Over the last couple of days my head has been buzzing around with what promises to be quite an adventure, for sure. Yes, indeed, I am talking about the "Next Generation Knowledge Sharing & Learning Online Conference Event – In Spring 2008?", which I blogged about a couple of days ago. Since that blog post, and after various conversations in Twitter, a number of different ideas and conversations have started to come together and by the looks of it, it sounds like the thought of a face to face event here in Gran Canaria is gaining more and more momentum by the minute. I am in the process now of checking a number of different things and how they could work together, which, for those of you familiar with hosting these kind of events I am sure you can relate to a great extent.
At this point in time, I cannot confirm anything at the moment, since I am just getting started with various different conversations trying to find out how we could make it happen, but the fact that we have got about 40 people interested thus far (And more coming up, I am sure) is a good enough start for us, I would think. I have been thinking that having an event with about 200 for the first edition may well be an interesting beginning and already having 20% of that target audience is a good enough motivation to keep moving things further. Or, at least, try to.
I am sure that, when the time comes, I will be probably asking for some additional help and advice on a number of different topics, but for the time being I thought I would bring up to you folks what I have been thinking as far as the title of the conference is concerned, so that you would have the opportunity to chime in and share your thoughts on it. I know that quite a few of you have already engaged on a superb conversation on a previous blog post I put together (Which I will be chiming in sharing some more thoughts on the topics discussed thus far) and somehow I have the feeling that you will like the title of the conference I’ve been thinking about: "Knowledge Management 0.0 2008 – Bridging the Gap" (Or "Back to Basics"). In short, "KM 0.0 Bridging the Gap".
How did I come up with such title? Well, like it happens in most cases. Through a serendipitous knowledge discovery. I was going through the superb Knowledge (News)Letter that David Gurteen gets to send around every now and then on some really hot topics related to Knowledge Management. In it I found a short reference to one of my favourite KM bloggers from quite some time now: Dave Pollard, where David pointed to, what to me, is one of the best definitions on what Knowledge Management is all about. And you all know how I feel on trying to define KM. Never have done it, and not sure I am going to start now!
But one thing for sure is that if you are into Knowledge Management, whether it is traditional KM or KM 2.0 (More on this later, by the way), I strongly suggest you have a look into one of the most impressive blog posts that Dave Pollard has put together on the subject for a little while now: KM 0.0 – Simply Enabling Trusted Context-rich Conversations among Communities that Care. I read the blog post a couple of weeks ago and had it in my drafts for a potential upcoming blog entry on the subject, but all of a sudden I had one of these ah-ha! moments when re-reading it that I just couldn’t help bringing it forward…
Dave just put together the very exact purpose of the conference I would love to make happen in 2008 in Gran Canaria. And all of that because of this particular definition on Knowledge Management:
"KM is simply the art enabling trusted, context-rich conversations among the appropriate members of communities about things these communities are passionate about"
Whoooaaahhh! Never thought I would feel so identified with a KM definition like that one. And one that clearly represents the spirit of the conference event I would love to host, if everything works out all right.
I know I still haven’t written down the blurb for what the main description of the conference event would look like, but after reading that quote and after reading Dave’s post, you know where I will be heading. Pay particular attention to the table he has put together on that entry on KM 1.0: All about Content & Collection and KM 0.0: (PKM): all about context and connection.
This is exactly why I am more than happy to call it KM 0.0 2008; back to the roots of how Knowledge Management was first envisioned a few years ago, as Dave has nicely indicated in this particular paragraph:
"At the request of several readers, I’ve pulled this all together in the table above into a framework for what some have called KM 2.0, but which I prefer to call KM 0.0, because it’s getting back to the roots of why and how people share what they know. It could also be called PKM — Personal Knowledge Management — because it’s about self-managed content and peer-to-peer connectivity."
I tell you, that blog post is just so spot on with the spirit of what I have envisioned for the conference event, based on the various different conversations taking all over the place and my own thoughts as well. So much so that I have contacted Dave on the subject and he is game for us to make use of Knowledge Management 0.0, a.k.a. KM 0.0, which is something that I am hoping to be re-using more and more over here, as, like I said, I am feeling incredibly identified with it.
Thus what do you think? Nothing concrete, of course. I know how touchy the selection of a title for a conference event is going to be like, but this is what is in my mind at the moment. And would love to hear your thoughts, opinions, ideas, suggestions, etc. etc. on the topic. Would KM 0.0 2008 work for you? Go ahead and share your thoughts over here, or contact me offline or carry on further the conversations with me in Twitter. After all, this is not just my conference, but our conference. And now it is your turn to weigh in your two cents 🙂
Tags: Twitter, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Management, KM, Social Computing, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Media, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Learning 2.0, KM 1.0, KM 2.0, KM 0.0, Personal Knowledge Management, PKM, eLearning, Corporate Learning, Conference Events, Live Events, Events, Communities, Collaboration, Remote Collaboration, Virtual Collaboration, Gran Canaria, Spain, 2008, KM Basics, Knowledge Letter, David Gurteen, Dave Pollard, How To Save The World, Trust, Context, Conversations, Passionate, Passion, Knowledge Management 0.0, KM0.0-08
might i suggest the first t-shirt idea, wait for it….
“kaymmm oh dot oh”
or some variation. i’ll show you a mockup when i have a chance. have a great weekend.
I like to think that I wrestled reasonably well with what dave calls KM 0.0 in the revision-to-KM-book project I finished in early November.
I think that what that-which-is-called-is-called-web-2.0 brings to the KM party is the “connectivity” that was long called for but seen as lacking in KM. And it is that connectivity which shines the sunlight on the structural and cultural obstacles to KM in the context of (still) industrial era org structure and management philosophy.
Combine that with the emergent sociology it engenders / has engendered to date, toss in the encoding of many work processes into IT systems over the past half decade and mix briskly with the layer of easy-to-use PKM tools, services and widgets, and there’s a reasonable chance that the dynamics Dave refers to in the quoted “”KM is simply the art enabling trusted, context-rich conversations among the appropriate members of communities about things these communities are passionate about”? are the evolutionary results of an ongoing greater awareness, familiarity and increased scope of use of IT tools in the process of carrying out interdependent knowledge work.
kAY-mOO!
Hey, Luis, would you consider doing this in late spring, early summer? The KM4Dev community meeting will be around that time. It might be REALLY cool to bump them up against each other. There is a TON in common in terms of ideas and values, just a different domain (international development)
Whatever you call it, I’m interested. Convergence is in the air, whether we plan it or not.
Happy and Prosperous New Year to you, Luis!
I quite agree with the title … A kind of back to basics! Something I have been thinking about for some time, since I went around meeting folks across different organizations, and understanding what shape KM is taking there. Would like to hear more about the conference, too!