NASA Knowledge Forum

NASA Knowledge Forum

“Expanding Knowledge Networks”
Hosted by Educational Testing Services
September 21, 2010

9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. Welcome

Dr. Ed Hoffman, NASA, Director of Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership
TJ Elliott, ETS, Chief Learning Officer
9:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. Attendee Introductions (name, organization, and role)
9:45 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Group Activity introduction
Matt Kohut, NASA APPEL, Communications

10:00 a.m. – 10:20 a.m. Break

10:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. Guest Speaker (30 minute overview followed by Q&A)
TBD
11:45 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. First Panel: How do you demonstrate the value and what is the value of networks?
Moderator: Larry Prusak, APPEL ASK Magazine, Editor in Chief
Panelists: Emma Antunes, GSFC (confirmed)
Daniel Wilson, Harvard Graduate School (confirmed)
Naoki Ogiwara, Fuji Xerox (confirmed)

2:30 p.m. – 2:50 p.m. Break

3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Second Panel: How do you build individual networks outside of your organization?
Moderator: Don Cohen, APPEL ASK Magazine, Managing Editor
Panelists: Rich Roberts, ETS (confirmed)
Klaus Tilmes, World Bank (confirmed)
Jeanne Holm, JPL (confirmed)
4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. Group Activity (TBD)
5:30 p.m. Conclusion
Ed Hoffman, NASA
TJ Elliott, ETS
 Welcome members of my knowledge network.

I am especially delighted to see you all here in Princeton because I drove only 5.3 miles in about fifteen
minutes, ETS is paying me to be here today, there is free food apparently magically replenished
throughout the day and you my knowledge network just get bigger and better and more valuable.

Life is good.

Lest you think that I have made my calculation of your increasing value from some personal bias or out
of polite exaggeration, I assure that I have not. This is no Marxist labor theory of value or nebulous
estimation based on the mere fact that you have brought your advanced degrees and impressive resumes
to the ETS. My knowledge network just got more valuable because the customers I serve at ETS judge
me in part by the ways in which I connect them to people, information, and knowledge. And because I
always steal your ideas to create programs at ETS for a fraction of what it would cost for paid
consultants.

Seriously, this one day conference can itself be valuable if we all explore the notion of what value means
when it comes to knowledge networks. I think that examining our assumptions there might prove…
valuable.

Why?

In a very interesting article that I read recently

Jones makes the point that the transfer of knowledge inevitably involves information in an intermediate stage. There is no
such thing as a mind meld. We can consider KM to require two essential transformations: from knowledge to information or
knowledge elicitation and then, to complete the transfer of knowledge, from information back to knowledge. The second
transformation might be called knowledge instillation. The transfer is then in two parts with a different kind of knowledge
management activity for each part:

1. From knowledge to information via activities of knowledge elicitation

2. From information to knowledge via activities of knowledge instillation

I have made the point along with others that in this knowledge instillation you also have learning.
Mezirow or Argyris description. The value of the networks is that your customers are willing to expend
resources to get you to share your knowledge and your knowledge comes to you in a way from your
network.
But it is incumbent upon each of us to see the line through: is there anything made as a result of what
we share? Is there a hat where there was no hat?

See http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/3062/2600 for the take

that the building of a social network is among islands with very different PKM. Granovetter and Burt
also as they point out where you should be building: try JSB too. But main idea of Jones is that if you
make connection to someone who has no PKM that’s bad. If they are hostile or suspicious, that’s
worse.

So know your outputs at one end and know your people at the other.

See http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/feb2010/ca2010025_358633.htm
But are outputs at times too limiting?

Consider the Larry story

For me, this has always been the Jessica story, as will make sense when you read it. I, too, tell it from time to time.
The actual timing was late in 1993, as I left Ernst & Young at the start of 1994 to co-found Diamond.

I’ve told this one in different forums since it happened in 1995-ish. A recent incident prompts this version.

Back in the days when Harvard Square was one giant bookstore, a corner of two floors was occupied by Wordsworth.
Always jammed, knowledgeable clerkery, books, books, and more books, the place where it was easy to walk out with
two shopping bagsful of books.

"The TeamNet Factor is faceout at Wordsworth," Daughter #2 said. It was a star from Kirkus at the time, an
acknowledgement from the arbiter of good books that this was worth reading.

So I went to take a look and there it was, third shelf up faceout.

I gasped and the man next to me said: "What’s wrong?"

"That’s my book!"

"Great book," said he, "I read it. And have you read my book?" He reached across, a couple of shelves down to hand
me Managing Information Strategically, inadvertently pushing me into the woman just beside us.

"Oh, is that your book?" she said. "Well, this is my book, or I mean his book," pointing to the man to her left. "I’m
just the editor."

Rewind: The author who reached in front was Jim McGee. The man with the editor was Charles Handy.

Jim and I chatted for a while; he mentioned that he was at Ernst & Young; we exchanged contact info; and I
formulated The Bookstore Theorem: The only people there are authors.

Fast forward a year or two to the mail dock at Bear Island where I spotted a couple looking for directions. They
wanted to find the girls’ camp that their daughter had gone to; they were staying nearby at the Appalachian Mountain
Club on Three Mile Island; they’d just paddled over.

Me: "The girls’ camp is close to our cabin." Off we went, following the red trail, chatting, who are you, what do you
do, until eventually the husband said, "I work at Ernst & Young."

Perfect entre for my book-story to which he had the perfect rejoinder.

"I’m Jim McGee’s co-author on that book," said Larry Prusak.

Fast forward again to very recently. Two good friends decided to go to the AMC camp on Three Mile for the weekend
so we visited, got the tour of the camp (go, that’s all I can say, it’s beautiful).

Outside the dining hall was a list of those present for the weekend.
Guess who?

Yes, Larry, who, by the way, is reading Jonathan Franzen’s new one, Freedom. "Beautifully written," he says.

Time for the Larry story again

Jessica Lipnack
Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:57:28 GMT

http://blog.jackvinson.com/archives/2010/09/16/boosting_the_productivity_of_knowledge_workers.html

and https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Boosting_the_productivity_of_knowledge_workers_2671

Do things like masters Forum create value??

Thanks! I’m a big follower of the KW blog but this was my first post. Have a great weekend!

From: Elliott, T.J.

Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 3:04 PM
To: Arcilla, Mary Anne
Subject: FW: Blog - 709 CEOs love their iPads
Importance: High
SharePoint Discussion Blog
Board: https://sharepoint.etslan.org/sws/tjblog/Lists/blog2

What a great post!  I liked it very much.

All the best,

T.J.

_____________________________________________
From: Knowledge Workings Blog [mailto:sp_mail@ets.org]
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 1:11 PM
To: Elliott, T.J.
Subject: Blog - 709 CEOs love their iPads
Importance: High
SharePoint Discussion Blog
Board: https://sharepoint.etslan.org/sws/tjblog/Lists/blog2

Knowledge Workings Blog

A reply to 709 CEOs love their iPads has been added

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 Status:

Body: I thought this was an interesting article especially as it relates to the earlier KW discussion on adopting new technology (#733). It  
highlights some of the points that my fellow ETSers made about adopting new tech for the "sizzle" (i.e., Bob Sutton's purchase
and then limited use of the iPda) versus adopting it because it can really help your productive (i.e., the CEOs he interviewed).

From: Centofanti, Christopher

Posted: Friday, September 17, 2010 10:21 AM
Subject: # 709 CEOs love their iPads

Or so this informal survey states

 

http://www.johnkay.com/2010/08/11/a-good-economist-knows-the-true-value-of-the-arts/