A chronology of Covid-19 cock-ups
Covid-19, where did it all go wrong?
Learning Before, During and After
I’ve made it a personal choice to avoid the perennial discussions and debates about defining “knowledge management”, which more often than not seem to focus on the typology and semantics rather than getting to grips with the actual practice. I like simplicity, and whatever your preference for intellectually precise definitions, it inevitably boils down to the actions that encourage and support learning, and specifically, learning before, during and after. In his book “Knowledge Management for Teams and Projects”, Nick Milton…
Knowledge Hub Closure: What have we learnt?
We should think of the LGA announcement of the closing down of the Knowledge Hub as an opportunity rather than a problem. The original concept was for a sustainable, sector driven cultural and technological environment in which collaborative knowledge generation, learning, sharing and problem-solving would be supported with minimal mediation by national bodies. The reality is that it is has become a closed and proprietary LGA network, with very little transparency about strategy and development priorities, and clearly now a growing burden to a cash-strapped organisation.
Knowledge Hub: A response.
The Knowledge Hub community of practice facilities were meant to be a step on the way, and not an end in itself, which is what I think the Knowledge Hub has become. The unfortunate conjunction of original concepts and vastly cut-down capabilities (per the original specification) has resulted in a just-about-adequate user interface (UI), but a fairly hostile user experience (UX).
Government launches public sector app store
I came across this artcle on the BBC website today. For those who remember my involvement with the early design and business requirements for the Knowledge Hub, the Khub App store was one of the main features of the new platform. Regretably it got lost in the budget cuts (or was de-priotised?), and hence an opportunity lost. As can be seen from the announcement, this could have been a net revenue stream for LGA as opposed to being perceived as adding to…
Maximising the power of collective knowledge
Introduction This is a summary of one of the breakout session I ran at the Cisco Public Services Summit, Oslo 9-11 December 2011. It describes the role of Communities of Practice in supporting more effective collaboration and knowledge sharing between organisations working in the public sector. It notes the key lessons learnt from a 6-year journey, starting from the launch of the UK local government CoP platform in 2006 and how this led to an ambitious attempt to create a…
Communities of Practice: a strategy for more effective collaboration
Acting as a public administrator, it was my privilege to arrange and facilitate a meeting this morning between a delegation from the Government of Singapore and some of the ‘expert’ Community of Practice Facilitators from the local government Community of Practice platform. My thanks to Etienne Wenger for making the original connections with the Singapore Government, and to Adrian Barker (Policy & Performance CoP – 3913 members), Neil Rimmer (Productivity and Efficiency Exchange CoP – 2513 members) and Michael Norton…
Knowledge Hub – part 5: Day of the App
Continuing my sequence of blog posts about the Knowledge Hub, the new and innovative community and collaboration platform for the UK public sector. I am devoting this post to the Knowledge Hub’s “App Store” facilities that will get delivered in the next development phase (no dates yet, but potentially around Sept/Oct 2011). I think maybe a pause here for a definition as to what an “app” is and how this might differ from a ‘widget’ or a ‘plug-in’. “App” is…
The Knowledge Hub – part 3 :User Experience (UX)
I thought it was probably about time to post an update about the Knowledge Hub; I’ve had my head under the bonnet of the technology for longer than I had intended and given the proximity of the Beta release in April this year I should probably surface for air and reorientation. Background Given it’s been a couple of months since I last posted on this topic, a quick recap on what this is all about: The concept for the Knowledge…
Knowledge Hub Linked Data Spend App.
The confluence of a number of initiatives around the UK Government’s transparency agenda has opened up a significant and exciting opportunity to deliver the first of a number of applications that will be made available in the Knowledge Hub App Store. The foundations for this initiative include: 1. The transparency agenda requirement for all authorities to openly publish spending data in reusable from January 2011 onwards. 2. Announcement about the publication of Government spending data 3. LG Group Practitioner Guide to…