April 20, 2010

Bloggerview: Nirmala Palaniappan

Bloggerview: Nirmala Palaniappan

Bloggerviews are here!

Well, I managed to survive Atlanta's crazy festival weekend.  Although I didn't make it over to the Robotics Convention, the Sweetwater 420 Festival or the return of Freaknik (as if I would even be bothered to participate in that hot ass mess...again, lol) the 2010 Dogwood Festival provided the perfect way to enjoy a low-pollen Saturday - despite the fact that our resident Bulgarian, Nick, couldn't seem to grasp the concept of "casually" walking through the park, exploring the various art vendors and just whiling away the day.  Thankfully, Nick "gets" beer, so no one was harmed as we made our way to Joes on Juniper for beer and lunch (sooooo much cheaper than it was being sold in the Park).

Anywho, after months of thinking about it, I'm finally getting around to creating my Bloggerview posts.  I was inspired to create these posts profiling KM professionals because...well, because I tend to suck at career-related networking.  I mean, I can meet and recruit tennis players like it's nobody's business and I'm a pretty solid wing-man (no matter what my friend Iker says), but clearly I needed a class in Networking for Career Success.

The goal of these Bloggerviews is to profile KM professionals and, as inspired by management author, guru and academian, Henry Mintzberg, hopefully offer some insight into the work that Knowledge Managers do as a practical resource for folks in the field, folks considering the field, and organizations exploring how they can improve their KM strategies.  With any luck, these posts will not only expand my KM-universe, but serve as a great resource for others.

For those interested, you can check out my profile by following this link.  Future profiles will be embedded in the blog.  If you'd like to submit your own profile, send me an email to: youngde1@gmail.com.

Cheers!

April 12, 2010

Out of The Box - Week Ending 04/09

It's official, dim sum is dead in Atlanta! For the third time in two months I've attempted to satiate my appetite for the little bites of Chinese culinary goodness (at three different, formerly brilliant) restaurants and the for the third - at last time - I've been disappointed with food that is served cold (off of steaming carts, no less) and fails to please the palate. Thank God for Pho!

Anyway, the last week - when I haven't been obsessed with food - I've been thinking a lot about how the lack of understanding of KM among organizational leadership contributes to the failure of KM initiatives. This week's mix of articles provide some truly out of the box insight into KM branding and re-thinking the role and influence of KM.

  • Knowledge in action!The role of social influence in surging autism diagnoses makes me wonder how and what organization's transmit KM knowledge and awareness, externally, from their clients and competitors and, internally, from one another.
  • (Not so new) Trend of the Week: Crowdsourcing Popular, neologistic term, for outsourcing tasks to a large, diffuse group, usually without monetary compensation. While companies who attempt to abuse this concept will, inevitably, hit a wall, it's a fantastic way to engage your audience as part of your branding strategy.
  • The fascinating Nature.com article, Learning in the wild, points out the relationship between learning and personal interest; basically, people learn and take the time to become informed when a subject is personal. Knowledge managers looking to Brand their strategies and improve strategy adoption should learn from this insight.
  • Shout out to mystrategicplan.com for connecting me to Pamela Slim's Escape from Cubicle Nation blog
  • Question of the Week: Is it possible to create workspaces and workplaces that influence the creation, flow, and capture of knowledge?
  • Guerrilla marketing at its finest, now I just need to figure out how to leverage this from a KM perspective.
  • What role does your KM strategy play in providing input into the content and format of your companies annual report.
  • Reputation management in the digital space. Well written post from Mark Pollard on Cadbury's foray into social media

April 1, 2010

Tips for 2010 (A Fluffy, Feel Good "Forward")


I'm not in the habit of posting "forwarded emails" but this one put a smile on my face and knowing how taxing our work can be on us, I figured I'd share.
    Health:
  1. Drink plenty of water.
  2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
  3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
  4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy
  5. Make time to pray.
  6. Play more games.
  7. Read more books than you did in 2009.
  8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
  9. Sleep for 7 hours.
  10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk daily. And while you walk, smile.
    Personality:
  11. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
  12. Don't have negative thoughts over things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
  13. Don't over do. Keep your limits.
  14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
  15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
  16. Dream more while you are awake.
  17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
  18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with His/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
  19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
  20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
  21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
  22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
  23. Smile and laugh more.
  24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree...
    Society:
  25. Call your family often.
  26. Each day give something good to others.
  27. Forgive everyone for everything.
  28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.
  29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
  30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
  31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
    Life:
  32. Do the right thing! 
  33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
  34. GOD heals everything.
  35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
  36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
  37. The best is yet to come.
  38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
  39. Your innermost is always happy. So, be happy.