I just met some friends and colleagues from my former employer Comma Soft in Bonn last Friday evening. We talked a lot and enjoyed some rounds of Kölsch beer: it was your shout, Sascha, thank you!

It was also a kind of “knowledge pub” around the question: “What will be the future of the company?”. It happened last week, too, that I participated in the “Knowledge Cafe Masterclass” led by the (I know that you don’t like this) KM guru David Gurteen. It was set as a pre-conference tutorial of the KnowTech 2010. I particularly enjoyed getting to know some new interesting KM peers of other German companies.

So, what is this “Knowledge Cafe” all about? It’s a good method to initiate a dialogue or to support change in an organization. David has explained the method extensively on his website. The Knowledge Cafe is pretty similar to the WorldCafe approach. However, it’s easier to “sell” to managers in a company. David has built the method based on works of Jay Cross, Theodore Zeldin, David Weinberger, and David Bohm.

I would use it e.g. instead of a long-winded presentation or as an alternative to coffee corner sessions. The challenge is to create the readiness for dialogue, to have a non-intrusive facilitator, and to be comfortable with the outcome “what people take away in their heads”. It’s by no mean the right method for a virtual meeting. Thank you David, it was a pleasure to meet you!

• Peter Moreville has summed up the current state of findability in his presentation on “Search 3.0″. Good overview, but I don’t understand the “3.0″ in the title…
• Dave Pollard has presented his points of view in “From Content to Context and from Collection to Connection“. One important thing which hasn’t been considered in the presentation is the enterprise environment. His valuable points are valid for one-person-companies and small enterprises, but I don’t see the connection to medium and large enterprises.
• Yves Noble shows this connection in his slide deck on “From Collection to Connection“. Yves outlines the Enterprise 2.0 transition experience of Cap Gemini’s KM systems. They seem to walk the talk.
• Steve Kaukonen has calculated a ROI of 2,506% for the knowledge exchange initiatives at Accenture.

• No blog feature on the conference webpage (only in German)
• Michael Koch (Blog communixx) compiled some not very enthusiastic points in three posts (in German)
• Frank Koch and Christoph Rauhut confirm this impression in their compilation (Blog Projektmanagement 2.0) of the conference with the following findings: I. German companies are still beginners regarding “Enterprise 2.0″ II. No presentation dealt with the question on how to best embed KM into daily work without additional effort III. The importance of tag management to be able to use Folksonomies in an enterprise context, and IV. the lack of web 2.0 support for the KnowTech conference (e.g. no TwitterBoard)

And believe it or not, that’s it (according to Google Blog Search and Technorati.com)… So, I didn’t miss a lot, did I?

• “Collaborative networks require commitment not compliance.”
  Yes, to be successful in collaborative networks you need a personal conviction, the ability to build trust in relationships and to deal with risks. Commitment is being willing to do whatever it takes.
• “Building interactions that are part of getting work done is more important than building knowledge bases.”
  Yes, and please leverage technology to make judicious use of face-to-face meetings.
• The fourth chapter of the presentation that outlines principles for effective partnering in collaborative networks:
  - focus on the customer
  - trust based interactions
  - testing assumptions
  - well-defined accountabilities
  - attention to process
  - appropriate elevation

Thank you Hubert for the presentation.

Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge reports on a new study that demonstrates that while past performance may be a reasonable indicator of future performance, “the quality of colleagues in his or her organization also has a significant impact on the [star's] ability to maintain the highest quality output.” In other words, hiring a star without the supporting team will greatly diminish your chances of replicating or exceeding past performance.

and asks the following questions at the end:

What does your knowledge management staff look like? A group of under-engaged disaffected individuals? A collection of motivated but unsupported stars? A team of diverse people that consistently produces high quality work product?

Well, I would definitively agree that the quality of the colleagues has a significant impact. Dedication and passion for KM are also key ingredients. What I particularly appreciate at SAP is the right mix of achieving specific objectives for the business (“what”) and having a lot of degrees of freedom in the choice of the methods (“how to achieve the goals”).
Thanks to the KnowledgeBoard newsletter to allude to Mary’s blog.