Delhi ... Or Dilli?

Delhi is a city of varied colours. And this can be said not just in the metaphorical sense, but rather in the physical sense, too. Delhi, as a city, is a little different from Mumbai. While Mumbai is the melting-pot, Delhi is much the salad-bowl. The ingredients of this salad-bowl do acquire much of the taste of the dressing, the aromas that the city sprinkles on her people. But that said, you can see how they manage to keep their individuality, while at the same time, being the Dilliwala. So you would see Delhi as being a salad with the Tomatoes, Radish, Parsley, Coriander, smelling refreshingly of themselves, while letting you know clearly that they are all beautiful parts of the same salad.

In this manner, Delhi is the ideal city to be the capital of a country like India. Where all communities are at once Indian, while at the same time Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, or any other community, whether based on region, religion, or any other basis. Ok, so you must have heard these thoughts, or something similar, being spoken so many times, you are wondering why i am even writing this.

If you are still with me, let me just write on. For all the romance which Calcuttans generate (at times much more than what one would think required, this having said that Calcutta is one of the most charming cities in the world), or the hoopla people from Mumbai tend to create, the romance of Delhi is something which isn't written about as much as one would, if one just looks around the city.

Now, the romance of Delhi itself is multifarious. The romance of Delhi is Divine, and it is material. It is of this world, and of the Beyond. But it is definitely not commonplace. To begin with, Delhi shows immense capacity of displaying so many facets of it's romance ... With the Lord, and with the world. And Delhi loves with all her heart. As the song from Delhi 6 goes ...

Ye Dilli hai mere yaar,

bas ishq mohabbat, pyaar ...

Ishq, mohabbat, pyaar, and much more is Dilli. And she shows it amply. There are many things you would see in Dilli. After all, Dilli, as we know it today, is not one city, one seven cities, from the time of Indraprastha, to the time Of Lutyens, and on to Punjabi times ... Dilli has all the fragrances. Whether they are the Langars celebrating the Equality of all humanity to the Divine Father, or whether they are the Chhabeels ... Delightful and refreshing rose-milk ... Quenching parched throats in the name of God.
 
Whether you are Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish ... Delhi embraces all. Whether you are seeking God through the Akhand Paath ... Wending your ways to Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, or the Gurudwara Sis Ganj ... Or you may be the devout Hindu ... Whether Faith draws you to Hanuman Mandir, or to the Kaali Baadi, or the LakshmiNarayan Mandir, or the Malai Mandir ... Or if Faith draws you to the Jama Masjid, or the Fatehpuri Masjid, Idgah ... Or if Faith draws you, in the spirit of Dilli ... To the by-lanes of Nimazuddin ... Where you may take your fariyaad to the great Saint ... And none shall ever leave empty-handed the doors of Hazrat Nimauddin Auliya! And Delhi bows in reverence to all the manifestations of God. And continues the Divine romance ... Whether serenading the Divine Beloved through Bhajans, Jagratte, Shabads, or the Qawwalis ... Dilli has a flair for singing her love. Bas ishq, mohabbat pyaar ...

With love more material ... Dilli derives her name from the heart of the matter ... The Heart ... Dil!


Kaun jaaye aey Zauq, Dilli ki galiyaan chhod ke!

Or so asked Shaikh Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq, the legendary poet, who graced both the Urdu language, and Dilli.

Dilli dilwaalon ki hai!

Or so said Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib!

Such is the magic of Dilli ... Whether it be cricket in the streets, or Pakode with Saunth, or Chhole Bhature ... Chaat, Tikki, Kulche Matar ... Tandoori Chicken, Kadi Chaawal, or Rajma Chawal ... Or Fish Fry, or Fish Cutlets ... Or if you prefer Dosas ... Or Paya, Nihari, or Nargisi Kofte, Shammi Kababs, Galouti Kababs, or Seekhs ... With soft Rotis ... Or whether it's Lassi in tall brass glasses ... Or Desi Ghee ki Mithai ... The flavours of Dilli ... Mughlai, or Punjabi, Bengali, or Tamil, or the quintessential Dilli ... These are all flavours Dilli calls her own. And many more, of course.

Whether it be the Laal Qila, Chandni Chowk, Hauz Qazi, or it be Ajmeri, Kashmiri, Turkman gates ... Or the Jantar Mantar, the Delhi of Lutyens, or the Purana Qila, Humayun ka Maqbara, or Safdarjung ka Maqbara, Jamali Kamali, or the Qutub Minar, or Mehrauli, phholwaalon ki sair, or Tilak Nagar, or Punjabi Bagh ... All of these tell the story of a city which says ...

Bas ishq mohabbat pyaar ...

If i were to sum this up, it's simple to say that Delhi is a city which straddles multiple worlds. You can hear, probably only in Delhi, the strains of Bhajans wafting from one direction, and the melody of the Qawwali from another, Bollywood from a third ... And Delhi is the city which straddles the world of Qawwali and that of the Commonwealth Games. With a number of new-age symbols defining the city ... One of them ... The Delhi Metro. And the city lives, and loves on ... In the past, the present, and the future ... And continues to live, and dream, in myriad worlds ... Many seemingly different from others, and yet, in Dilli, as in Delhi ... These worlds yet continue to live on.

Principles Of Economics

Have you ever been to a restaurant? And not been able to figure out how it is that no matter when you go, you always have to wait? Or, been travelling and tried to find out why your suitcase is almost always among the last to emerge? Well, this is a little one about collective thinking ... And, in my incomparable style, i will try to link it to some principles.

At the office, we have the canteen. This is the place where we all go for Lunch. Now, lunch-time is usually from 1:00 pm, but then, you could go there before or after. Depends how hungry you are (which is why you would usually find me there at 12:30 pm).There used to be a time when the canteen would be empty at 12:30 pm, and you would get a nice place to sit and eat. This is actually how i started going for lunch at 12:30 pm. The peak crowd would be at around 1:30 pm, which is when most people would go to eat. However, over a period of time, for some reason, more and more people would come to eat at 12:30 pm, so that you wouldnt find a place to sit. This went on for some time, till recently, again, the crowd at 12:30 pm has dwindled, and more and more people go to eat at 1:30 pm.

The way i see it ... some folks got the bright idea, that you could beat the rush if you went an hour before the majority of the crowd went to eat. Thing is, a lot of people got the same idea, which is why a large part of the crowd switched from 1:30 pm to 12:30 pm. However, as more and more people got this idea, the canteen got overcrowded. Till, over a period of time, some folks got the brilliant idea that one could beat the rush by going there an hour later. And, soon, many of the folks got the same idea, and ...

Now, by now you are wondering what this has to do with economics. Just this ... this is probably the same logic by which prices in markets are regulated ... if prices are too low, so many people would buy, that prices would be pushed up, and pushed to a point where they would overshoot the equilibrium, till a point when a number of people realize that prices are too high, when they would stop buying, bringing prices down, to a point that they become too low.

Is this reasoning logical? All comments welcome!

Formal And Informal ...

My friend, Subash Thyagarajan recently shared an interesting diagram over at the K-Community site. I am posting this here, thanks to him ...

This picture gives quite an interesting representation of the various initiatives which together make up for KM. I agree that i dont quite understand some of the terms he has mentioned here, but even so ... This shows that knowledge sharing has to be a convergence of informal and formal means. For over a decade, we have been looking at the right part of the picture, which is about the sharing of content in terms of documents, or means of learning like formal training. The left part, on the other hand, refers to the informal means of learning which are emerging as the next set of tools available to the organization for knowledge sharing.

The important point, though, is that these are to converge into a single set of tools, driving the entire idea of knowledge sharing. Which means that conversations, for example, which, within the organizational context, revolve around topics, could bring into their fold documents, learning content, and other formal means of learning, and documents could be managed in a way that lends them to be leveraged more easily to conversations. This is something we are seeing. So today, there could be tag-clouds for documents, just as they are for blogs, and people could reference documents they have written, or read on their profiles.

This is a picture which i have in mind when it comes to social networking, within the organizational context. That all people in the organization have their own profile, and they should be able to connect with others based on topics, as well as based on documents, and formal means. So, for example, if you are interested in a particular topic, you might like to see who are the people who have attended the training on that topic which happened some time ago. Or, who are people who are writing documents, or reading documents on that topic from the corporate content repository.

While these are just examples (and i would look forward to more such examples from you to add to this picture), these do make a point, that the KM strategy of the organization must be inclusive to these varied forms of knowledge-sharing.

The Importance Of Context

One about the importance of context. Lot has been written about how context is important to knowledge, and that without the appropriate context, knowledge lacks some crucial element.

Talking recently with a gentleman who is well versed with the Fahrenheit scale ... the topic came to the weather. When the gentleman mentioned that it must be 80 degrees, i had no idea what that meant. I was experiencing the same weather as he, but without the context, i had no idea what 80 degrees meant. Of course, 80F is approximately 28C, but thats something which i had to look up.

And this is the point i am trying to illustrate. That the information being there, probably it is the context which is important to actually bringing some meaning into it. If someone were to tell you, for example, that the temperature at some place where you are going is 80F, you wouldnt know whether to pack woollens, or swimwear, unless you have the context of the conversion of F to C (provided C is the context that you have available to you to refer to).

From this, could it be said that

Information + Context = Knowledge

Any thoughts? Please feel free to comment.

Communities

There are some interesting tweets coming out of E2.0 (yes, i am becoming little active at twitter), more on the subect of communities.

Luis Suarez has been tweeting regularly from there, two of them catching the eye ...

Wish folks would switch from Community manager to Community facilitator; much more engaging & less notion of mandating

Communities need a Sponsor, one or more Leaders, one or more Coordinators, members & content. NO MANAGERS!

Interesting thoughts, these. The thought that communities need to be facilitated, not managed. And this is somewhat of the paradox of communities (though not really paradox, but since it doesnt align with any particular school of thought, it becomes somewhat so) ... something i have written about before ... that communities, while they may be self-forming, they need some kind of impetus from somewhere to keep going.

Take the example of groups at facebook ... or at linkedin ... there are quite a few groups there. But, most of the groups, over a period of time, lose some of the momentum, and become dormant. This, probably, is true of all communities? Even in human conversations, say if you meet someone from college after a long time, the conversation goes well for some time, and then there is a lull ... unless someone picks up the thread and takes it forward.

Now, communities are made of people, so this should be expected of communities, too. Which is why, i agree with Luis that there must be facilitators who can ensure the conversation in the community carries on. Managers would bring in their own form of structure or agenda, which may not be the best way to drive communities. Instead, facilitators need to blend with the community, understand the nature of the conversation, and steer the conversation, if required. Not really required to steer the conversation if its going on as it is. More about picking up the thread, and ensuring there are means to revive the conversation as it begins to wane.

What this means is also that communities need some form of external impetus. Within the organizational context, communities need some inputs from the organization, and are not completely self-forming, self-regulating. There is a role which the organization has to play, and this role could be of facilitating the conversation, letting the outcomes of the conversation evolve. Which is to say that unlike, say, a task-force, a community cannot be about specific targets or specific objectives, but rather, of bearing in mind that the conversation, of itself, would lead to some results. There could be some intervention, however, which could guide a conversation, but this must be seen to be non-intrusive.

Integrating Learning With Work ...

Came across an interesting post by Tom Gram ... strategies for integrating learning and work. This blog touches on an aspect of KM which i think is something which is important, but not much talked about. This is about making knowledge, and learning, an integral part of the day-to-day work of people, something i have written about.

There are two reasons for this ... As we agree, knowledge is an important part of the day-to-day work of people. Even if it is not the so-called knowledge work, i believe that all work is dependant on some form of knowledge, which is important to doing that work well. We also agree that from day-to-day work, people learn a lot. There are new experiences, and there are things which give us the opportunity to learn.

If this be so, then it would be only logical to have a scenario where knowledge sharing, and knowledge creation are an integral part of the day-to-day work of people.

What does this require? As most work is done on some kind of system or another, whether it be e-mail, or IM, whether it be transaction processing or planning, these are the touchpoints at which the appropriate kind of knowledge needs to be made available at the point of use, where people are doing their work. Also, the learnings which arise from the work people do need to be harvested at that point itself.

For one, this needs to be incorporated into the systems which organizations use. Another, this requires building components into the work components of people for knowledge dissemination, and knowledge capture. For example, mechanisms for feedback or ideas which can be leveraged on a larger scope could be built into transaction processing as well as into planning activities.

Any thoughts? Agree or disagree? Please write in with comments.

KM Solving Business Issues

There is an interesting post by Nick Milton about the need for alignment of KM with organizational strategies, but more so, about the utility of KM as a tool for solving real business issues. The ideas Nick points out here are quite interesting. Especially the part where he rightly says that talking to a knowledge manager would get you the response that they are working on SharePoint, or they are rolling out Communities of Practice. And the basic fact that these are not ends by themselves, but rather tools for achieving certain objectives. This, while it sounds logical, seems to be happening in only a few organizations i interact with.

I agree with this idea. KM needs to be incorporated into the toolkit which managers can leverage for solving specific business problems. Problem with KM, however, is that it doesnt lend itself well to point intervention. As such, KM needs to be an ongoing strategic area, while at the same time, KM needs to be develop a set of tools which can be handy to managers for solving specific business problems, within the scope of the overall strategic definition of KM. OK, so this sounds like a lot of jargon, but the point i am trying to make here is that we need to look at KM at two levels (maybe more? please feel free to comment your thoughts on this!), strategic and tactical.

The Culture Aspect, And Shape Of Things ...

There is a nice post by Ana Neves about the interaction between culture and KM. This post explores the requirement of the right kind of culture as a pre-requisite for a successful KM program, and it rightly goes on to the idea that while the right kind of culture is a nice to have thing, its not necessarily a must-have thing. This is an important conclusion, because given this, an organization can still look at KM at a tool to not just enable free flow of ideas, but also, look at KM as enabling the free flow of knowled in the organization, and as a result of this, create a more sharing culture. Though this, to my mind, is much more difficult to achieve that building a successful KM initiative on top of culture that is conducive. As Luis rghtly points out, it can be done, but it would probably take much more time.

Having said that, as you know, E 2.0 is here. No, i am not going there, but with blogs, twitter, and other tools, its almost like being there (minus the beer, of course!). Lets take a look at the agenda, though, and its quite interesting. Theres cloud, of course (one would expect it to be, which makes me think maybe i should sit up, and at least try to understand what clouds mean), but apart from clouds, the words i am seeing more of are Open Enterprise, Enterprise 2.0, Social ... This is interesting. And a clear indicator of the way KM is going. There is more and more emphasis on the conversation ... the social, the people aspect of KM. Which is something which should have been there in the first place, over the last decade, when people werent just part of the discussion. This is a nice sign, because this implies that KM is evolving, and the move towards the 2.0 world is something which everyone is taking note of. Having said that, organizations would need to ensure that the KM 1.0 parts of documentation, best practices, content-based KM is not pushed to the sidelines, because that too has a role to play.

But thats not the point i am trying to make here. The point is more than in the 2.0 world, culture plays an even more important role. Because the 2.0 concepts have people at the centre of the entire paradigm, the question of culture, and the relationship between KM and Culture becomes even more important to discuss. Plenty has been written about E 2.0, but even if we dont go to that (something i feel will take much more than we seem to think ... simply because E 2.0 is about disaggregation of control), the very paradigm of the social enterprise, or web 2.0, or social computing, or whichever way you look at it, requires a change in the way things are done, a cultural shift. And here, again, i think that the right kind of culture is a very important pre-requisite, but not a necessary one.

Some Defining Points ...

Recently, Luis Suarez blogged about about an interview he had given about some of the questions which are on the minds of a large number of knowledge managers, and not just knowledge managers, at that. What i liked about the interview was that some of the basic questions which a lot of people have on their minds were asked, and answered, and not too much jargon, at that.

There were, however, a few things which stood out, which i thought required to be blogged about.

First, the idea that organizational knowledge is a combination of structured and unstructured knowledge. Now, this seems to be a reasonably well-established idea, but maybe not as much as one would think it would be. Quite a few of the people i interact with give me the idea that in more organizations than one would think, structured information still is what knowledge is considered to be. And therefore, the focus becomes the document management systems, with not much highlight on the unstructured part of knowledge.

Another thing that Luis talks about, which i think is an important of the emerging aspect of social, as represented by social computing, social networks, etc., is that of letting go of control. This is easy to discuss, but that much more difficult to implement, though, and is probably something which would be more of a gradual process, taking far more time than one might think, as organizations get to understand the implications of this, and develop the confidence that letting go control is not about a free-for-all. Rather, i would say that its about letting go control in specific ways, rather than replace hierarchy altogether.

Another aspect Luis talks about is the knowledge is power aspect. This is something which i like to discuss whenever making a presentation about Knowledge Management. Thing is, we have grown up with this paradigm, and it is only recently (if you have a few gray hair, you would think of this as being recent) that this paradigm is being dismantled by the evolution of technology. Probably today we are seeing a statte of transition with respect to this, but this is happening.

Barriers To Adoption

Today Jocelyn Ruiz Perez from evalueserve sent a very nice paper about Barriers and Facilitators in Use of KM Systems ... Quite an interesting paper. While on the whole, the paper discusses the findings of the authors about human and organizational issues which are usually not addressed in the way KM is approached in a lot of organizations (i wouldnt say all, but quite a few, probably), there are a few things which stand out.

Especially the part where the authors discuss the things which need to be addressed if organizations are to leverage Knowledge Management successfully:

• Inadequacies of technology
• Systems not being user-friendly
• High current workload
• Failure to institutionalize

Interestingly, these are all challenges which are not very difficult to overcome. At least, some of them.

About the inadequacies of technology, we all know about them. Having said that, though, most of these inadequacies, over a period of time, are being taken care of, and technology is evolving with platforms which can meet the requirements of both users and organizations, which usually come from user-friendliness, and integration.

Another aspect of this, however, is to make KM relevant. Most organizations i talk with, have a on-size-fits-all approach towards KM platforms. This means that the platform usually tends to be a static one, with all users, irrespective of what their requirements are, and what they are likely to be looking for, coming across a single user-experience with the platform, which leads to a lot of irrelevant information being presented to users. Of course, this is easily addressed by RSS and other similar technologies which are pull based, rather than being push based.

Coming to the concept of high user workload, this is the classic conundrum which a lot of KM practitioners would have faced, and continue to face ... Wheres the time?! With users being hard-pressed for time, where is the time for going through the resources which KM presents to you, and also where is the time for contributing to the repository of knowledge which KM can make available to others? This makes it a chicken-and-egg situation. And this is where the whole idea of making KM engagement a part of work, rather than being an additional activity. Whether it be contributing to, or learning from, the resources which are available on the KM platform. This, to an extent, would also address the failure to institutionalize ... though only to an extent.

Any thoughts, please feel free to comment.