KM Café chats with KM expert Neil MacAlpine
November 5th, 2009This week at the café we talked with KM expert Neil MacAlpine, who brings a wealth of experience and understanding to the topic of KM implementation in organizations. As one of two people in charge of the first knowledge coaching function in the Government of Alberta, Neil developed his expertise alongside the emergence of KM as a discipline. He is now a KM consultant for some of Canada’s largest corporations and shares with us his many ideas about what KM should and shouldn’t be! So grabba latte and listen to our November podcast. If you are more of a reader, grabba a latte and enjoy the podcast transcript.
-Carolyn
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Replys
Really enjoyed the podcast and I found myself agreeing with much of what Neil had to say. I’ve posted previously in various venues as to how I believe KM is actually an imposition of categorization on knowledge, a higher-order IM if you will, and that true knowledge sharing (KS) has to come from conversations. It was encouraging to hear Neil echo this, in his comments on KS “as a behaviour, not a process” and how it is all about having conversations with each other: “really critical information first emerges in conversations” and you need to examine what your organization is doing to support conversations in the workplace as “that’s where your strategic information sharing is going on”.
The take-away at the end, that to encourage communities of practice at organizations as the best way to develop KS, was very heartening. Not only would this enable conversations to occur, but it would also help take responsibility for KM out of the purview of IT, a place where Neil (and I) feel it doesn’t belong.
Great job on the podcast with Neil! I agree with his assessment that “organizations that have not paid attention to employee recognition processes should not be thinking about knowledge sharing process because the fundamental isn’t in place”. In order for knowledge sharing processes to work, to some extent employees need to believe that their organization recognizes, understands, and values their skills. I think often times organizations impose knowledge sharing processes and employees work within those processes out of fear as opposed to organizations articulating to employees how they can bring their skills to bear within a process and share their expertise and knowledge with colleagues.
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