Wrap-up – Mark Schenk

What worked well?

Andrew Boyd and the "wow" factor of augmented reality

Matt Moore's maps of the KM nation.

Experimentation – the willingness to try something without a safety net.

 

What Would Be Even Better?

Attend both days – really felt like I missed out after listening to the discussion this afternoon.

People, Passion and Place – Siwan Lovett

Started by acknowledging the Ngunnawal and other traditional indigenous peoples of Canberra. Talking about in NRM, the sector favoured the rational knowledge-base, but most of the knowledge is generated in an emotional context. We gain knowledge through art, music, poetry, etc. A poem on the effect of climate change in a specific place speaks to people more directly than a report from the IPCC.

5 p's: profit, proof, people, place, promise

Activity undertaken: people didn't write much about salt and land degradation, but asking for photos gave a better result.

The role of place is also important. It is a key part to a person's sense of identity. Criticising a property in NRM is also attacking this sense of identity. Identity is a part of communicating about place, too.

Promise, which is more connected to being engaged, than what your engagement is. Thinking about your legacy – what you leave behind beyond the technical.

Managing the user experience for Gov 2.0 – Andrew Boyd

Gov 2.0 isn't just publishing legislation to the Internet. NZ learnt that lesson with an exercise that closed after 8 days, as mentioned on the Gov 2.0 blog. Matt highlighted was that only some of the initiatives were a fail, for example, "Safe as" (http://www.safe.org.nz/ , I think).

Andrew touched on the difference between useable (can be used in the context for which it is designed/provided) and useful (actual provides some benefit).

Looking to the future, how do you open government services to be delivered on a 128x128 screen (ie, most common mobile screen format). He then moved into augmented reality, for example wikitude.

Broke 2020 down to pretty sure, maybe, and not too sure. Gov 2.0 will be integrated into everyday life, community organisations will be more pervasive and effective through online collaboration. Privacy, security and confidentiality will be far less important issues. Personal information (medical, financial, education) will be managed as a joint ownership between citizen and government.

Hypothetical - What happened to KM – Nerida Hart facilitating

In 2050, Dave Snowden is largely unknown. Mark S is something I can't spell, but starts with "cryo". I think it's the intermediate step between now and Futurama's heads in jars. Frank Connolly's role sounds icky. "Professor Moore" is a clone of Professor Lessig, representing the Creative Commons religious movement? "Miss M" sounds like ... no, wait for a minute. Sarah makes the new new again. "Miss M" is something I'm not sure I could publish in a place open to public scrutiny!

Abject-oriented - Matt Moore

Started with tables creating maps for the nation of "KM". My thinking was an island chain in the pacific "Ring of Fire". New, fertile earth, beset by natural disasters outside of the nation's control. Newly formed volcanic peaks, rules for what happens when a lava flow claims your golf ball. Small tribes living in partial isolation, under threat of colonisation from the large, powerful management nations of Finance and Management, maligned by the newly powerful IT nation. Picture Vanuatu with a lot more nerds.

Matt then asked everyone to describe other nations that interact with the KM nation. As you can tell from above, I (and others) skipped ahead and started defining that. I also think there is a strong relationship between the nation's of Strategy and Learning, although these more established consist of populations that are ignorant of KM to a greater or lesser degree, as the population of KM is of them.

Think I got slapped down for my suggestion that nothing is outside of KM as a discipline. Tough. Its not a nice answer, but it is right, and artificially constraining the domain because not doing is too hard is only damaging in the long run. Sorry, Matt.

actKM 09 - The Role of Thinking in KM – Frank Connolly

First a run down of impressions from yesterday's presenters. Interested in addressing Patrick's concern of getting out of the KM rut.

Focused on the DeBono approach to thinking. Listed a few tools that assist in thinking, then ran a quick exercise on the PMI (Pluses, Minuses, Interesting) tool. "Consider moving next actKM Conference to Sydney". Helps "pull out the threads" of your thinking, and recognising assumptions.

Applying DeBono's Six Thinking Hats in a facilitated session often relies on participants not being aware that they are using it. Tools don't necessarily remove barriers (nor should they). They do create an opportunity to have everyone working on the same page, though.

 

Temporal Characteristics of Knowledge?

Phew ... . Haven't been in here in a while. Excuse me while I clean up a little.

Right.

I've been having and/or listening to a few discussions lately that use the phrase "all data is spatial". Don't like it - its probably 80-90% true, but not "all". Data like "the number of times I yawn in a day" may have relevant spatial components, or it may not.

What all data is, though, is temporal. All data is a snapshot in time. It may or may not change, but the only way to tell is to regather at a different time, and compare. In fact, almost all the utility of spatial data comes from its temporal component - real-time spatial data has to always be now. Non-real-time data needs the context of when it was created. There's a lot of other important characteristics, too, but time is the key one.

It got me thinking, though. I know we all hate (or should hate) the DIK(W) pyramid. But what little validity it has comes from the fact that there is a connection between the DIK elements. It a non-linear, non-hierarchical relationship, but it is there.

So I wonder, if all data is temporal, is the same true of information?

Probably. I can't think of any exceptions, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. You can have timeless information (fire burns), but its only proper information when fire IS BURNING something. I'm willing to be called on this, though.

But knowledge?

Hmmm, that's a tricky one. If you take the (albeit incredibly simplistic) view that knowledge is information in action or applied, then I suppose it has temporal qualities. But the knowledge that "fire burns paper" - is that temporal? I don't think it is - the temporal context of that knowledge isn't really relevant. You could argue that the time that knowledge was gained an/or used gives it a temporal quality. But because knowledge has a non-linear forward use element (it may or may not be useful at some point in the future), does that remove some of the temporal element?

I honestly don't know. I'm a big believer that that if something feels right, it is until proven otherwise (and "feels" is different to "believe", because believing has a sense of conviction behind it). And the idea that while all data is temporal, not all knowledge is, just feels right.

Still, I could be wrong (which is why it feels right, but I don't necessarily believe it). Any thoughts?