Keith March 11th, 2009
The slide pack I presented at the recent BrightStar conference - 7th Annual Information Management Summit, in Wellington, New Zealand - has now been loaded to SlideShare.
There is a brief synopsis of the presentation on a previous post. Summary points as follows:
- Developing a knowledge sharing toolkit
- Keeping content up to date
- Dealing with knowledge hoarding
- Using multiple media and applying Social Media principles
As I also chaired one day of the conference, there is also a bonus introductory slide pack, featuring photos of New Zealand!
Keith February 17th, 2009
After a long break (due to appearing to be very busy for some time), back to the blog. Just a brief note to advise that I will be speaking in Wellington, New Zealand at BrightStar’s 7th Annual Information Management Summit on Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 March. The title of my presentation is: Developing Organisation-Wide Knowledge Management Strategy and Incorporating Social Media in the Process. A brief precis follows:
This international case study presents the Knowledge Management and Transfer toolkit developed by the Telstra Corporation (Australia) Enterprise & Government KM team.
This toolkit was used to capture the product and service knowledge developed by the Product Management teams, and make it available to the business sales force, using an integrated program of content, communications and training initiatives. This included developing a standard taxonomy, governance processes and templates, with all developed content made available via a single portal.
This presentation will focus on the processes used to maintain the currency of content, the use of an open policy and rewards and recognition to promote knowledge sharing, and the use of multiple media to ensure that the needs of the total audience were adequately catered for.
The lessons learned from this development are broadly applicable to knowledge capture and sharing in project teams, organisational changes, enterprise-wide knowledge programs and many other similar situations.
I will also be chairing day two of the conference.
In other news, my son Scott is in the final stages of planning for a two-month trek on the National Bicentennial Trail with three friends (and six horses). We have set up a new blog for loading stories and photos once the trip commences. They will be starting at Providence (near Canberra), and the plan is to finish at Knockwood, Victoria. We will be travelling to meet them at least once during the trip.
So that’s two trips I’ll be doing in March, not counting a few days in Darwin for my mother’s 95th Birthday. And then there’s the CPA Congress in Newcastle, as well…
Keith November 13th, 2008
Talking Cock (v.): A Singaporean term meaning either to talk nonsense or engage in idle banter.
- The Coxford Singlish Dictionary
Over the last few years, I have had the privilege of traveling to Singapore on a number of occasions to speak at conferences. I have greatly enjoyed the experience - both the conferences, and wandering around Singapore as a tourist. I have met some fantastic people there, and have greatly enjoyed the culture - and the food!
Singapore is a land of contrasts. It is richly multicultural, with all public signage in four languages. The population is predominantly Chinese, yet most of the public institutions are as British as they were before independence. It has earned a reputation as a non-democratic nation, yet the country is alive with art and innovation, and not in the least like a totalitarian state. I feel safer walking around the streets anywhere in Singapore than I do in some parts of Melbourne.
Some would like to portray Singapore as a place where freedom of speech is suppressed by the government, yet Singapore is now becoming increasingly open. One friend I have made in Singapore is Enrico Varella. Enrico introduced me to a fantastic local web site - Talking Cock.
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Keith November 3rd, 2008
I have just been along to a reunion at my old school - Colac High School, in western Victoria. I have only ever been to one of these before, and that was a long time ago. All the more interesting this time, as this will be the last reunion at that campus, after something like 96 years of a school on that site. A new, single campus is now taking over from the two original government schools - once the High and Tech schools.
It was an interesting experience. Trying to recognise people after all these years was particularly interesting. Some of the school-ground and buildings seemed almost identical to what I remember. Some of the buildings do seem much smaller than I remember, too! The old back-stage lighting control room in the hall was boarded up! I spent many happy hours there… Some of the locations brought back poignant memories, one of which I have written about here.
I met a few of my classmates. It was interesting comparing notes on the events of the intervening years. I didn’t really ever engage with school much, or with many of the people there. It was great to be able to effectively start off all over again with the people that I did meet. I may be in touch with some of them again. I even met an old family friend, who had apparently once been a student there.
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Keith October 13th, 2008
On my way to this year’s actKM Conference.
Should be a fun couple of days! While I am only booked in to this one as a regular attendee, I am also taking part in the activity on Tuesday night - the “Collaboration Cabaret”. All will be revealed in due course!
I expect that I will be tweeting at the event - tag will probably be #actkm08.
Keith July 13th, 2008
While you sleeping
you dream something.
Tree and grass same thing.
They grow with your body,
with your feeling.
Keith July 6th, 2008
Actually just back in Australia now from a few days’ holiday. Had fun in Nouméa, Ile des Pins, and Phare Amédée, but couldn’t actually log into WordPress from the hotel, as the connection there was via some sort of rather badly behaved VPN.
Enjoyed the time, but some aspects were disappointing. Mining is treated as more important than tourism in New Caledonia.
It was fun to practice my French again, but ran into an interesting language barrier. On our second day there, Marilyn was experiencing some pains. Fortunately turned out to not require any critical attention, but we did spend a few hours at the main hospital in Noumea - Gaston Bourret.
It was easy enough to communicate that there was some pain, using a mixture of my French and their Anglais. But the problem arose in communicating the type of pain. How do you distinguish between a dull ache and a sharp pain across the language barrier? A “niggly” pain doesn’t really translate.
Looking up “pain” in my English-French dictionary was potentially dangerous. One of the French alternatives offered was a word that I suspect actually means “labour pains”. An attempt to use this could well have got us onto the wrong track entirely!
Language barriers become fairly obvious in this context, but how often do we have equally misleading communication when we are all speaking the same language?
Keith June 19th, 2008
Just heard an interesting interview on the radio. The subject was Joe Bennett, who has recently published a book called: Where Underpants Come From. You can read more about the book in an article in New Zealand’s Dominion Post.
Apparently, Bennett looked at the “Made in China” tag in his new undergarments one day, and decided to find out more. This led him on a rather strange journey to China, and into Chinese history.
The thing that caught my attention was a story he told of one incident during the journey.
As I remember the story, he was eating in a small restaurant in a lane-way in a Chinese city. He was the only tourist in the restaurant, among 30 or 40 Chinese customers. The others in the restaurant fairly quickly noticed his entire lack of ability to eat with chopsticks. He was “spreading food all over the restaurant, and not eating anything”. Everyone was very good-natured about it, and some began to laugh at his predicament. He laughed with them. One came over and gave him instructions on eating with chopsticks.
By the end of the meal, even though he spoke almost no Chinese, and the other diners little English, they were all laughing and joking together. When he left the restaurant, everyone said goodbye to him. The waitress even followed him out onto the street to return his tip.
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Keith March 16th, 2008
Exactly one month after posting my request for a replacement car here and on my LinkedIn and Facebook networks, I picked up my new car.
And I paid exactly $8,516.58!
It is a really nice, low-mileage 1999 Subaru Impreza (no, not a WRX). It is in most ways a substantially better car that the Hyundai it is replacing. It even comes with a number of bonuses, like mag wheels, roof bars and towbar. Here it is, safely ensconced in the front yard:
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Keith March 10th, 2008
My wife Marilyn and I have got away for the long weekend to Lorne (on the Victorian south-west coast, on the Great Ocean Road). Found a delightful place to stay – Shepherd’s Rest. This is a modern two-bedroom apartment, on the top level of a new house in North Lorne. It is owned by a couple of artists, who have moved down from further north in Victoria, where they ran a farm.
The place is totally delightful, decorated with a wide range of pieces of art. It is only two blocks back from the beach, and only a short walk from where my uncle once had a holiday house, where I spent many happy holidays as a child. It was interesting walking on the beach here again for the first time for many years. The beach has changed a lot – a large amount of sand has been washed away.
There is a good supply of holiday reading in the bookshelves here. One book is of a type I have never seen before. It is a taste of absolutely brash commercialism from the 1890s (precise date not specified). It is Dougal’s Index Register to Next of Kin, Heirs at Law, and cases of Unclaimed Money Advertisements. At least, that is the short form of the title. The title page expands this out to a grand total of 85 words, including several et ceteras (then spelt as “&c.” - the ampersand sign comes from the letters “et” - the Latin for “and”).
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