Conversations with David Gurteen
IPKM: Inter-Personal Knowledge Management

David Gurteen
Knowledge Networker, Gurteen Knowledge

Editor's note: This is a summary of the "Conversations with David Gurteen" held in February, 2004. The monthly STAR Series Dialogues are moderated by world KM luminaries who volunteer to discuss topics in email digests with AOK members over a two-week period.

Summary by Carol Butler

David Gurteen, publisher of the Gurteen Knowledge Website, hosted this month's Star Series Dialogue. David is best described as a "knowledge networker" who helps people in organizations, in all walks of life, to be more creative and innovative and to work more effectively with each other to make their collective knowledge productive.

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) was the initial focus of the discussion. Jerry Ash started it off by providing links to the ideas of two other KM luminaries and AOK members, Denham Grey and Steve Barth, and questions about the best terminology. Denham saw PKM as being about social learning, trust, and communal inquiry. Steve talked about the "self as the basic organizational unit."

David Gurteen pointed out that some people see PKM as primarily about personal skills and tools for personal use, and others see PKM as primarily about social interactions and supporting the way individuals relate to each other. Even though many agreed "PKM is fundamentally about 'knowledge work' and getting things done effectively," the tools/skills versus social interaction dichotomy was evident in our discussion.

Steve Barth acknowledged that collaboration was a necessary part of knowledge work, but argued this entailed greater individual responsibility as well. Dave Pollard admitted that he has come to believe KM is primarily an infrastructure issue and talked about the importance of three kinds of tools: PKM (or what some people call PIM, Personal Information Management), meta-data, and social networking. David Gurteen was concerned that this primarily technological approach was inadequate. There was some discussion on motivation and a few people referred to Alfie Kohn's work on the subject of rewards (author, No Contest: The Case Against Competition (1986), a revised edition of which was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1992).

Andy Boyd brought up the fear of "corporate types" that too much self-determination and expression leads to chaos. Jerry Ash responded, "Sometimes I think we scare the dickens out of management by suggesting that KM or PKM requires a total dismantling of hierarchy. "

Jim McGee said he was drawn to "Personal" KM because he has been disappointed with the organizational approaches to KM he has seen. His idea of building IPKM from the personal level up rather than the corporate level down was embraced by Dave Pollard who proposed:

IPKM (Inter-Personal Knowledge Management) = PIM + Social Networking

Judith Meskill reported "substantial, professional success with 'bottom-up' inter-personal knowledge mapping and collaboration systems. No punishment and no prizes."

Kirby Wright felt most knowledge workers already have PKM practices established, stating, "it is part of the repertoire of the knowledge worker. I suggest that one's effectiveness (level of expertise) may be, at least, partially impacted by their PKM skills." Jerry Ash reminded us that, "the force behind KM is not a new management strategy, but rather a new environment in which management must now work."

Bill Hall offered a detailed evolutionary system analysis of knowledge, cognition, memory, learning, etc., suggesting that the way we assemble, test, manage and disseminate knowledge indicates the very nature of humanity is changing. " I think we are all a long way from fully comprehending how these new extensions to our cognition are changing our nature as individuals within the world we interact with."

Mark McElroy started a spirited discussion by arguing that KM needed to address the issue of truth. His statement "knowledge is truth" spawned a flurry of responses, including the idea that knowledge is socially constructed. He later amended that to "knowledge is about truth" and maintained that without considering truth the KM community is not really getting to the heart of things.

Piers Young suggested there was need for a more human-centered meta-data tier and offered the following as an example for consideration:

Presentation, Style, Delivery, Content Structure, Speaker Authority.

He said, "I would really like to see the meta-data layer not just help translate content taxonomies, but facilitate presentation of the permissioned data -- based on my needs as" a knowledgeable, semi-knowledgeable, unknowledgeable, or non reader.

We discussed the smorgasbord of tools that are available today, the definition of a knowledge worker, and the outcomes we're looking to accomplish through PKM. Several outcomes were proposed and discussed. Many of us would agree with David Gurteen who concluded by saying, "a lot of work needs to be done on all these outcomes." Thus another rich and stimulating AOK Star Series Discussion came to an "official" end. Nevertheless, the discussion continues with David Gurteen "checking in" now and then.

Note: The complete archive of this and other STAR Series Dialogues can be found in the AOK Knowledge Network archives at Yahoo.com. You must be an AOK Member to access the archives at Yahoo. Membership is free and you will be able to participate in upcoming Dialogues with some of the world's most successful and best known knowledge practitioners and leaders.

Also, you may download a PDF of a reorganized version of the Gurteen Dialogue.

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