Knowledge sharing events – moving beyond presentations

A Street-smart conversationElmi Bester

12 April 2012CSIR Knowledge Commons

“… move beyond the mere presentation of data and information,

typified by one-way, show-and-tell sessions punctuated by the phrase ‘next slide please’”

From: Knowledge Sharing Solutions for a CGIAR without boundaries, 2005

Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits.

When minds meet, they don’t just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought.

Conversation doesn’t just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards

Theodore Zeldin

Science Café

http://kcblog.csir.co.za/?p=196

7 heuristics (Dave Snowden) Knowledge can only be volunteered it cannot be

conscripted. We only know what we know when we need to

know it. In the context of real need few people will withhold

their knowledge. Everything is fragmented. Tolerated failure imprints learning better than

success. The way we know things is not the way we report

we know things. We always know more than we can say, and we

will always say more than we can write down.

Fishbowl conversation

Establishing a Community of Practice around Resilience in Social Ecological Systems. November 2011Agenda for a Community event: focus is on relationships and community cultivation

Open Space

Knowledge sharing is more than transfer Connections Context Safety Engagement Interaction Participation Energy Collective understanding and meaning-

making

Harvest perspectives

Presentation stations

Conversation circle

Push or pull patterns Information retrieval Information pooling Thinking along Make knowledge travel

A tool to focus your thinking

Lets to a PEER ASSIST for knowledge sharing… Decide on scenario Plan the event

Why – outcomes Who How – methods, flow

Ritual dissent Can work Cannot work What about

Potential topics for Peer Assist Internal colloquiums/ seminar series Tea room sessions (series) A morning session about a specific

funding stream (e.g. FP7) Brown Bag sharing sessions Project meetings

Knowledge sharing = Access to (tacit) knowledge Cross-fertilisation Individual and collective learning Learn from and with each other Connections and relationships

What if… We are just so busy… Interest is dwindling…

Before, During, After

Spend at least just as much time on flow and process, as on slides!

Facilitator vs presenter Outcomes and process should re-inforce each

other Follow the method… and adapt… Build a repertoire of knowledge sharing

methods – mix and match Experiment! And reflect And lastly, stock your goodies bag

Sharing knowledge about knowledge sharing

http://knowledgecommonswiki.csir.co.za It is a living knowledge base – ask if it is not there Share your reflections Contribute to the Knowledge Base

Facilitation Group on Yammer

Google it! And remember YouTube and http://images.google.com (a picture is worth a thousand words)

Convene a peer assist!