InsightNG

"In this video I describe the Three Eras of knowledge management that I have previously written about on this blog, Where Knowledge Management has Been and Where it is Going - Part One, Part Two, and Part Three."

"In today's world employees often must deal with tasks and problems that require much more that simply following a predetermined step by step procedure - the problems require the exercise of judgment. Judgment is needed when we are faced with thorny questions about which there are no right or wrong answers. When asked one of those thorny questions we often say, "Well, it's a matter of judgment." Soldiers, for example, face many situations in which one correct course in not clear, as in this example from one of the US Army on-line communities, PlatoonLeader."

How work gets done in the network era

"At Reebok, the cushioning in a best-selling basketball shoe reflects technology borrowed from intravenous fluid bags. Semiconductor firm Qualcomm's revolutionary color display technology is rooted in the microstructures of the Morpho butterfly's wings. And at IDEO, developers designed a leak-proof water bottle using the technology from a shampoo bottle top. These examples show how so-called "peripheral" knowledge - that is, ideas from domains that are seemingly irrelevant to a given task - can influence breakthrough innovation. "The central idea of peripheral knowledge really resonates," says Wharton management professor Martine Haas. After all, who can't think of examples when ideas that seemed to bear almost no relation to a given problem paid off in some unexpected way? By bringing peripheral knowledge to core tasks, it is well known that work groups can recombine ideas in novel and useful ways. But the problem, Haas notes, is primarily one of attention: How do you get workers focused on a particular task to notice - and make use of - seemingly irrelevant information?"

"Digital stress and your brain [Infographic] How many tabs does your browser have open now? (We've got 7.) Read on for some thought-provoking concepts about multitasking."

"Critical thinking is a skill that we can teach to our students through exercise and practice. It is particularly a skill that contains a plethora of other skills inside it. Critical thinking in its basic definition refers"  to a diverse range of intellectual skills and activities concerned with evaluating information as well as evaluating our thought in a disciplined way ". All of our students think in a way or another but the question  is , do they really think critically ? are they able to evaluate the information they come across ? are they capable of going beyond the surface thinking layer ? Can they make connections between what they learn and the outer world? Can they question the status quo of their knowledge ?"

"What is creative strategy? It's a classic case of "theory to practice." My previous book, Strategic Intuition, laid out the theory. It explained the science of how creative ideas happen in the human mind and documented how successful innovators actually came up with their innovations. This new book, Creative Strategy, is the practice: it shows how to apply that theory as an innovation method yourself. Here's how it works: you start with a problem or situation where you aim for an innovation, break that down in to elements of the problem, and then search for precedents that solve each element. You then see a subset of these precedents come together in your mind as a new combination that solves the problem. That idea is your innovation"

"Fascinating insight from the MIT Centre for Collective Intelligence at the IBM Think Forum. The video is 40mins long but worth watching if you're interested in what makes groups effective in solving complex problems. It also shows how (and why) the idea of 'distributed leadership' is becoming more widely seen as the future model for managing organisations and complexity."

"There is a seismic shift underway in the digital world that within a decade will completely transform the web into an App-o-verse. Several simultaneous trends are stacking up to change how we consume and create digital content, and platform companies are positioning themselves to enable the process. What we are seeing are the early stages of what I call, "The Appification of Everything." This is not about adding more icons to your home screen, though, but about a fundamental shift in how we metabolize information and entertainment. The web as the universal storage medium is being superseded by the internet as universal flow medium. Instead of thinking about the web as a hierarchical tree of documents-a Wikipedia of Wikipedias-we need to start thinking about all of that content as an underlying service layer for application-based interfaces."

"Collective intelligence is a growing trend that seeks to exploit the computational power of millions of users You have probably done it but maybe you didn't realise. Or maybe you did it on purpose, but it was a game. What is it? Collective intelligence, or "human computation", is a growing trend that looks to harness the wisdom of the crowd to solve problems. Today, enormous computational power is distributed among millions of users, and the internet offers a means to connect it, explains Prof Barry Smyth, professor of computer science at University College Dublin."

"The EU definition of e-learning integrates social learning: « E-learning is the use of emerging Internet technologies, in order to improve learning quality, on one hand by enabling access to resources and services, and on the other hand by distance communication and collaboration »"

"Yesterday, I was inspired by a great post by Chris Wilson on How to Survive the Teacher Apocalypse.  I thought about it all afternoon especially as it touched upon thoughts I had had on the cost of knowledge.  The interesting turn for me came when I started reflecting more on the Value of Knowledge because realistically the costs of knowledge have and will continue to drop rapidly (despite the efforts of gatekeepers) due to digitalization and other market factors, but something is rising in counter weight…"

"Thinking. The capacity to reflect, reason, and draw conclusions based on our experiences, knowledge, and insights. It's what makes us human and has enabled us to communicate, create, build, advance, and become civilized. Thinking encompasses so many aspects of who our children are and what they do, from observing, learning, remembering, questioning, and judging to innovating, arguing, deciding, and acting."

In the following Q&A, Andrew and Wendy shed light on how collaborative learning turned a failed merger exploration into a success. A version of this post originally appeared on the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog.

"The force driving the most radical change in organizations today is knowledge gained and shared through social media, the great amplifier of our time. Businesses can't hide from the expectations of customers and employees (the iPhone 5). Governments can't hide from the expectations of citizens (the Arab Spring). And trainers can't hide from the expectations of learners. A counterpart to information exchange through social media is the ability to collect and analyze enormous amounts of data about customers, partners, markets, and other quantifiables. Big Data, as it is called, allows companies to respond rapidly and with relevance to their constituents, and leaves them few excuses when they don't."

"Social Learning is not about using Social Media but how to learn Socially Remember "Group Studies" we did in our school with friends? Well, it isn't important as to what we studied together, but neverthless they were enriching lessons useful for life. Atleast for me, the learning went besides text books that gave me confidence to approach people better. The concept of "Social Learning" exists way back. In India, the dominant form of education referred to as "Gurukul" system passed on knowledge through multiple generations based on this system. If you look closely at "Gurukul" system, it is a group of students getting together in the teachers place (akin to boarding school). They learn not just by sitting in class room but by also by doing daily work and assisting the teacher in various chores."

Steve Johnson, Senior Director of User Experience, LinkedIn at Warm Gun on Nov 30th, 2012 in San Francisco

"This talk explores how we can use game mechanics to facilitate more engaging and inspiring learning experiences for our students. The talk was presented during Learning Innovation Talks 02 held at Taylor's "

"The emerging science of 'collective intelligence' - and the rise of the global brain"

"Critical thinking can be defined as "learning to think better by improving one's thinking skills." Individuals who are critical thinkers use the thinking process to analyze (consider and reflect) and synthesize (piece together) what they have learned or are currently learning. Unfortunately, much of everyone's thinking tends to be biased, imprecise, unclear, uninformed or prejudiced. Since this becomes severely limiting, critical thinking is needed to improve its quality and value."