KMTALK ASIA

Can creativity be taught? Can we send a person for a 2-week workshop on creative thinking and expect him/her to do things more creatively? Or creativity is just a born-thing?- Some people are born creative and others are not. How easy it is to develop another Van Gogh or a Steve Jobs? We only find such creative souls emerge once in every century. Does that mean we should stay numb and wait for one great creative mind to appear from somewhere or we should work towards adding little creativity in the way we do our daily work, think or behave? [Read more →]

By Waltraut Ritter
Guest Blogger   

What happens when 100 people from all over the world share their experiences and knowledge to solve real life problems in real time?

This summer, Aalto University in Helsinki organised an experiment on “Prototyping Societal Innovation”.  In collaboration with the Committee for the Future of the Finnish Parliament, the New Club of Paris and other partners a new, global and self-renewing collaboration network was created.

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Starbuck wants to bring revolution, a Green revolution in this world! By end of this year, they want to come up with a ‘Beta Cup’ that could save a lot of trees from being abolished. Starbucks wants to move away from using its current paper cups. According to them, 58 billion paper coffee cups are thrown away, un recycled, each year. The implication of producing these cups are- cut down of 20 million trees and usage of 12 billion gallons of water. According to the Environmental Defense Organization, 53,000 homes could be powerd with the energy we consume through our paper cup consumption. [Read more →]

 Richard McDermott and Douglas Archibald have contributed a recent article on Community of Practice in Harvard Business Review’s March 2010 issue. The title was- Harnessing Your Staff’s Informal Networks. Previously both had written an article in KM Review on the impact of CoPs (Nov/Dec 2008). One of the key points of their research work was that despite the popularity and perceived value of CoPs, the extent to which they contribute to organizational performance has proved difficult to measure. [Read more →]

Have you ever intended to do something – really, honestly meant to – not done it, and then had to live with the consequences that haunted you?

Organizations are no different. You know what it is that really sets you apart. And you know enough about creating value to have a rich supply of good intentions. But what actually gets done?

Ironically, the first step to creating value starts with stopping. Identify and banish every behavior that is keeping you from doing more.

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Farmville is considered the most popular social games in the net, with a user of 75 million people, Farmville has created a history in online gaming. What makes Farmville so popular- there could be 100s of reasons behind. Some says, it gives a rural atmosphere, which lot of us, living in the cities, would like to experience.  To others, it gives a sense of ownership; people own a land, his/her own farm, crops, buildings, cattle etc.  and you can arrange them according to your preference. Statistics found that on average Farmville users spend 20-25 minutes a day to plow the land, buy seeds from market, harvest crops, acquire houses, re-arrange decoration items. [Read more →]

Asia is the most promising market for any discipline this days and KM is also quite alive in Asia. In coming 3-4 months quite a number of conferences are going to be held at various parts of Asia.  This week in March, there will be a 2-day session on Knowledge Management for Business in Indonesia.

Hong Kong Knowledge Management Society will organize “Making KM Productive”. Quite a number of KM gurus are going there to talk. 

India will host Consultation Workshop on Knowledge Management in April .

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 By Ron Young

Naguib Chowdhury contacted me a few days ago and said, ‘Ron, what do you think is happening with Knowledge Management today, as there is much going on with KM in Development?’

That was a good and timely question to ask me as I was reading a report I had recently finished for the United Nations, Asia Pacific Regional office in Bangkok, when I received Naguib’s question.

I suppose one of the benefits of getting older, is that it enables us to better see emerging patterns and trends. For me, since 1993, I have certainly seen emerging trends in knowledge management. It has taken me around the world several times. But because I am based in Cambridge UK and the South of France, I first detected changing trends in Europe. In simple terms, I would say: [Read more →]

KMTALK recently had a brief chat with Dr. Altaf Abdul Gaffar from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on the importance of managing knowledge in his institution and in the development sector as a whole. Dr. Altaf has been working in the Operations Planning & Services Department of IDB for the last 4 years.  The Islamic Development Bank is a Multilateral Development Bank works towards fostering economic development and social progress in the Muslim world. It has a number of 1000 staff from 63 different nations.

Our first question to him was- How do you see the importance of technology in a development organization like yours?

Altaf: Information Technology (IT) is a key to the operation of a development finance institution. Given the multi-national nature of these institutions, there is a significant IT requirement. [Read more →]

Microsoft and IBM are into the WAR!- the war to capture the enterprise portal market. This year both the companies have launched extra features to embed social networking functions more explicitly in their portal solutions. As identified by many, social networks are now the driver for fresh ideas, which leads to faster decision making, creativity and innovation. Both Microsoft and IBM are in the race-offering new Web 2.0 like features embedded in their portals.
 
SharePoint 2010 is considered by Microsoft as better, faster, and more secure processes. [Read more →]