Mathemagenic

In the afternoon we divided into several groups with objective to think about creating a community based on our common (KM) interests. It turned out to be funny exercise: people wanted to discuss interest, but not creating a community around it. For me it's related to the discussion about natural development of a community that you can't reinforce - it grows or not.

We did a kind of voting to select topic for interest groups, so the selection is a good representation of "hot topics" between KMSS participants.

Interest groups (with some comments or ideas)

• Methodologies for KM practice group discussed need for a framework for KM implementation and guidelines: when to do what and why it should work. Personally I'd like to add HRD/training/learning methods to the spectrum of KM tools
• I was surprised how many people joined cross-cultural issues in KM group. Next to other things this group suggested to look in three directions regarding the problem
  • case-studies in companies
  • interactive translations
  • assimilation vs. customisation
• Communities of practice raised a heated discussion
  • Definition of community is not clear. Group suggested several characteristics: shared understanding, social capital, similar values, system of activity, two or more people.
  • How far (if) management interventions can support natural developments of a community? Are those interventions responsible for a death of the community?
  • If community is capable of innovating?
• KM in engineering
  • What engineers want: knowledge is organised and visible (at this point I've got some ideas about knowledge-logs in engineering :)
  • Why: keep knowledge in company/department, faster learning curve
• Context sensitiveness was my group. We went for a bit philosophical discussion about the importance of context and tacit, but then turned to more practical things: ways to share context and tacit knowledge. We didn't have many answers, but more questions:
  • What is context?
  • What kind of value shared context adds?
  • How to support sharing context? What technology can do and what not? What motivation and skills people need? What kind of environment?