Henley Highlights

I thoroughly enjoyed the Henley KM Forum last week. It was a great privilege to have been invited as a speaker among such illustrious big names synonymous with Knowledge Management.

Here are a few of the anecdotal fragments/highlights/ memorable quotes from the three days:

Leif Edvinsson

“because creative people are intrinsically ‘so clever’ they are more than often seen as a threat”

Verna Allee

In collective cultures the innovators are often seen as outsiders

There is a paradox that process management/improvement results in no variation. Innovation requires variation.

We essentially have a two world problem ‘People and networks’ vs ‘process and technology’

Euan Semple

I am a recovering knowledge person

Both the very rich and the very poor are equally confident because money no longer matters to them.

If your organisation says that social networking is too time consuming, ask why their meetings go on all day and they spend so much time writing 40 page reports that no-one reads.

Niall Cook

Don’t forget that middle management do not always want to be liberated

The hyperlink is the biggest technological breakthrough of recent times

Dave Snowden

The apprentice model didn’t just share knowledge. Apprentices modified the masters process resulting in conceptual blending (and innovation).

The first invasive species in an environment has no competitor and then the ecology organises around them.

Acknowledging complexity means discarding outcome measurement and starting to manage the present and measure the impact.

Karl-Erik Sveilby

Studies of Australian Aboriginal culture reveals that leadership was often swapped based on the situation and relevant knowledge an individual held. Karl ask for suggestions of others similar human societies and I suggested the archeologists on Time Team as whenever they find a roman artefact the roman expert takes control and the bronze age and medieval experts take their shovels.

Chris Collison

Chris told a great tale of innovation and learning from Great Ormond Street Hospital by looking at a completely different fieldsof interest.

Victor Newman

Victor regularly referred to TV show, ‘The Wire’, as an example of a complex system that learned and adapted as a reaction to feedback.

A nice twist on the “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” in that Organisations in are beginning to “only manage what they can measure”.

Raj Datta

Anonymity (in social networking) can amplify groupthink

Creativity is useless without collaborative hands

Building connections builds capacity

Jo Donaldson

Innovation is often just discovering what is already there

A recent NAO review reported that the biggest barrier to learning and innovation was attitude to risk and the size, complexity or structure of an organisation.

We need to give more permission to the front line

Innovation loves a crisis

Go over, under or round but never give up

Janine Nahapiet

The knowledge economy = a relational economy

Social trust has a bigger impact than education on growth rates.

‘bridging’ individuals who learn to speak across different networks, bring ideas together, are promoted faster, earn more and get greater personal success.