Old vs New Media

The Economist had a good survey on New Media. It quotes a media consultant as advising newspapers & magazines to make their content linkable rather than wall it off. I'd like ot link to that quote but The Economist has... walled it off. That aside, it's actually pretty good stuff.

And it relates directly to a recent post by Ross. There are two criticisms of the new media environment most frequently made by Trad Media pros:
1. No one reads blogs.
2. It's all nicked from mainstream media anyway.

Both of these are valid but miss the point.
1. Most blogs have a small number of readers - but that's OK. Most of the conversations I have are with small numbers of people rather than huge auditoriums. And a pub/cafe debate is a better metaphor than a news article for a blog.
2. Most bloggers will utilise whatever news sources they have. And those often happen to be from trad media. But most bloggers I know do not want to replace the BBC or the Wall Street Journal. The point for the blogger is what they add to the story. It's what you do with it that counts.

Sydney Inner West KM Conference 2009

Speaking of conferences, I posted this to the ACT-KM list last year - which earnt me accusations of sillines & negativity from other posters. These accusations are, of course, absolutely correct but the post did actually deal with lots of issues around conferences that annoy people.

Dear Sir, I have discussed your kind offer to keynote with my fellow Conference Committee members and we would like to assess your appropriateness in more depth. If you can answer "yes" to the following questions then we can take this further:
- Is your paper a spiteful & thinly veiled attack on your enemies* posing an intellectual treatise?
- Was it assembled by a poorly-paid postgrad researcher on your behalf in less than one week?
- Does your seminar consist of not of actual case studies but projects carried out by others you read about in discontinued journals or ones you hallucinated after a bottle of claret too many?
- Do you remind seminar attendees how fortunate they are to be in your presence at least once every 10 minutes?
- Are crucial parts of your seminar only available in your book?
- Are crucial parts of your book only available in your seminar?

*real or created by your paranoid imagination

Let me assure that the venue will be the finest location in Sydney's Inner West willing to offer kick-backs to the committee.

Delegates will have maximum opportunities to suck up to potential employers & clients. However we can only guarantee that vendors will be muzzled & leashed until 8pm - after that, delegates are advised to either return to their rooms or seek sanctuary in the hotel bar.

The draft theme is: "Knowledge Management - Flogging A Dead Horse". At the end of Day 1, delegates will have the opportunity to literally flog a dead horse - which will then be lightly grilled on a barbecue for dinner.

Conferences

On the new Green Chameleon, Patrick Lambe bags conferences and Vivian Kaye expresses her own doubts.

As a sometime organiser of the NSW KM Forum, I constantly struggle with how to make these sessions more participative vs. getting enough people through the door to make it worthwhile.

We have had some big-name speakers in the last few months and they tend to draw the crowds. However I have a problem with just getting in big names & letting them speak. It's not that they don't have anything to say (they do) or that attendees don't learn anything (they do - or so they tell me) but it takes attention away from the abilities & experiences of the practitioners in the room. It's a "broadcast" model of learning rather than a peer-to-peer one (think CNN vs. Bitorrent).

So how do we generate interest as well as increase participation? One option is the "guest facilitator" idea. David Rymer did this well at the Feb session. And our next session (this Thursday) is both facilitation-based & also introduces something else I'm keen on this year - liaising with other groups. The cool thing about KM is that it overlaps with some many other disciplines - it's at these fault lines that you tend to get the exciting possibilities. So this session is a joint event with ISPI.

Cooperation Commons

Brought to you by the Institute for the Future & Howard Rheingold: The Cooperation Commons...

Processes & Stories

I had the pleasure of meeting Roger Tregear last week. Roger is something of process improvement guru with an interest in storytelling. Roger will presenting on using storytelling to support BPM later this year. I for one am waiting with interest.

Learning To Fly

So we had Geoff Parcell at that there NSW KM Forum last Thursday. And fantastic he was too.

Best bit: Geoff spent a lot of time talking about "knowledge-based benchmarking" - which sounds a bit shandy but is really about creating a common framework for conversations & learning. Geoff's work with BP is COOL. But his work with the UN around AIDS is COOLER...

Hello Stranger

Yes, it has been a long time since posts. I've been busy n stuff. I still love you. Really, I do...