The Real list of the worlds best business story practitioners

Today my friend Shawn Callahan posted a list of the worlds best business storytellers.  You can read it here.

I know of several of the people on it and think it's a pretty good list.  But it seems flawed to me because it doesn't include Shawn himself, who I think is definitely worthy of being mentioned in this company.

So, without further adieu I give you the REAL list of the worlds best business story practitioners :)

Mary Alice Arthur - New Zealand - http://www.getsoaring.com/

Madelyn Blair - USA http://www.pelerei.com/about-pelerei/madelyn-blair.php

David Boje - USA http://peaceaware.com/vita/

Sean Buvala - USA - http://seantells.com/

Steve Denning - USA - http://www.stevedenning.com/site/Default.aspx

Bob Dickman - USA - http://www.first-voice.com/

Karen Dietz - USA - http://www.polaris-associates.com/AboutUs

Eva Snijders - Spain - http://evasnijders.com/

Terrence Gargiulo - USA - http://www.makingstories.net/

One Thousand and One - Australia - http://www.onethousandandone.com.au/

Limor Shiponi - Israel - http://www.limorshiponi.com/limor/

Tony Quilan - UK - http://narrate.typepad.com/about.html

Annette Simmons - USA - http://www.annettesimmons.com/

The Storytellers - UK - http://www.the-storytellers.com/

Story Worldwide - UK - Sarah Kelleher http://www.storyworldwide.com/profiles/sarah-kelleher/

Victoria Ward - UK http://www.sparknow.net/victoriaward.html

Sheila Wee - Singapore - http://storywise.com.sg/storytelling/

Shawn Callahan - Melbourne, Australia - http://www.anecdote.com.au 

Knowledge Management Influencers announced.

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when Keith de la Rue congratulated me on being recognised in the top 100 most influential people in #KM on Twitter.

Click on the logo to the right for more information.

It was an even bigger honor when I checked it out, to not only find that I was 17th, but more importantly surrounded by an amazing list of names in the industry.   

I don't feel in any way worthy to be listed with them and I am aware that the Top 100 list looks at Twitter only, where I have focus much of my sharing efforts, thus leaving out quite a few very highly regarded people.

People like We Know More, Dave Snowden and David Gurteen go without saying and it was most exciting to see so many Australians up in the list.  John Tropea, Arthur Shelly, Keith De La Rue, Nerida Hart, Matt Moore, Cory Banks, James Robertson, Michelle Lamb, Stephen Collins and James Dellow are all there, as well as Michael Sampson and a few of our New Zealand friends.  Also on the list is David Griffith (@kmskunkworks) from the University of Edinburgh who I think has one of the most enjoyable blogs in KM at the moment.

The thing that really stands out to me as an indication of the health of KM is the diversity of views and areas of expertise in the list. To me, Knowledge Management has always been the shoe-lace that holds the rest of the business together as it runs the race and turns the corners that management demands of it.  It pulls Finance, Learning & Development, IT, HR, Corporate Strategy, Sales and Operations together via the Knowledge Lens and encourages collaboration and cooperation across time, distance and people.  It does this encompassing both the formal and social interactions that make up the communications frameworks of our organisations, something that IT and previous iterations of KM failed to do.

It is long since KM was about technology & databases and while these things still play a part, a glance at this list shows that KM is really about people and they way they interact 1) with each other 2) with the resilience and goals of the organisation and 3) with the environment they coexist in.

But most of all, KM for me is about sharing. In this world of information overload and growing understanding of complexity, it is the way we learn to collaborate across teams, organisations and disciplines that is going to help us adapt to the needs of the future.  Today, a piece of information about a certain solution can help my business faster than a 4 year degree's worth of knowledge and I get those nuggets through my network of KM practitioners and professionals. They share with me, because I share my useful ideas and findings with them, for free, and often in response to them posting a problem or issue they are trying to overcome.  I guess that is what this list is identifying.  I hope, whatever your job title is, that you consider joining us.  Build a network of people in and around your life. Look for diversity in culture, trade, race, political opinion and expertise, then start helping people and you will see results. What you sow, you shall reap.

Thank you to Mindtouch for the recognition of the these fantastic people.

Finally, for those who don't understand the power of a professional social network, you are welcome to plug-in to a summary of mine and take advantage of my hard work setting it up.  Each week, Paper.li summarises the top posts from my network of over 450 KM professionals around the world.  You can subscribe to it here: http://paper.li/DeltaKnowledge/KM

Thoughts about Complexity and Surfing

My brother-in-law tried surfing and wind-surfing for the first time yesterday and it got me thinking about complexity and a few similarities became apparent to me.

Managing complex projects is a bit like surfing. You need to position yourself right and paddle like crazy to catch a great ride. It takes time to watch and try before you understand the patterns of the surf, but the result is a thrilling ride and lot of distance covered with very little effort. I am always amused by the elite swimmers of the business world who claim it was their paddling alone that was responsible for the wave in the first place.

Five rules for Improv

Yesterday, Prof. Mike Askew spoke about the Wisdom of Improv at CPX in Melbourne.

He shared 6 rules of improvisation that I think you will agree can apply to more than just that:
1. Always accept offerings
2. Make the other person look good
3. Listen and be attentive
4. Spontaneity (not pre-planning)
5. Fail joyfully
6. Trust others

Have you done each of these once today?

See more about the morning here.

Measuring Collaboration

Michael Sampson's June newsletter talked about how we measure collaboration.

How do we know if a group or team is being collaborative (or even an organization for that matter)? Are there objective attributes we could look for that would define collaborativeness?

He goes on to offer three possible ideas:
1) Collaborative technologies,
2) Collaborative langueage,
3) The presence of well-formed collaborative interaction routines


For me the answer might lie in looking at some definitions:
"Cooperation" is when we both work on complimentary tasks to achieve a shared goal.
"Collaboration" is when we both work on the same task for a shared benefit.

So indicators of collaboration would revolve around two areas (two that have been taking a lot of my time lately): Ambient Awareness and Adaptive Ability.

By ambient awareness I mean an awareness of the business around you outside the normal hierarchy. ie: talking about another person's project or problems, reading a few customer feedback letters before they are processed, glancing through an online industry forum, picking up when workmates are stressed or upset.
In terms of collaboration, this isn't so much about awareness of work loads, as it is about where a person or teams speciality can fill a gap. Collaboration could be evidenced by regular formal or informal discussions about current events and also possibly by a give-and-take economy, ie: I'll scratch your back in anticipation that you will either pay it back or forward so I will get a benefit eventually when I need it.

By adaptive ability I mean how well set up is the individual, team or entire organisation to respond to opportunities or threats, especially those outside their base responsibilities. This responsive ability could be measured in terms of people's:
- resources (do they have the time and budget to collaborate?)
- inclination (are they characterised by serving others and being dependable?)
- focus (are people open to change or over-reliant on set procedures and tasks?)

Following this logic then, the term "I don't know and I don't care" would be the very antithesis of collaboration.

>.<

If you are interested, Michael has written some fantastic books around collaboration and helping your business adopt collaboration solutions like Sharepoint for greater effectiveness.
Check them out here: www.michaelsampson.net/books.html

I Like Frogs!

The Knowledge Management Leaders Forum (KMLF) hosted Nigel Paine in Melbourne last night and what a great night of introspection, conversation, exasperation and revelation it was!

Nigel (@ebase on twitter) is an international management consultant with leadership experience in KM at places like the BBC. See his profile here.

Nigel spoke about teams or businesses being more like a frog than a bike. You can't just pull a frog apart, put it back to together again and expect it to work the same. When teams are forcefully manipulated, people fired without notice, changes made to the leadership structure, there is a residue left over. A lot of times that residue is lost trust and a fear of what could happen in the future. As a result people are only capable of working at a reduced capacity.

My favourite statement of the night went something like this:

"We spend millions getting 3% business improvements from systems like SAP when research shows many people operating at only 60% efficiency. We will simply be forced to start learning how to manage people to get the most out of their talents."

Of course saying this and knowing that our people are actually people, not machines is one thing.
Translating that in to how a CEO actually makes a business or division run is something else altogether.

Nigel and Shawn Callahan mentioned a few good books for those seeking to get their heads around these issues and start learning how they can configure their business to get the most out of its people.

• What got you here won't get you there - Marshall Goldsmith
• Immunity to Change - Robert Keegan

Finally, he talked about the coming death of what he called tactical HR - those HR departments simply focused on transactional, hiring and compliance issues. He foresees a continual frustration with companies thinking this way about their staff and seeing Talent as something held by people they haven't hired yet.

Instead there is a definite kinship between Knowledge Management and Strategic HR Management, focused on getting the best out of everybody in the business. About helping people grow and fit their vocations to the betterment of the company holistically, not just the bottom line.

If you would like to hear more about Nigel, visit his Blog here. A Storify summary of the evening can be found here.

KMLF meets once a month in Melbourne. You can find all their details and up-coming meetings on Meetup. We welcome newcomers and after tonight I hope we get a few more strategic HR people coming along to explore how they can become agents for strategic change in their businesses.