KM Europe 2004 Conference, Amsterdam

Mind the Tram

Next Monday (8th November) sees the start of the principal KM conference in Europe.

I will be there together with at least four of my colleagues from the European Knowledge Group. EKG was formed at the beginning of 2004 by an enthusiastic group of ex Sveiby Knowledge Associates – me included. I first came across SKA at an earlier KM Europe Conference in London in 2002 and loved the experiential learning tools which had been developed by Karl-Erik Sveiby and Celemi. I’m still a big fan of the tools and simulations - they provide a welcome contrast to much of the consultant speak that often surrounds KM. If you work in KM – or in some sort of knowledge capacity – you should try Apples & Oranges or Tango.

Anyway, I’m expecting lots of consultant speak next week plus an avalanche of new KM tools and systems from the technologists. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not caught up in the polarisation of KM. I believe that KM needs approaches that balance people and technology elements, but like most KM practitioners I worry that those new to KM often get sold a technical solution way before they have the capability to use it (and I don’t mean knowing which keys to press). It’s a little like my 15 year old son learning to drive in a Ferrari F60! As a technologist myself though I will be interested to see what new technical advances have been made with search algorithms, expert locators and knowledge aggregators – I’ll report back on the latest in KM ICT after the conference.

As far as the input from consultants and academics goes I guess that social network analysis and complexity theory (Dave Snowden’s new baby) will feature – especially as they represent such ideal topics for the people-centric KM camp. Storytelling is still around. Karl-Erik Sveiby is focussing on collaboration as well as presenting his KMAP tool. Personal KM (or PKM as it’s now been labelled) may be discussed – Karl Wiig is talking about People-Focussed KM – I guess as opposed to Organisation Focussed KM - or EKM as I saw it called on KnowledgeBoard recently (with, I assume, the ‘E’ representing ‘enterprise’). One wonders how many KMs we’ll end up with.

Refreshingly, my recommendation for the three days doesn’t have KM or even knowledge in the title at all. It’s the ECLO (European Consortium for the Learning Organisation) micro-event on Wednesday 10th. I literally stumbled across their event at last year’s conference and was richly rewarded with some genuinely insightful viewpoints of learning within organisations. Quirky maybe, but lots of food for thought and a great break from all that techno KM (or should I introduce a new label - TKM).

ExLink: KM Europe 2004
ExLink: European Knowledge Group
ExLink: ECLO