tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52968312008-06-30T04:59:56.497-04:00Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comBlogger138125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-60547784493985030172008-06-30T04:25:00.004-04:002008-06-30T04:59:56.527-04:00

I wrote about rapid onboarding a couple of months ago. Rather than seeing it as the organization's responsibility, I was looking at it from the perspective of the employee. As an employee, what can you do to shorten the length of time it takes you to be fully integrated within your team and to add value to the organization. Based on my experience of the past few months, I'm tempted to express

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-74651829956415550292008-06-21T17:12:00.005-04:002008-06-21T17:36:15.088-04:00

Propinquity -- my new word of the day -- has to do with proximity. The "propinquity effect" refers to the impact of proximity -- or physical distance -- on human relationships. This has a clear impact on team building and efforts at fostering collaboration within organizations. How do geographically dispersed, mobile and sometimes entirely virtual teams and organizations succeed when the

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-74755933577370838072008-06-11T04:55:00.008-04:002008-06-12T05:56:42.108-04:00

Timing is everything. Had I been reading "Made to Stick" six months ago, I would probably not be reacting to it the way I am now. "Made to Stick" is about what distinguishes a sticky idea from an unsticky one. The concept of stickiness had already been discussed by Malcolm Gladwell in "The Tipping Point," and I found the two books to be highly related and equally insightful. There are lots

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-77691393266597138542008-05-14T05:49:00.006-04:002008-05-14T06:12:53.463-04:00

In his blog, Knowledge Jolt with Jack, Jack Vinson wrote "I was reading something today that just clicked for me. Context provides a frame of reference to what you are reading or hearing. The better I understand the particular frame of reference (context), the better I can understand what this information or knowledge means." (Knowledge Jolt with Jack, May 12, 2008) I had a similar thought

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-73444086346779768202008-05-11T06:41:00.005-04:002008-05-11T07:19:16.152-04:00

What I've been referring to as my rapid transitioning plan is apparently referred to as "rapid onboarding" by some employers and human resources departments. Wikipedia offers the beginning of a definition of onboarding: "Onboarding is the process of integrating a new or a newly-promoted leader or associate into an organization or role. Onboarding begins when the leader accepts the position; it

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-89271039416183026092008-05-10T07:17:00.004-04:002008-05-12T16:35:41.874-04:00

I'm now a full week into my new job. I'm still in the process of defining my role and describing what I will be doing but here's a first attempt: I work with the Chief Knowledge Officer and other OCKO (Office of the Chief Knowledge Officer) team members at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to "maintain and expand knowledge management practices within Goddard." There is a set of six knowledge

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-6556803254491528112008-04-28T10:03:00.007-04:002008-04-28T10:55:30.329-04:00

In my last couple of weeks at AED I was trying to think about what I could do to make the job of my successor as easy as possible and in the process, wondering about organizational memory and what happens more generally when people leave an organization. The reverse, what happens when people enter a new organization and need to be brought up to speed is also of interest to me at the moment since

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-68966738886965270342008-04-26T04:41:00.008-04:002008-04-26T05:27:23.205-04:00

Yesterday was my last day working at AED. I worked with AED for a little less than four years. * rewarding -- most of the time :)-- as in "Wow... I can see how that has an impact on development." * a great learning experience -- as in "That worked well, let's make sure to do it again this way," or "That flopped... let's not do it again," and "How did I not see that before...". *

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-39987581787384773682008-04-13T05:45:00.003-04:002008-04-13T06:00:12.949-04:00

The Food and Agriculture Organization and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation invite applications from e-agriculture.org members to participate in a free four-day Online e-learning Course: NETWORKING IN SUPPORT OF DEVELOPMENT **************** I have been a fan of online learning for a long time, to the point of developing my own online courses and having a lot of fun

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-90861262767286671892008-04-02T05:56:00.006-04:002008-04-02T14:02:34.148-04:00

I attended an interesting World Bank videoconference event yesterday on "Next Generation Organizational Models for e-Government." First I keep marveling at the technology that enables the participation of so many different locations across the world -- I think 13 different locations were connected via videoconferencing for the event. I still remember a few years ago when there were always

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-80355380672936190102008-03-30T15:09:00.006-04:002008-03-30T15:54:58.838-04:00

I can't remember a time when I was more excited and sure that I had come up with a great idea than when I suggested the use of fiction as a way of conveying key lessons learned around telecenters. I had been reading a lot about the use of storytelling as a knowledge sharing tool and then case teaching as a method for teaching. We were looking for something innovative, not just another toolkit

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-61133106166724345082008-02-18T15:34:00.004-05:002008-02-18T16:18:31.593-05:00

Click on the map to enlarge WikiMindMap is a web-based tool that transforms Wikipedia articles into a mindmap. I haven't figured out yet how to use the tool on a different wiki, if it is at all possible. The mindmap above corresponds to the article on telecenters in the English version of Wikipedia. I used "telecenter" simply because I am familiar with the content of the "telecenter"

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-47057110841657684542008-02-16T05:24:00.005-05:002008-02-16T06:08:45.537-05:00

Trying to find the right mix of pens, notebooks, and electronic tools to keep track of projects, to-do lists, planning, random thoughts and reflections is not easy. I've never seen the world as either/or. I don't want to switch to an all digital file system but I do want the convenience of being better able to quickly find a note I jotted down six months ago without having to flip through pages

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-58714894633187860412008-02-08T08:55:00.001-05:002008-02-08T09:06:41.080-05:00

In the last two days, I have downloaded three documents from the web for offline reading. These were PDFs clearly meant for offline reading. All three are in landscape (horizontal) layout. Coincidence? Could it be a trend? If it is a trend, where does it come from? Could it be that our reading habits are changing -- we're scanning rather than reading -- and document layouts need to adjust to

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-62607538001325952792008-02-02T07:16:00.000-05:002008-02-02T07:29:28.480-05:00

I've just posted a short article on social bookmarking. I'm not going to repeat here what is in the article but this is how it started out and I suspect the same happens to a lot of people: You hear a buzz about a new technology or a new cool gadget. You're not quite sure what it does, how it could help you and any time you hear about it or read about it, you're still not quite sure you're

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-26567075326708361902008-02-02T06:24:00.000-05:002008-02-02T06:47:09.121-05:00

NASA's APPEL (Academy of Program/Project & Engineering Leadership) project develops case studies that "illustrate the kinds of decisions and dilemmas managers face every day, and as such provide an effective learning tool for project management. Due to the dynamic and complex environment of projects, a great deal of project management knowledge is tacit and hard to formalize. A case study

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-27869403347410491652008-01-25T04:36:00.000-05:002008-01-25T04:44:01.070-05:00

If you have..... 0.5 minutes of free time FreeRice Give free rice to hungry people by playing a simple — or not that simple — word game and improving your vocabulary. My new term of the week: viral marketing. 6.06 minutes of free time Information Age... The Future of Technology Simple yet powerful presentation. Simple in the sense that it is a sequence of plain slides displaying statistical

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-10185056285560982662008-01-18T16:02:00.000-05:002008-01-18T16:28:06.056-05:00

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is coming up with an influence mapping tool. The tool was created by Eva Schiffer. It's "an interview-based mapping tool that helps people understand, visualize, discuss, and improve situations in which many different actors influence outcomes." It's called NetMap. It's at the intersection of a game, a mapping tool, a strategic planning

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-2484200818903516092008-01-01T17:37:00.000-05:002008-01-01T19:11:47.448-05:00

I don't know how many people took advantage of the "Give One Get One" XO laptop offer, but I was one of them. The XO now belongs to my 8 year old daughter and I retain some rights to play with it when she is asleep or simply occupied with other things. Some thoughts: 1. The interface is not immediately obvious to someone who has used Windows and only occasionally touched a Mac -- that's me. My

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-85127964438405234812007-12-15T05:59:00.000-05:002007-12-15T06:32:05.754-05:00

Chunks, Headings, Bullets and Bold There is a serious flaw in most of my work-related writing. It's just too long, too complicated, probably too "academic" for the target audience it's intended for. People don't just scan web pages, they scan reports. Unless you've got clear headings, bullets and every key idea is presented at the beginning of a paragraph, you might not get your point across...

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-31184365809307390242007-10-23T08:15:00.000-04:002007-10-23T08:49:29.298-04:00

Steve Denning's latest book, The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative is out. He's quite a master on the marketing side of things and I've always been intrigued by his ideas about storytelling as a knowledge management strategy. I had read The Springboard when it was published in 2000. The Springboard focuses on how Denning introduced knowledge

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-31370588907528362622007-10-11T18:00:00.000-04:002007-10-11T16:45:07.568-04:00

Accountability Myopia Can Impede NGO Learning and Mission From Monday Developments, November 28, 2005. Alnoor Ebrahim This is an article that won't age -- unfortunately.

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-88147582948640259302007-10-11T04:51:00.000-04:002007-10-11T05:23:10.671-04:00

Garry Emmons, Senior Associate Editor of the Harvard Business School (HBS) Alumni Bulletin, recently wrote a short article titled "Encouraging Dissent in Decision-Making." The format for these HBS articles is very reader-friendly. The articles are usually 3-5 pages, often summarizing broader research efforts. The articles are essentially teasers if you get really interested in the topic and

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-81871236441814826672007-10-07T06:31:00.000-04:002007-10-07T06:49:11.677-04:00

Evaluation Humor The Output/Outcome/Downstream Impact Blues, a song by Terry Smutylo. In a parallel universe, international development evaluation professionals would be required to memorize and sing this song once a year, or anytime they feel a little blue about their work. I am going to post it where I can see it every day. I am still looking for a working link to the audio track. I'd like

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5296831.post-10982740512458358422007-09-25T14:12:00.000-04:002007-09-25T14:47:19.145-04:00

DO NO HARM - Unintended Consequences of International Philanthropy A Presentation by Perry Gottesfeld, Executive Director of Occupational Knowledge International, sponsored by the Society for International Development's Washington, D.C. Chapter. September 25, 2007 o The presenter started by pointing out that there is a growing obsession among donors for measuring results and impacts, yet these

Barbara Filliphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15614073589045014522noreply@blogger.com