What is PKM?
There is no generally accepted definition of what personal knowledge management (PKM) actually is. Even if there was it would still mean different things to different people, depending on their own priorities and activities. Some of the areas PKM touches upon are:
Personal effectiveness and getting organised
Dealing with information overload
Using technology and the web
Learning and development (including CPD)
Personal networking and managing relationships
Making sense of an increasingly complex and fast-moving world
y working definition of personal knowledge management:
PKM: a set of processes, individually constructed, to help each of us make sense of our world, work more effectively and contribute to society.
PKM is also an enabling process for wirearchy: " a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results enabled by interconnected people and technology"
The term personal knowledge management (PKM) isn't about management in a business sense but rather how we can manage to make sense of information and experience in our electronic surround.
Personal - according to one's abilities, interests & motivation (not directed by external forces).
Knowledge - connecting information to experience (know what, know who, know how).
Management - getting things done.
Network learning, or personal knowledge management (PKM), is an individual, disciplined process by which we make sense of information, observations and ideas. In the past, self-directed learning may have involved keeping a journal, writing letters or having conversations. These are still valid, but with digital media we can add context by categorizing, commenting on, or even remixing information. We can also store information for easy retrieval as we need it.
"With Kippt you can save links, read articles, watch videos, share notes and much more. Your collections can be private or public, or shared with the people you work with."
Machine learning can automate content curation by using algorithms to scan content items, find similarities between sources and cluster them in logical groups. The content then can be tagged accordingly and displayed both proactively and on demand in response to search queries. The goal is to improve the efficiency (and cost) of curation processes while eliminating the "misses" where relevant content exists, but the system fails to connect users with the best resources.
Over the past year I have been working on change initiatives to improve collaboration and knowledge-sharing with two large companies, one of them a multinational. In each case, implementation has boiled down to two components: individual skills & organizational support. Effective organizational collaboration comes about when workers regularly narrate their work within a structure that encourages transparency and shares power & decision-making. I have also learned that changing work routines can be a messy process that requires significant time, much of it dedicated to modelling behaviours.
There is a desire to develop more effective knowledge sharing and a culture of collaboration in most organisations, but little recognition of what this means in terms of staff development and overcoming barriers to change. The enormous growth of social media tools and social/professional networks over the past few years has created new opportunities and new challenges for people and organisations that want to embrace this dynamic world of social interaction and fluid knowledge flows. However, It is not widely recognised that collaboration and knowledge sharing are skills and practices that rarely get taught. It's something we may learn on the job in a hit or miss fashion. Some people are natural at it. Others struggle to understand it.
Curated content (vs. original content) draws influencers and your customers in by integrating their information into your content. Don't underestimate the need for human selection, commentary and optimisation.
Quietly is a new web-based app which allows you to create beautiful list-based slideshows which can be shared and embedded on any website.
Each card in a Quietly slideshow can be made up by a:
- website - from which you can pick any image
- an image - which you can search or upload
- a location on the map
- a name, a URL and a description
The user can also customize font styling, the cover image, and many other visual components of his slideshow.
"We live in a world awash of information, but we seem to face a growing scarcity of wisdom," states Maria Popova, Founder of the website Brain Pickings. Popova believes it's the storyteller's role to interpret information and shape it into wisdom for the rest of the culture to share.