to question or provide healty environment of questioning and answering.

Feedback for KM

In organizations, feedback is a process of sharing observations, concerns and suggestions between persons or divisions of the organization with an intention of improving both personal and organizational performance. (source: wikipedia.org)

Feedbacks have been commonly used to collect suggestion, ideas and improvements in any assignment or task after completion. The feedbacks are then used by managers to project the success of the assignment or to find fault with the people at helm.
Generally the feedback data are discarded after the initial reporting. Unless and until there is sharp decline in revenue or profit on year on year basis.
I do not recollect of many across organizations, which perform comparison or trend analysis on feed back data after collecting similar feedback for the 3rd or 4th time.

Several software’s are available to carry out 360 degree feedback online or offline.
I was wondering whether software’s available can perform Gap Analysis and Comparison between multiple feedback and present a report in the customized form.

First step towards knowledge sharing in the organization

Knowledge sharing between the employees within the organization is a greater challenge then it appears. There are many factors that contribute to barriers for knowledge sharing. These are:
1. Knowledge is assumed as Power
2. Lack of trust
3. Organization's Culture
Introduction of ICT tools and web has contributed to creation of CoPs and social networks, but these measures are not enough to facilitate free flow of knowledge between the employees.
The organization could start by reviewing its structure and work environment before demanding that the employees share and collaborate. This can be followed up with dismantling water tight compartments, introducing group mailing, arranging get together, following uniform and regular job rotation policy, providing training to its employees, allowing and encouraging informal discussions during lunchand tea break etc among all other enablers for knowledge sharing.

Knowledge Workers and Idle time....

I have observed time and again that office workers (knowledge workers) tend to keep themselves busy with redundant jobs, which do not add value to the employee or the organizations many a times. knowledge workers generally want to keep themselves occupied and tend to assimilate work and are happy to be referred as good worker. But given the chance to them to cut down on this work , they tend to complain of little work or Idle time.

My personal opinion is, knowledge workers should wear the thinking cap and works towards removing redundancy, cutting down waste, shortening the process, use technology effectively and efficiently, set priorities and find new ways to do the job. The idle time is indeed a period to review the job completed and find ways to do it correctly and fast. Hence there is no time to idle........

Knowledge Audit

Knowledge audit is a systematic examination and evaluation of organizational knowledge, which examines organization’s knowledge needs, existing knowledge assets/resources, knowledge flows, future knowledge needs, knowledge gap analysis as well as the behavior of people in sharing and creating knowledge. In one way, a knowledge audit can reveal an organization’s knowledge strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and risks.
Knowledge Audit encompasses four dimensions of examination:
1. Finding out What We Know We Know
2. Finding out What We Know We do not Know
3. Finding out What We do not Know We Know
4. Finding out What We do not Know We do not know
The data can be collected through Questionnaire, Site visit, Interviews, Informal & formal Interactions and observations etc.
The sample questionnaire is
1. Does the organization have electronic and paper documentation and manuals.
2. Can the documentation and manuals be accessed manually or electronically, when required.
3. Does the organization know about the best practices in the similar kind of organizations.
4. Where does the organization lack in comparison to the competitors.
5. Did the organization ever conduct knowledge gap analysis.
6. Does the organization have Data center/ Data mart and Dataware housing & mining facilities.
7. How many innovations and patents have been registered.
The above sample questionnaire would help in knowledge gap analysis.

Knowledge transfer within the large manufacturing company

In the course of Initiation meeting with the large Manufacturing Companies on Knowledge Management Implementation, many issues came up during the meeting of the implementation committe. These were:
1. Knowledge transfer between the Workman's has never been the inherent culture of the organization.
2. The job rotation policy had never been seriosly applied.
3. The outflow of experienced employees is resulting into capacity loss to the organization.
4. The new means of Knowledge transfer technology like intranet, ICT tools and eNewsletter is not effective. (due to gap in computing facility made available to the employee.)
5. It has also been found that the computing facility is available only up to executive level and as these facility do not have means to capture the working or tacit knowledge of the supervisors.
6. The acquired knowledge by the supervisor from the Workman's and transfer amongst them or within the system is missing.
The immediate task to begin with is to conduct knowledge audit, Knowledge mapping and expert mapping followed be assessment and designing a KM solution for the organizations.
It also appears that larger the organization, more is the tendency of people to work in isolation with one another. (restricts knowledge flow).
The problem also appears with the organization structure which do not seem to align with vision, mission of the organizations.

Workshop for Senior officers on KM Practices and Applications

The workshop conducted in the first week of June 2008, discussed and reflected various issues pertaining to KM adoption, and KM tools for improving organization efficiency and competitive advantage. The speakers emphasized KM adoption to reduce demographic risk in large and old public sectors and government enterprises.