http://churchasart.com/blog/2008/10/09/gen-x-culture-wars-and-the-hyphenated-movements/ Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:56:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 http://churchasart.com/blog/2008/10/09/gen-x-culture-wars-and-the-hyphenated-movements/comment-page-1/#comment-166 Enterprise 2.0 Blog » Blog Archive » Social Media vs. Knowledge Management: The Reactions Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:59:50 +0000 http://churchasart.com/blog/2008/10/09/gen-x-culture-wars-and-the-hyphenated-movements/#comment-166 [...] Church as Art [...] [...] Church as Art [...]

]]> http://churchasart.com/blog/2008/10/09/gen-x-culture-wars-and-the-hyphenated-movements/comment-page-1/#comment-165 is ek ‘n Millenial? « die ander kant Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:56:11 +0000 http://churchasart.com/blog/2008/10/09/gen-x-culture-wars-and-the-hyphenated-movements/#comment-165 [...] oorlog tussen Boomers en Millenials, waar X’ers moet kant kies, my wel intrigue. Thanx vir Troy Bronsink wat die link gepost het. Ek het nie die hele ding gelees nie, van so halfpad af net gescan, maar [...] [...] oorlog tussen Boomers en Millenials, waar X’ers moet kant kies, my wel intrigue. Thanx vir Troy Bronsink wat die link gepost het. Ek het nie die hele ding gelees nie, van so halfpad af net gescan, maar [...]

]]> http://churchasart.com/blog/2008/10/09/gen-x-culture-wars-and-the-hyphenated-movements/comment-page-1/#comment-164 Emphasis Added : Generational Battlelines: The KM/SM War Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:45:30 +0000 http://churchasart.com/blog/2008/10/09/gen-x-culture-wars-and-the-hyphenated-movements/#comment-164 [...]  The entire piece is worth your time. In any case, Venkat's observations drew a bunch of excellent commentary around the KM blogosphere, both supportive and skeptical. Here are some of the links: http://aboveandbeyondkm.blogspot.com/2008/10/war-between-social-media-and-km.htmlhttp://www.reyes-chow.com/2008/10/its-not-just-us.htmlhttp://churchasart.com/blog/2008/10/09/gen-x-culture-wars-and-the-hyphenated-movements/http://www.whatralphknows.com/2008/10/social-media-vs-knowledge-management.htmlhttp://www.onstrategies.com/blog/?p=343http://amanwithaphd.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/a-generational-war/http://www.spreadingscience.com/2008/09/30/a-generational-war/http://cmsreport.com/blog/social-media-vs-knowledge-managementhttp://blog.tarn.org/2008/10/10/oh-good-grief/He asked me to weigh in, which I did via private email. Here is the text of my response, for what it's worth: Venkat, I emphatically agree with your analysis. I think you accurately locate the enthusiasms and skepticisms of each generation toward the different approaches. I also think there are other issues that may seem obvious, about how social media displaces authority and hierarchy, and is therefore inherently more threatening to the senior cohort in the workplace, regardless of their generational orientation. People who got to the top by hoarding info don't want to share; they want to manage access. People at the bottom looking to move up quickly want immediate opportunities to contribute and be recognized, rather than working through approved channels. I suspect Millennials will be much less enthusiastic about whatever succeeds SM in the enterprise if it is suddenly their knowledge and authority at stake.However, I think it's necessary to back up a bit and look at the strategic objectives of the KM/SM initiative in the first place. The goal is to share knowledge to improve some aspect of performance, innovation, service, etc. Sharing knowledge has three components - capturing knowledge, locating knowledge, and consuming knowledge. Any knowledge transfer solution, from classroom training to wikis, has strengths and weaknesses in each of those respects. I use the following slide in my presentations to talk about this issue:  Basically, knowledge transfer can be oriented on an grid whose axes are Structured vs. Unstructured (X axis) and Personal vs. Impersonal. Printed documentation is the quintessential structured, impersonal (and static) type of knowledge repository. Search is unstructured/dynamic, but impersonal. Real-time communication is unstructured and personal, etc. If you have a multi-generational workplace and the goal is to get the knowledge-bearers to share, and the knowledge-needers to consume, you need to cover as much of the spectrum as possible to accommodate the whole range of learning and capturing styles, bearing in mind that it will be very difficult to get Millennials to appreciate or accept the highly-structured and linear modes of communication (but it will be just as essential to have these options available for "Boomerang Boomers" who join the organization in lower-level roles). In the long run, the triumph of social/unstructured knowledge transfer is inevitable, but the "long run" is going to be longer than is convenient for many of us. Boomers won't be past the tipping point of organizational influence for 10-15 years. In the meantime, organizations will need to keep a parallel, legacy knowledge infrastructure in place to support the Boomerang Boomers and laggard X-ers who require static, authoritative references, as well as more dynamic social media for the Digital Natives. One of the goals of reciprocal mentoring, which Dan and I talk a lot about, is to engage younger workers to help capture the knowledge of their older peers in social media repositories and channels, with the hope that some of the domain expertise of the elder will rub off on the mentee, while the facility with social media tools and practices will adhere to the mentor. Once the Boomers internalize and "own" the social media channels, the top-down pressure for a managed, KM-oriented strategy will probably start to die a natural death. [...] [...]  The entire piece is worth your time. In any case, Venkat’s observations drew a bunch of excellent commentary around the KM blogosphere, both supportive and skeptical. Here are some of the links: http://aboveandbeyondkm.blogspot.com/2008/10/war-between-social-media-and-km.htmlhttp://www.reyes-chow.com/2008/10/its-not-just-us.htmlhttp://churchasart.com/blog/2008/10/09/gen-x-culture-wars-and-the-hyphenated-movements/http://www.whatralphknows.com/2008/10/social-media-vs-knowledge-management.htmlhttp://www.onstrategies.com/blog/?p=343http://amanwithaphd.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/a-generational-war/http://www.spreadingscience.com/2008/09/30/a-generational-war/http://cmsreport.com/blog/social-media-vs-knowledge-managementhttp://blog.tarn.org/2008/10/10/oh-good-grief/He asked me to weigh in, which I did via private email. Here is the text of my response, for what it’s worth: Venkat, I emphatically agree with your analysis. I think you accurately locate the enthusiasms and skepticisms of each generation toward the different approaches. I also think there are other issues that may seem obvious, about how social media displaces authority and hierarchy, and is therefore inherently more threatening to the senior cohort in the workplace, regardless of their generational orientation. People who got to the top by hoarding info don’t want to share; they want to manage access. People at the bottom looking to move up quickly want immediate opportunities to contribute and be recognized, rather than working through approved channels. I suspect Millennials will be much less enthusiastic about whatever succeeds SM in the enterprise if it is suddenly their knowledge and authority at stake.However, I think it’s necessary to back up a bit and look at the strategic objectives of the KM/SM initiative in the first place. The goal is to share knowledge to improve some aspect of performance, innovation, service, etc. Sharing knowledge has three components – capturing knowledge, locating knowledge, and consuming knowledge. Any knowledge transfer solution, from classroom training to wikis, has strengths and weaknesses in each of those respects. I use the following slide in my presentations to talk about this issue:  Basically, knowledge transfer can be oriented on an grid whose axes are Structured vs. Unstructured (X axis) and Personal vs. Impersonal. Printed documentation is the quintessential structured, impersonal (and static) type of knowledge repository. Search is unstructured/dynamic, but impersonal. Real-time communication is unstructured and personal, etc. If you have a multi-generational workplace and the goal is to get the knowledge-bearers to share, and the knowledge-needers to consume, you need to cover as much of the spectrum as possible to accommodate the whole range of learning and capturing styles, bearing in mind that it will be very difficult to get Millennials to appreciate or accept the highly-structured and linear modes of communication (but it will be just as essential to have these options available for “Boomerang Boomers” who join the organization in lower-level roles). In the long run, the triumph of social/unstructured knowledge transfer is inevitable, but the “long run” is going to be longer than is convenient for many of us. Boomers won’t be past the tipping point of organizational influence for 10-15 years. In the meantime, organizations will need to keep a parallel, legacy knowledge infrastructure in place to support the Boomerang Boomers and laggard X-ers who require static, authoritative references, as well as more dynamic social media for the Digital Natives. One of the goals of reciprocal mentoring, which Dan and I talk a lot about, is to engage younger workers to help capture the knowledge of their older peers in social media repositories and channels, with the hope that some of the domain expertise of the elder will rub off on the mentee, while the facility with social media tools and practices will adhere to the mentor. Once the Boomers internalize and “own” the social media channels, the top-down pressure for a managed, KM-oriented strategy will probably start to die a natural death. [...]

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