nyc - big apple

NYC was remarkably unwork-related as I spent most of my time with KT checking out this and this and this.

Very pleasant morning spent with Jenny Ambrozek discussing network analysis, collaboration and our surprising number of mutual acquaintances.

Seattle next...

put your hands up for detroit

Stan Garfield* arranged a one-day Mid-West KM meet - featuring attendees from GM, Ford, the US Airforce, Deloitte, The Fed and others. Stan kindly picked me up from Detroit bus station and introduced me to the finer points of Mexican cuisine. The one-dayer was a darn good start - and I'll be posting the mp3 files to the SI KM Leaders list when I return to Australia.

*In its infinite wisdom, HP has decided to disband Stan's KM team. If you need an inspirational KM evangelist then look no further...

toronto - funky cold spadina

Toronto has been a lot of fun so far - not least because it is a long weekend here (Victoria day?)

Sunday involved doging the rain and seeing Bonde Do Role and The Death Set.

Monday was spent having lunch with Dave Pollard and then an afternoon with Sean Howard and Eli McIlveen. The evening ended with me in an Irish bar somewhere on College Street having lost the power of speech. At that point, I thought it wise to go home.

Detroit tomorrow...

signals

On Saturday, lots of people pegged me as being Irish. I don't speak with any trace of an Irish accent despite having a good Irish surname (derived from Mordha meaning "noble") and (allegedly) some Irish ancestry. But I was wearing a bright green T-shirt (thanks again TripAdvisor) and I think people were picking up on that cue.

boston

So I missed the Boston KM Forum but Jack took to me Popsignal in the evening. You had to pre-book and for a moment I thought we weren't going to get in. When Jack said his name, the woman in front of us (who was already in) yelled "JACK!!! JACK VINSON!!! GREAT TO SEE YOU!!!" - which kinda sealed it. So in we went. Jack got busy with the Wii while I went after free T-shirts from TripAdvisor and slingpage followed by some vociferous debating with the HBSP online crew. Several people offered me a job - but that was before I told them i. I wasn't a programmer & ii. I was only in town for 3 days.

The following day I had lunch with Bill Ives & Dan Keldsen after wandering around Cambridge for the morning. I then had drinks at the Harvard Club with Nat Welch who now works for CFAR and pleasant dinner with Lisa Abrams - an old IBM colleague.

My last day in Boston was spent having lunch with the effervescent Doug Cornelius. It was a lovely suny day so I spent the afternoon hanging out by the MIT campus and watching the boats on the river.

Many thanks to everyone who made my stay so enjoyable.

chicago - swings & roundabouts

So yesterday morning I rocked up to a gig on Enterprise Performance Support Systems put on by Dirk Tussing from Executive Learning Exchange & some dudes from Tata Interactive. An EPSS is an embedded tool that supports inexperienced workers focues processes and systems (e.g. call centre staff or claims agents). There were muffins and some nice conversation.

Then I spent the afternoon with Tim "Podcast" Keelan. Tim has a knack for constructing cool P2P learning content and a penchant for ranting - which are both good things.

I bought a ticket for this show and actually made it to the performance this time.

However, I did miss my flight this morning (boo) but by chance got to see Cory Doctorow* doing his thing at Chicago Public Library. Which kinda rocked with fists of steel.

*Kim - This guy hates CCTV and believes we must take back our own privacy - you'd love him.

iinterestiing south

I was gutted to be missing this but glad the guys & gals pulled it off. Go team!!!!

chicago - km & exhaustion

Yesterday I went to the KM Chicago gig with Stefan Lafloer & Dave Simmons & the Kroll dudes. I recorded these sessions and will be making the results available when I get back to Sydney. I finally got to meet Alice Dunlap-Kraft (who I knew from my IBM days).

Then it was full steam ahead to the Art Institute of Chicago, Millenium Park and Lake Michigan. Which is a lake so huge you could mistake it for the ocean. I even bought a ticket to the Annoyance Theatre improv gig - but passed out instead.

I am not a mornings person but jetlag tends to get me up early and then knock me out early.

washington - storytelling weekend - golden fleece

So the Golden Fleece Storytelling conference takes place in Chevy Chase*, Maryland - just north of DC. I'm navigating while Prof. Golden is driving the small rental car through driving rain from Reagan National Airport. We make it in enough time to see Kelly Cresap open show.

• Cilian Fennell does a masterful presentation on the hero's journey as it relates to innovation. I think the Joseph Campbell stuff has been overused somewhat but it is hard not to warm to a session that included gorgeous pictures of the Irish landscape, parasitic biology, recent Irish economic history and the question: "What colour is the Gaelic language?"
• Oran Sandel's session involves physical theatre and movement which normally I'm not adverse to. But for some reason I have a bit of block with it and hide in the coffee room. Oran's a good guy though.
• I finally get to meet Victoria Ward from Sparknow. She presents with Ellen Collins from the MLA on this research. Love it. Especially the part about using stories to define the boundaries of "knowledge transfer" in this this context.
• I am ashamed to admit that I have to leave Leif Josefsson's presentation on the Metafari to pass out from jetlag. Oh well.
• Gerry Lantz & Deb Maher talked about Appreciative Inquiry - which is a positive way to end the day.

All in all, a fun day. There was a student film crew wandering around so I wonder if we'll see any outputs from that...

*I think Fletch was his finest hour - how about you?

washington - storytelling weekend

So the Friday of the Washington DC Storytelling event took place in the S Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian. It was a Steve Denning production with four speakers and Madelyn Blair MCing. The auditorium was huge but the seats were bolted down lecture-style which didn't make for a particularly collaborative experience. I believe Steve recorded the sessions so I'll put a link up to those when they are ready but in the meantime, some observations:

• I liked Madelyn's intro - esp. her story about the antique shop-owner's comment.
• Dorthothy Leonard was pretty darned good as a presenter - as you'd hope a university professor to be. I'm a fan of Deep Smarts so was interested to hear her take on the role of story in the innovation process. The key thing it reinforced for me: If you want to find out an organisation's attitude to innovation - and therefore what forms of innovation will succeed - then listen to its stories.
• Linda Coffman has been working on the uses of digital storytelling in learning at P&G. It seems that P&G have started some work in this area - the question is: will they actually deploy it? Of the two stories made, one is pretty dire (as Linda herself acknowledged) but the second one is very powerful (although the subject matter initially baffled some men in the audience). A suggestion to P&G: Easy on the emotive soundtrack - it felt a but manipulative. The more powerful your story, the simpler your visual and audio cues. BTW check out the Center for Digital Storytelling.
• Claudia L'Amoreaux is (if she'll pardon the expression) a hippy. And Education Community Developer for Second Life's Linden Labs. Her discussion on Second Life really brought home to me how those immersed in the SL environment are using it creatively and flexibly. I remain to be convinced that it's quite right for me but I am willing to give it another go.
• Finally Steve Denning was up - talking about creating dynamic team/organisational "hot spots" through story. By this stage, I had been awake for about 48 hours and crashed part-way through Steve's presentation. I am looking forward to the recording though.

cell phone ring tone

My cell phone number while in the US is +1-202-560-4885. Feel free to ring or txt if ya wanna.

America

So it's all booked. I'm in the Qantas Lounge @ Sydney about to board my flight. Check out the Dopplr widget to the right. Or post a comment here if you want to meet up.

Washington from May 9th to 11th.
Chicago from May 12th to 14th.
Boston from May 15th to 17th.
Toronto from May 18th to 20th.
Detroit from May 21st to 22nd.
New York from May 23rd to 27th.
Seattle from May 26th to 29th.
San Francisco from May 29th to 31st.
Los Angeles from June 1st to 2nd.

podcast - luis/patrick/alex - email detox (3): tools or solutions?

Download the final part of the email detox podcast.

• 00:00 - Alex agrees with Luis on email politics.
• 01:20 - Humans as political animals - in public or in private?
• 03:00 - Should we be selling tools or solutions?
• 06:00 - Applying social software to business problems.
• 08:00 - The email detox workout video.
• 10: 00 - Wrap up & next steps.

Get Part 1 & Part 2.