Personal Knowledge Management Project

An important aspect of PKM is stimulating the right habits and reminding yourself to attend to a particular thing at the appropriate time. For example, you might want to remind yourself of some of the following recurring events such as:

• when to exercise

• when to pay the bills
• when to water your plants
• when you should study
• when you need to take medicine
• when a proposal, project deadline or assignment is due
• when an important anniversary is happening

When most of us were at school failure was seen as something that was negative, should be avoided and often worth punishment. And yet most learning theorists agree that it is only through failure that we really learn – as opposed to just memorising. Failure is useful when it helps us critically appraise our own performance. This is evaluation is an example of feedback. A simple way to think of feedback is experiencing the output of your own performance as a new input.

Students of psychology and education are becoming increasingly aware of the vital role that feedback plays in how we learn. All complex systems (like your body, your organisation, your family, your community) change their behaviour or learn through feedback - even if this means weaving in and out of the best path (like Wiener’s boat example) rather than sticking to the best path in any strict way.

A paradigm is a self-consistent set of ideas and beliefs which acts as a filter, influencing how we perceive and make sense of the world. The way in which we often structure our organisations is based on the model of a Egyptian pyramid and is an example of a paradigm. Other examples of paradigms include – how to make bread, what a bed looks like, the characteristics of a chair that lend the idea of “chairness”, the general features of a ship or an aircraft and so on. The term was first used by Thomas Kuhn in “the structure of scientific revolutions” (1962) to describe the the impact of change within the ruling theory of science when fundamental assumptions changed. Kuhn argued that the history of science is not a linear and continuous assimilation of facts but rather a number of revolutions in which new paradigms or new ways of seeing the world, entirely replace the old. Some of his conclusions include:

While we all know something about power, working in conflict or change management requires a clear understanding of power and how to decode and understand it. So what is power really and how is it constructed? Our world identifies certain individuals as 'having power' and then proceeds to make them more powerful by talking about them in the media. Politicians, high profile business leaders, characters from the entertainment industry and those frequently in the public eye are often said to examples of ‘powerful people’.

A useful way of decoding any phenomenon is to go beyond the 'what is it?' question and rather look at 'what does it do?'. In organisations, power can do many things. It can speed things up, slow things down, alter trajectory, transform our understanding of ‘what is going on’ and divert attention to something altogether different. We each have some measure of power and your position of power could be defined by:

The Linux operating system is becoming increasingly popular and offers a stable desktop platform including the respectable Openoffice office suite for free. You can load Ubuntu Linux onto your windows computer and, on boot up, decide which operating system you want to use - Windows or Linux. In addition to cost, there are many advantages to taking a serious look at Linux including an awesome array of free software to support almost any field of human endeavour. And if you are still attached to your old windows programs, the Ubuntu Linux supports a Windows emulator called Wine that can run many (but not all) your windows programs. In addition, remind yourself that it is exploring and learning new things that keeps you young and interesting.

You can request a free copy of Ubuntu Linux by going to Official Ubuntu Website Shipment is free to any country.

With the increase in users of microblogging sites such as Twitter.com, a profusion of services have emerged to support analysis and search of this live 'stream' of data. This Tweetgrid example provides an view of how seaching on particular hashtags (designated with a '#') can yield useful results and interesting connections. Importantly, it provides insight into how people in distant places are talking about your field of interest, what metaphors they are using, who they are recommending etc.. Obviously there is a lot of junk and so, as always, you need to exercise discernment. You can update the #hashtags on the tweetgrid and save your own personal glimpse into the mind of the collective.

The uptake of mobile phones on the African continent continues with growth rates in excess of 100% over the past twelve months (Source MTN 'Yello corporate publication, 2008). This is happening while technologies that link people across space and time are becoming ubiquitous and mobile telephony is the preferred means of telecommunication. The result is a narrowing of the technological gap between the developed and developing world. Rates of ownership, even among the poorest, is surprisingly high and while estimates vary, there were already more than 100 million connected handsets in Africa in 2005.

The ability to network powerfully is an important skill and a key resource in your personal knowledge management strategy. In this discussion we'll look at ways of interacting with your network plus ideas for powerful networking. You could see your network as a series of circles that contain your immediate family, your friends, your professional networks, and the general public. While some of these overlap, others do not are and quite distinct. In addition to the face-to-face networks you engage in on a day-to-day basis, the vast majority of these networks are becoming available on-line and so these ideas are designed to provide know-how designed to help you get the best out of all of your networks:

• Create a clear vision of success for yourself including an idea of what you want. Do not proceed until you have achieved this.

• Cultivate a clear idea of the network, its' identity, why you want to be part of it and what you want from it.
  

Permaculture is a particularly useful metaphor in change management and KM and many organisations are using permaculture principles to teach design and sustainability. Permaculture concerns itself with the use of ecology as the basis for designing integrated systems of food production, housing, appropriate technology, and community development.

"Companies are actually living organisms, not machines. We keep bringing in mechanics, when what we need are gardeners." Peter Senge

When engaged in Change Management project, we often use a KM framework to guide and share elements of the system's functionality with client. This simultaneously engages Systems Theory, Logical Framework Analysis (LFA), Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Dialogic approaches in project work. The novelty of this approach is that is both analytical and analogical simultaneously and creates a multidisciplinary framework for engaging complex information. It has proved particularly helpful in working with African government and NGOs. The process is generally completed within 3 days as an organisational ritual and outputs form inputs to the change process. The enquiry framework asks the following key questions when we assess organisational culture and the nature of a system:

1. What are the roles and the relationships that make up the complex social system under investigation?

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse, which views "language as a form of social practice" (Fairclough 1989: 20) and focuses on the ways social and political domination is reproduced by text and talk. CDA developed within several disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, such as 'critical linguistics'.

The terms dialogic and dialogism often refer to the concept used by Mikhail Bakhtin in his work The Dialogic Imagination. The dialogic work carries on a continual dialogue with other works of literature and other authors. It does not merely answer, correct, silence, or extend a previous work, but informs and is continually informed by the previous work. Dialogic literature is in communication with multiple works. This is not merely a matter of influence, for the dialogue extends in both directions, and the previous work of literature is as altered by the dialogue as the present one is.

Anti-knowledge refers to the collective set of questions that form an antithetical structure to a subset or the sum of knowledge. Put more simply, Antiknowledge is whatever we don't know. Of course, we can't know what we don't know and so the only way to find out is to ask a question. Thankfully, the questions we can ask are the Who, What, Where, Why, How and When questions which operate on Anti-knowledge converting the questions into knowledge by structuring them. There are two fundamental types of questions:

1. Learning questions - questions about knowledge that exists

2. Knowledge Discovery Questions - questions that form knowledge when structured

If you are new to social media and are still exploring the area, here are 4 steps to help you get the best out of it:

• Step 1: Explore - search & browse for content that interests you. Find out where your friends, colleagues and peers spend their time on the web. Particularly look for notable commentators and figures in the area in which you are interested, subscribe to their personal blogs and follow the comments and conversations.

While there are a number of models available for practitioners of KM to help implement KM projects, few models have tried to deconstruct KM itself and how it works. Understanding a complex dynamic is often best done by adopting a metaphor; a good metaphor can go a long way and serve you well in understanding a complex system.

A reminder about metaphors

Knowledge results from humans interacting with their environment and upon each other. As human interaction is the source of knowledge, it is necessary to ask what factors may impede the effective generation of knowledge and the sharing of know-how. Knowledge sharing / creation can only occur in the context of a 'safe space' but unfortunately many organisations find it difficult to maintain those conditions of culture and lived values that make for a safe space. This represents a paradox and a challenge to all key role players in such institutions who profess to support KM to take an honest, objective look at themselves. There are a number of behavioural factors related to power politics which are known to impede KM activities. These behaviours are particularly important because they are emulated in a cultural context (Katz and Kahn). Behaviours that negatively impact knowledge sharing and the practice of KM include:

• Uninvolved, disinterested leadership

A particle physicist who knows about Brownian Motion (the random movement of particles in a solution) provides useful know-how and input into solving problems of traffic traffic control or the management of disease transmission. Anthroplogists used to studying pre-industrial cultures can provide insights into how social and community systems could be better designed. Film producers and directors have a wealth of experience in project management that has proven to be useful in helping design approaches to service delivery for government.

Without an operating system, computer hardware is inanimate and about as capable as a brick. In the early days, the operating system was considered to be an integral part of the computer until a brilliant move by Bill Gates when the hardware was separated from the operating system with MS.DOS Version 1.0. From this point, the operating system became glamorous, glitzy and branded as a consumer product - and had to be paid for separately to the hardware.

I use 3 operating systems - MS.Windows XPPro , Ubuntu 9,04 (Jaunty Jackalope) and Windows Mobile 6.0 on my HTC palmtop. I first started using Linux about 4 years ago. Up 'till then I used Microsoft exclusively apart from my experiences with some of the more exotic operating systems of the early 1980s which included the Commodore PET (with 16Kb RAM!), the Sinclair ZX-81, an o/s for designing integrated circuits called Gaelic and even an O/S called Gerbil.

A compelling, powerful vision can help you succeed, become more satisfied with your life, and get the most out of your personal & working relationships. Many experts on leadership emphasize how vital it is for you to craft your own personal vision. Warren Bennis, Stephen Covey, Peter Senge, and others point out that a powerful vision can help you succeed. It can also propel and inspire those around you to reach their own dreams. And remember, if you don't create your own vision, others will plan and direct your life for you.

As a registered KMAfrica.com user, you can now integrate some of your other social networking activities into KMAfrica.com. This will enable other KMAfrica.com users to catch up with your projects, interests and web activities. To integrate the Activty Stream in your profile, follow the following instructions:

1. Click on 'My Account' on the left hand side of this screen -( the url is http://isivivane.com/kmafrica/?q=user )

2. click on the tab marked [Activity Stream]
3. provide your twitter username, DIGG username, Delicious username as appropriate
   

A model is a formal, abstract, hypothetical description of a complex entity, system or process. Any system can be represented through a number of different models, depending on the level of abstraction required and the intention behind how the model is to be used. Examples of everyday models include climatic models as expressed in weather forecasts, models of ecosystems, economies, stock market simulations and other complex systems. While you can expect to study many different models during your career, it is important to understand the following principles about all models:

• A model is an attempt to explain the dynamics of "what is going on". It can never really explain what is really "going on".

• A Useful Model that is shared, openly discussed and deconstructed leads to a common understanding and insight.
  

When you created an account at KMAfrica.com, you were asked various details about your profile. To make sure that the information here is correct (because it is regularly searched and indexed by various search services), click on http://isivivane.com/kmafrica/?q=user and then the personal information tab. Upload a picture of yourself that is appropriate to the site and change any details then click save at the bottom of the page. Your profile will now have been updated.

In this age, if you are doing business with anyone, it is more than likely that they will be finding out about you by searching for your profile on the Internet. There are a huge variety of networking, special interest groups, mailing lists and sites that tell a lot about you if you are associated with them. And the reason you need to be aware of this is that these linkages can work to your benefit or detriment if they are not properly and actively managed. There are stories of people who have been hired and fired based on what is found out about them on the internet.

The following are some of the skills and the taxonomy associated with personal knowledge management (PKM)

• Reflection Related to continuous improvement on how you operate - using your outputs and experiences as learning inputs.

• Managing your own learning Manage how and when you learn and the ability to create and manage your own personal learning environments.
• Information literacy Understanding what information is important, understanding what information is unimportant (exformation) and how to find unknown information. Also consider Neo-Literacy and ability to engage diverse media - physical and computer-based.
• Organizational skills Personal librarianship? Indexing. Backup. Personal categorization and taxonomies. Ability to recover from disaster
  

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

The elements of a given mind map are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concepts, and are classified into groupings, branches, or areas, with the goal of representing semantic or other connections between portions of information. Mind maps may also aid recall of existing memories.

If you aren't using firefox as a browser, you should have a look at this opensource program. It works on Windows, Linux and a host of other operating systems. And if you thought that browsers were all the same, you'll think differently when you see how you can customise Firefox precisely to your requirements.The download from http://www.firefox.com is a few megabytes in size and so takes just a few minutes. When you have installed Firefox, you are going to need to customise it by means of applying add-ons - programs to make your browser much more capable and personal... The url is https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fashionyourfirefox/

Here are some of our recommended Firefox updates:

• Babelfish Translation - translate any web page or document file into another language!

• Noscript - Stops malicious attacks on your browser by untrusted / unknown sites
  

An office suite is a basic essential piece of software for the Knowledge Worker. For those of us who have spent many years on computers, there is now a free and OpenSource (FOSS) program called OpenOffice version 3.0 which does everything that Microsoft Office does including Spreadhseets, Word Processing, Drawing and Presentations. OpenOffice is compatible with a great many file formats including Excel, Word (including the latest .docx formats), Powerpoint which means that you will be able to carry on working on your existing files without interruption. If you have worked on Microsoft software before, you will find the interface in OpenOffice easy and intuitive although it is not as glitzy as the Microsoft product.

Have a look at the OpenOffice Website for further details and to download the suite.

We oftentimes tend to focus on the latest technologies and Gizmos but all too often the person behind the technology - you - is overlooked. It seems that while the education system is reasonably good at telling you about the world around you, it is not terribly effective about teaching you about yourself and what happens in your brain/mind/body/nervous system. Therefore, I believe that a study of thinking skills should form part of each PKM practitioner's personal growth plan.

I have taught thinking skills to a variety of audiences over the years ranging from school children to engineers and boards of directors in listed companies through our thoughtformz thinking skills project - the course outline includes:

Personal knowledge management (PKM) refers to a collection of processes that an individual needs to carry out in order to gather, classify, store, search, and retrieve knowledge in his/her daily activities (Grundspenkis 2007). One of its focus is about how individual workers apply knowledge processes to support their day-to-day work activities (Wright 2005)

Personal knowledge management (PKM) integrates personal information management (PIM), focused on individual skills, with knowledge management (KM). Many people undertaking this task have taken an organizational perspective. From this perspective, understanding of the field has developed in light of expanding knowledge about human cognitive capabilities and the permeability of organizational boundaries. The other approach for PKM is metacognitive - it compares various modalities within human cognition as to their competence and efficacy (Sheridan, 2008).

Connections to Organizations and Groups

The following initial objectives have been set for the KMAfrica.com Knowledge Warrior Project:

• To clearly understand and be able to communicate what PKM is

• To be able to develop and apply a personal PKM strategy which can then be used to create useful models of PKM
• To create a personal income stream and sustain wealth in the knowledge economy by using knowledge
• To use PKM to stop re-inventing the wheel, stop making the same mistakes
• To avoid ‘information overload’ and save energy, time and effort, by organising and being able to access your information and knowledge effectively
• To develop and hone your own knowledge skills and competencies
• To use your brain/mind/nervous system more effectively to provide you with the opportunities you need to succeed
• To successfully participate in global knowledge communities
• To develop kno-how of what software best facilitates your PKM activities
  

Benjamin Bloom (1956) developed a classification of levels that might be seen in intellectual behavior in learning. This taxonomy contained three overlapping domains: the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Within the cognitive domain, he identified six levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. These domains and levels are still useful today as you develop your critical thinking skills

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking involves logical thinking and reasoning including skills such as comparison, classification, sequencing, cause/effect, patterning, webbing, analogies, deductive and inductive reasoning, forecasting, planning, hyphothesizing, and critquing.

Creative Thinking