David Wilcox offers a view on storytelling and how it can be used in any community to increase understanding in terms of research and develop a programme by getting the community to build its own stories:
Partnerships Online
…and prefer doing projects that lead to action and not just another report on the shelf… so we suggested something entirely different. As I’ve written before, we proposed that we run workshops at which residents invented fictional characters and told their life stories, so we could analyse the issues that surfaced. To our surprise, we got the job - and pressed ahead with a storytelling kit developed by Drew that we could use and also hand on to local groups to use. It’s the sort of thing that could fall flat, lead to pieces in the paper about wasting money on tale-spinning focus groups, or at best a polite thank you for the report but no follow-through.
In fact it all turned out really well, thanks to the enthusiasm of those taking part…
I’ve worked very briefly with stroytelling in the past and am a great advocate. Stuart however has taken this a lot further.
I’ve always found qualitative research more rewarding and it certainly opened lots of doors when using an unstructured interview technique, however the story model seems to achieve so much more. I especially see this with my children and how it impacts them - stories change their world and its how they interpret it.
My favourite story about ntl is how my then manager described the comapny as Anglo-Saxon Britain, full of fiefdoms, petty kings and battles being fought over nothing. One of those petty kings eventually took him out. Vital information for any new manager there I feel. When I use to tell that story, so many of the people working there would agree and bemoan the fact. I regret not trying to get their stories to take it further.
I’ve just spent 2 days at one of the ntl call centres (in Swansea to be precise). Some really good people there, very positive and enthusiastic about helping customers (although ntl doesn’t make it easy for them).
I was holding a couple of workshops to improve the content we have online to help customers. The website Help is not as good as it could be in certain areas and hopefully over the next week months it can be improved.
The Internet product help has recently been updated (and continues to be maintained on a regular basis now) so its about time the other areas were refreshed with something more useful.
It was also very interesting (though not surprising) to note how much information call centre agents are expected to know and how much they actually do know. Putting my knowledge management hat on, its easy to say that a lot of good work could be done very quickly and simply to improve the situation. I see no reason why not to give it a go post holidays.
By the way - anything useful you would like to see up within ntl help sections - put something on the comments and I’ll add it to my list…
BBC NEWS | UK | Light Brigade battle remembered
The 150th Anniversary of the Charge of the Light brigade, one of the most infamous events in British Army history is today.
Here is Tennyson’s Poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade:
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
‘Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
The Ourhouse Weblog: Making sense of a complex and complicated world
John blogs Lilia Efimova who recently had the opportunity to listen to David Snowden. I’ve seen David speak on many occasions, always enthralling, often amusing and its always fun to engage in mutual mud slinging with the Welsh (I think the Rugby world cup is bringing out the jingoist in me and I’ll be singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ before long).
The engagement with his thinking on complexity and especially ideas of community, knowledge mangement and context really kicked off my intelectual muscles after being fairly dormant for about five years…
John picks out from the Sense Making paper the key conception of boundaries:
Also there’s an elegant section on boundaries which is a topic that fascinates me. Snowden distinguishes between the “shallow river” (you know when you cross it and it’s easy to cross); the “deep chasm” (crossable but only at bridges which can - for good or ill - limit access) and the “high plateau”:
the boundary with the most potential danger, because you may not be aware that
you have crossed the boundary until it is too late and you drop off the other side.
The article is packed with ideas and I can’t quite do it justice here!
David often illustrates such boundaries through storytelling (or narrative) such as only being accepted within a group by passing the entry / intiaition ‘test’ e.g. being sent for a left handed screwdriver or the tartan paint, or being sent into the dirty water at the sewerage plant.
There is also some worthy points concerning master and apprenticeship i.e. you only pass when the master is satisfied not by some objective level.
The reason I find these of interest is the need of humans to belong and the associated need of exclusion to establish communities.
destinationKM.com: Networks and Narratives
A great little article that covers two of my favourite subjects - narratives and networks. A good quote from it:
Knowledge blogs help encourage brain dumps, exploration, and think-aloud behaviour. They create connected content, break down silos, allow comments, and can also be treasured as useful searchable archives,” she observed.
Besides, over time, blogs are self-rewarding. “Often bloggers report that they discover their own interests and refine their perspectives. It leads to peer recognition,” according to Fichter.
Couldn’t agree more. My perspectives have shifted considerably since I started blogging. Its not that the beliefs hae changed, its just I have discovered the channel to focus and give outlet to them. And most importantly met some fantastic people in the blogosphere and also in the real world. Meeting such like minded individuals is incredibly self-rewarding and I hope I am giving as much as I am gaining. The community and mutuality of bloggers is an eye opener and its a community I am proud to be a part of… networks and narrative…
www.KMWorld.com Magazine Archives
Excellent article outlining two of my favourtie topics: Knowledge Management and Complxity. This snippet (the conclusion) speaks volumes:
So, the attempt to make explicit the tacit knowledge in an organization may in fact be an attempt to short-circuit the chaotic process of emergence. But that’s exactly what emergence doesn’t allow. In such cases, a KM system can nourish the intelligence from which wisdom emerges but neither replace it nor make it explicit.
This is why so called ‘best practice’ programmes or initiatives never work, and why trying to implement knowledge management to a business case is so difficult: its success or failure is based upon emergent properties, far more complex than initially obvious.
Its why when I hear that best practice will help us speed up our throughput and increase our productivity that I develop a cynical attitude. After all following a best pratice process eliminates the ability to be creative and innovative, takes away chance and serendipity and heads us towars the emrgence of failure.
Ton’s Interdependent Thoughts: Monsters Again
Basically, as soon as you draw lines somewhere (this is a tree, this is a shrub) you get into trouble when you encounter things that are on the border of such categories (is it a small tree, or a large shrub). Often these anomalies can be easily put into an existing category after some consideration (being put in their place), but sometimes this does not work: a Monster is born. Cultural categories spawn these monsters. (This also means that preventing monsters is not possible, yes might even be equivalent of stifling innovation and creativity for it predetermines that only things that fit within existing categories can be safely done)
A challenging posting by Ton which seeks to elaborate on a PhD dissertation by Martijntje Smits. Unfortunately I cannot read the original Dutch (?) however Ton’s point about offering new models is an interesting one. Iwoder how many people adopt the positions suggested as ‘weak’ in a pragmatic attempt to move forward.
Matt.Blogs.It
Navigate or do not. There are no breadcrumbs.
Breadcrumb navigation: Further investigation of usage. Bonnie Lida Rogers and Barbara Chaparro has summarised the results of their further research into the effectiveness of breadcrumb navigation. To quote: In this study, we designed the tasks such that navigational efficiency would be optimized through the use of… [Column Two]
Excellent blog from Australia focusing on Knowledge Management and Content Management. This peaked my interest becuase we often used to have arguments over the effectiveness of breadcrumbs. Personally I felt they added little…
elearningpost
New Book: Knowledge Networks: Innovation through Communities of Practice
“There have been a large number of academic papers about Communities of Practice but, so far, only a few books. Most of the books have, by necessity, taken a rather theoretical approach. This book however will examine CoPs from a practical viewpoint; it is directed at the general reader rather than a specialist audience. Our aim is to draw on the experience of people who have researched and worked with CoPs in the real world and to present their views in a form that is accessible to a broad audience.”
Interesting. Despite its sauggestion that it is a practical book, the link feels rather academic and describes online communities of practice as the next step forward. They coin the term Networks of Practice to describe this. Great idea but haven’t people being doing this for some time? Take this book which outlines BP KM programme. Chris Collinson and Geoff Purcell describe a global network of practice. I have also heard similar stories concerning Shell and pharmaceutical companies.
Something about this book just turned my cynical antenna on…
If you want to know more about Communities of Practice its probably worth starting at David Gurteen’s site.
Recent Comments