Out of The Box - Week Ending 02/19

I've been enjoying a "Lifetime" kinda Sunday which, usually, involves laying in bed, watching whichever string of Valerie Bertinelli, Tori Spelling, or ex-Charlie's Angel made-for-TV movies are on and eating whatever leftovers can be nuked during commercials (at which time you're also making quick runs to go potty). But, today I was a little more mobile, taking advantage of great weather to enjoy a variety of recent cinematic pleasures from Leap Year (whose only redeeming qualities are my current female silver screen crush, Amy Adams, and its Irish setting) to Chris Rock's psuedo-mentary, Good Hair, which tried to be both informative and funny and totally missed the boat on both counts.

Anywho, after an amazing meal of rack of lamb and a side of Olympics (thanks Em!) and a quick nap on Em's Lifetime-Sunday-facilitatin' couch (it's that cozy...and, totally TMI, but if you lay just right it'll even cradle your bladder so you can go for hours without having to get up to pee), I started combing through last weeks latest and greatest blog posts and articles.

• Wirearchist (or is it wirearchitect?), Jon Husband, re-presents his amazing insights into Today's Interconnected Environment and reinforces my vision of the future of KM as a field that creates meaning out of available information and knowledge and feeds it back back to its end-users.
• I'm on the verge of making Nancy White my first KM crush of 2010. Like Nancy, I love things you can touch and play with during collaborative strategy sessions (get your mind out of the gutter) and I totally appreciate this post on card decks used in facilitations.
• I'm not known for putting my faith in B-School programs to improve the world of business, but this Knowledge@Wharton article emphasizing the role of collaborating "across the aisle" as an aid in the cycle of innovation doesn't completely suck, lol.
• A great article supporting personalized strategies (as needed) over (hard-core) formalized strategies. ('Cause, you know, it's all about balance, bay-bay.) In the end it all comes down to "insight, accountability, and culture"...who knew?!?!
• KM Opportunity: Don't just nix the sucky ideas floating around your organization...percolate 'em! Or, rather, incubate 'em; maybe tossing them around a bit will make them less sucky and more brilliant.
• Question of the Week: Is your organization spending tons of money on contractors and outsourcing? Two BusinessWeek articles (here and here) on 'buying local' suggest an interesting approach for KM (most likely in conjunction with HR) to influence development of internal resources.
• Google's interest in buying and selling energy represents yet another interesting development from Google Labs. See what happens when you start leveraging the power of knowledge and information? See?!?!