Preparing
for Conversations with Jerry Ash
On Personal
Knowledge Management (PKM)
Jerry Ash
Senior
Counselor, The Forbes Group
Founder and Chief Executive, Association of Knowledgework
AOK Chief
Executive Jerry Ash takes the lead this month in the AOK STAR
Series, with his tenure as STAR Series moderator taking place
from March 17-28.
 Biography
Jerry is a lifelong
communicator whose experience has included a broad spectrum of
advocacy and leadership roles including university professor,
editor, publisher, author, state senator, hospital public relations
director, CEO of a state hospital association, and executive
director of an organ donor organization. In every role, he has
been an innovator and agent of change.
He is internationally
known as a pioneer in the emerging new business strategy of knowledge
or intellectual asset management and is one of the E-100 global
leaders recognized by Entovation International, pioneers in Innovation.
His articles and opinions have been published in Communications
World, Knowledge, Inc., Computer World, CIO Canada, Association
Management and the i3 Update of the UK.
Jerry uses information
technology by teaming with IT professionals and focuses on information
content and application as the centerpiece of the business process
for the Knowledge Age. People, he insists, are the basis of all
knowledge; computers the great enablers. He was the founder and
moderator of the Association KM (Knowledge Management) Network.
He continues to provide strategic counseling to other associations
through The Forbes Group.
During six years
as CEO of the Nevada Hospital Association, he led the turnaround
of the organization. As executive director of LifeGift Organ
Donation Centers in Texas, he teamed with its technology-wise
employees to build the first-of-its-kind 24-hour communications
network connecting 180 voluntary hospitals from the Gulf Coast
to the Texas Panhandle and increasing organ referral by 20 percent
and tissue referral by 300 percent in the startup year.
Jerry holds bachelors
and masters degrees in journalism from West Virginia University.
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Commentary:
Getting to Know You: The World's Only Knowledge Manager
After three years,
AOK is finally beginning to meet its goal: to provide a home
for people from every specialty across professional, geographic,
cultural, economic and hierarchical barriers to understand our
new roles as the keepers of and exclusive managers of
knowledge.
AOK has always "aimed
low." We have viewed our desired audience not in terms of
corporate executives or knowledge managers, but in support of
individual knowledge workers engaged in knowledge sharing throughout
the fabric of modern business enterprise. Of course, we have
needed and welcomed the KM pros, but our ultimate goal is to
bring them together with "the rest."
Our launch of a
book-writing project to collaboratively produce a handbook on
Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) is our best chance to reach
down where knowledge can actually be managed.
Since December,
I have had the extraordinary experience of collaborating with
knowledge-savvy practitioners from across the spectrum and around
the world in the shared writing of Personal Knowledge Management:
A Guide to Leveraging What You know. Among them also are
KMers who are as close to the target audience as we can get.
Together, they create a dynamic that will result in an important
result.
Before I share that
experience with you, I need to leap forward to the goals of this
STAR Series. My purpose for the next two weeks, is to engage
every member of AOK in the same teaching and learning, giving
and taking we have been experiencing among the 40 members of
the AOK BookTeam.
I also intend to
take away from you the richness of thought and matter-of-factness
of knowledge only you have, and which we need to make this book
make sense to those who need to make sense of the knowledge phenomenon.
I hope you find
passion in these words because it is passion that will move the
knowledge agenda forward.
Our book is taking
shape. It is divided into Parts 1 and 2.
In Part 1, in just
seven brief chapters (50 -60 pages total), we expect to summarize
the seven essential components of PKM. We have used label heads
for easy identification; perhaps we will find more exotic titles
before we go to press, but here's what we call them now:
- Chapter 1: Perspective
- Chapter 2: Rediscovery
- Chapter 3: Partnership
- Chapter 4: Collaboration
- Chapter 5: Performance
- Chapter 6: Learning
- Chapter 7: Strategy
I'll leave the content
to your imagination and recommendation!
Part 2 will contain
a cafeteria of Action Steps designed to help the reader put lessons
learned into personal practice.
Carl Frappaolo,
executive vice president of the Delphi Group, U.S.,and Xenia
Stanford, president of Stanford Solutions, Inc., and editor of
KnowMap, Canada, are collaborating on the invention of the tandem
tools of a Personal Knowledge Audit (PKA) and a Personal Knowledge
Map (PKM). These will be the first of many practical "tools"
provided to help the reader take charge of his or her own knowledge
as well as his or her own personal and professional destiny.
The site contains
a preliminary draft of the Table of Contents, the Introduction,
Chapter 1: Perspective, and a sample of the True Stories we expect
to use to illustrate actual practice of PKM in real life situations.
Now, back to our
STAR Series Dialogue:
In thinking through
the content of PKM: A Guide, it has occurred to me that
the beginner might be disappointed to learn that our Personal
Knowledge Audit (PKA) and Personal Knowledge Map (PKM) won't
actually reveal to them "what they know." The typical
audit is really about what one does or does not do
with knowledge; and, the typical map simply provides a picture
of how one does or does not manage what he or she knows.
That's not good
enough in a book that proposes that its readers think of themselves
as "knowledge stockholders," individuals who possesses
the primary resource of the Knowledge Age -- knowledge -- and
who need to take charge of their personal destiny by managing
personal knowledge.
So, what is this
knowledge that is so valuable? How can we capitalize on it if
we don't know for sure what it is? Why haven't we addressed the
classic lament of Shell Oil's Ken Derr who has been quoted ad
infinitum: "If only we knew what we know?"
Well, the idea of
"knowing what we know" -- even as an individual --
is daunting.
Nevertheless, the BookTeam is agreeing with me that a Personal
Knowledge Audit and a Personal Knowledge Map won't make sense
to our thesis unless it is preceded by a Personal Knowledge Inventory.
If our reader is to "leverage knowledge," he or she
will have to know what it is!
Therefore, we've
been confronting the task. Here are some of my own thoughts on
the subject:
If you think about
it, most of us would be surprised to discover that we don't know
what we know even as individuals; and, we can never totally know
it.
The human mind is
still the most powerful computer on earth and it contains bits
of knowledge and information that have been unknowingly stored
and never used. For instance, have you ever witnessed someone
watching the television quiz show Jeopardy who suddenly
blurts out the correct answer to some obscure question, then
says "I don't know how I knew that!"
You may not know
what you know until you need to know it.
Even if you did
know it all, it would be impossible to write it all down. If
you were to begin right now to compile a detailed inventory of
every bit of knowledge and information in your brain, you would
quickly fill the room you are in with paper and your job would
never be done.
What you have stored
in your brain is that vast.
The knowledge you
are most aware of is that which you use in your present job.
However, it is popularly estimated that a person uses less than
20 percent of what he or she knows on the job. The main reason
is that most workers are constrained by a specific field for
which they trained, an isolated department, a job title, a narrowly-defined
job description, and often all of the above. As a knowledge entrepreneur,
if you know what you know both inside and outside the field,
the job, the organization, you will discover that the estimated
percentage of knowledge use is far below 20 percent and the percentage
of knowledge opportunity even greater.
Not all useful knowledge
comes from the workplace. Life's lessons are often more valuable
where innovation calls for thinking outside the box. For example,
lessons learned on the tennis court can easily lead to innovative
ideas for competitive strategies on the job.
Well, enough about
what I'm thinking.
In the March STAR
Series, I will begin the discussion with the problem of the Personal
Knowledge Inventory (PKI). It is a subject we will include
in Chapter 2 of the book and it must be followed by a practical
PKI Action Step; and then the Personal Knowledge Audit (PKA)
and Personal Knowledge Map (PKM).
Incredibly (given
the historic litany of "knowing what you know") we
are plowing new ground here. Ultimately, we will need to present
our novice reader with a plan for getting to know what he or
she knows. I'll be looking to you to help us invent a practical
PKI guide.
Please join us during
the Dialogue. It is your opportunity to participate in what has
been one of the most dynamic learning experiences of AOK's three
years. The task of writing an introduction to PKM has stimulated
collaborative thinking that has enriched all of us on the BookTeam.
I want this coming two weeks to be the same for you.
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Personal Knowledge Management:
A Guide to Leveraging What You Know
These chapters are
draft only and are not for distribution. Please read the disclaimer before continuing.
The
contents of these pages are the intellectual property of AOK
and the text, in all its iterations is copyrighted by the author,
Jerry Ash. Copying or redistribution
of any material on this site, in whole or in part, is expressly
prohibited without the written consent of the author.
Your presence in this
space, by inference, indicates you are aware of the intellectual
property and copyright statements above.
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