Quoted wisdom

For those of you who have not seen it yet (or perhaps don't receive the magazine), I am quoted quite a bit in an article in this month's issue of Executive Update.  The article, "Turning Member Smarts into Organizational Knowledge," discusses what steps associations can take to leverage their members' knowledge to help better educate staff so they can serve member needs more effectively.  The writer, Jennifer Salopek, included several quotes from me about the importance of harnessing knowledge and incorporating it into organization-wide conversations, rather than simply focusing on capturing, storing and packaging it. 

This article is rather timely because I think that many associations are just now trying to unravel the mystery of how to leverage knowledge as a true intangible.  The production mentality is not working at all well and a fresh approach is needed.  Fortunately, we have years of mixed to dismal corporate sector performance (with some success rolled in there as well) from which we can learn and avoid making the same mistakes!  The good news is that there is a better way of thinking about these questions, some which comes through in this article.  I encourage everyone to read it, and not just for my pithy insights!  Great job Jennifer!

Comments

[Denham]

May I suggest blogs, social bookmarks (del.icio.us) and wikis as possible affordances for encouraging ideas, promoting sharing & collaborative actions?

Your distinction between 'packaging' information and conversations for knowledge exchange is key. What organizations need is ways to connect their participants, tools to enable dialog, ecologies to promote knowledge flows and empathy to increase learning, sense-making, understanding and awareness.

[Steve Epstein]

A very interesting post....
With content creation exploding.....

I believe that Association executives should examine Google Desktop beta..........
This is the direction of KM on the desktop....

Steve Epstein