Posts Tagged 'Knowledge Management'

The Black Hole of Email

Posted on March 15th, 2018 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Organizational Solutions

I heard the phrase for the first time back in the nineties, when I was an Intel representative in a multi-company exploration of the then-new practice of Knowledge Management: “If only Siemens knew what Siemens knows”, a manager from that company shared a saying that was often used there. And indeed, a major issue with knowledge in large companies is the difficulty of sharing it across the organization. Research shows that employees spend about a fifth of their time trying to track down information they need – that’s one day a week – and they often fail to find it.. Read more

New Insight Article: Libraries and Knowledge in an Age of Information Overload

Posted on December 13th, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

In October I gave an invited keynote lecture at the XV International Conference on University Libraries at UNAM, the national university of Mexico. The conference theme was how libraries can face the challenges of the coming years, when infinite knowledge is available to anyone at the swipe of a smartphone screen, and continue to provide value to their users and to society; my keynote was to address the phenomenon of information overload and its repercussions for both libraries and users. This gave me an opportunity to combine two fascinating domains: my core field of Information Overload, and the evolution of.. Read more

Email, Digital Photography, and the Hole in our Historical Record

Posted on April 30th, 2017 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion, Impact and Symptoms

Letters from the past One fine day in the 20th century BCE Ilabrat-bani, an Assyrian merchant from Kültepe in Anatolia, wrote to one Amur-ili a letter concerning shipments of textiles, and providing advice for travel. The letter, written in cuneiform on a clay tablet, survived to reach present day historians and inform their research. On June 8th of 1511 Piero Venier, a merchant living in Sicily, penned a letter to his sisters in Venice. It contained his observations from an Auto de Fe he’d witnessed in Palermo, where the Spanish Inquisition burned at the stake conversos suspected of heresy amid.. Read more

Wedding Photos and Managing Information Overload

Posted on September 30th, 2014 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Recently I attended a session at Haifa University, where the MA students of the Faculty of Management presented their research theses. I love these opportunites to hear bright young folks share their ideas! One presentation attracted my attention in particular: Dina Fridman talked about “Contemporary Wedding Photography: New photography Practices and digital wedding album management” (see her abstract here). The point is that today everyone has a camera in their phone, so the role of the traditional professional photographer is complemented by scores of amateurs who create a vast number of photos, then share them online. Dina wanted to research.. Read more

New Insight Article: Lessons From the First Decade of Knowledge Management

Posted on March 5th, 2013 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

I was very fortunate to hop on the KM bandwagon long before it became a bandwagon, before it was a trend or a buzzword, before it was even called Knowledge Management. This forced me to really think about what it really was all about; and it gave me the opportunity to share this thinking with others who were leading the exploration of this new territory. Today, 17 years and many projects later, I observe that most people don’t look beyond the Knowledge Management hype; entire organizations fail to address the layers below the obvious immediate aspects of KM. Thus, although.. Read more

If Knowledge is Power, Does it Corrupt?

Posted on November 1st, 2012 · Posted in Analysis and Opinion

Does knowledge corrupt? The phrase “Knowledge is Power” has been around since biblical times, and is no doubt well founded. The phrase “Power Corrupts” is newer, and just as true. But what if we put these two together? Does it follow that “Knowledge Corrupts”? More specifically: does knowledge, in excess, corrupt personal or organizational effectiveness? I can see a number of mechanisms that may make it so. Hoarding of knowledge to secure power One way that knowledge corrupts is when its owners fight to retain the power it represents. This is well known as a concern when you try to.. Read more