The NSW KM Forum is an informal gathering of practitioners that meets on the first Thursday of every month (except April). It is free. Each meeting starts with a guest speaker then focuses on developing useful practices that we can use. See below for more information on the forum.

Upcoming Meetings

Thursday 3 July

5:30pm - Start

6:00pm Case Study by Serena Joyner - Experiences with Social Network Analysis: Reading tea leaves or diagnosing organisational behaviour?

Can social network analysis (SNA) really help develop knowledge strategy? With the support of Laurie Lock Lee and Cai Kjaer of CSC Australia, this NSW government agency has just conducted an SNA project that identified the knowledge and information networks involved in decision-making within the agency. Faced with loads of data and numerous ways to view it, the project team have been able to guide staff through interpretation of the network maps and identify areas where decision making processes can be better supported or enhanced. Real insights have been gained into previously frustrating or perplexing behaviour ("Wow - this is kind of spooky" as one participant put it).

Serena will discuss why the agency has used SNA and what the organisation is learning about itself through the process.

6:30pm Practice Focus: Knowledge Mapping

We are currently developing a document that outlines the range of approaches to knowledge mapping and when to use each one. This session will examine the range of techniques established in the last meeting and discuss the best next steps.

7:30pm Close

Thursday 7 August

5:30pm - Start

6:00pm Guest Speaker: Ross Dawson on Living Networks – Leading your company, customers and partners in the hyper-connected economy.

Ross Dawson is the author of a new book called Living Networks (http://www.livingnetworksbook.com/) and the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Human Technologies, an international consulting firm that helps leading organizations to develop strategy and client relationships in the digital, connected economy. Ross has a long history in knowledge management including publication of an earlier book on knowledge based customer relationships.

6:30pm Practice Focus: Knowledge Mapping

We are currently developing a document that outlines the range of approaches to knowledge mapping and when to use each one. This session will build on the previous meeting’s work.

7:30pm Close

Introduction to the NSW Knowledge Management Forum

In addition to the learning opportunities provided by material on this website and in the KM Framework, Standards Australia provides the opportunities for knowledge management practitioners to learn directly from each other face-to-face. Every month we invite KM practitioners to meet together at Standards Australia premises to discuss the application of knowledge sharing principles.

The meetings are run by an informal an independent committee nominated by participants. The aim of the group is to share experiences in applying knowledge management including Standards Australia’s KM Framework.

Contact details:

To be notified of the Forum activities

1) Email tim.kannegieter@standards.com.au asking to join the NSW KM forum.

Committee members are:

*	Tim Kannegieter, (Standards Australia) tim.kannegieter@standards.com.au

*	James Robertson (Step Two Designs), jamesr@steptwo.com.au

Meeting details

RSVP: If you are on the NSW KM notification list there is no need to rsvp. Name tags are not provided. Please bring a business card or some other name card to fit into our standard namecard holders.

Cost: There is currently no cost.

Access/Venue: The venue will normally be held at Standards Australia’s offices at Level 6, 286 Sussex St (Corner of Bathurst St) unless otherwise notified. NOTE: The normal reception and entrance to the building on Sussex St closes at 5-30pm. After that time the Sussex St entrance may be closed so go to the staff entrance on Bathurst St entrance and wait to be escorted up as the lifts will no longer operate for you. If you arrive after 6:00pm you will need to ring the mobile phone number on the door.

Agenda:

*	5:15 pm: Start – refreshments, networking and general announcements

*	6:00 pm: Case study 1 - maximum 5 slides, 15 minutes of question time

*	6:30 pm: Case study 2 OR methodology presentation – Presentation on KM methodologies including critical analysis of Standards Australia’s and other frameworks, maximum 5 slides, 15 mins of question time

*	7:00 pm: Administration – Appointment of next venue, date and speakers.

*	7:05pm: Close - Refreshments and general discussion at Transit Café, Kent St.

Past Speakers

Thursday 5 June

5:30pm - Start

6:00pm Guest Speaker: The role of today's youth in tomorrows KM strategies

Adam Broadway – Ribbit Software

Growing up in a culture of collaboration and using technology extensively, it might open the eyes of some people to know how incredibly wide spread CoPs are in the Internet Gaming and programming arena. "Clans" exist within gaming disciplines and these virtually mirror Etienne Wenger's definitions of CoP's in his doughnut analogy. Today's youth are tomorrows potential manager - how will this collaborative and knowledge sharing youth culture impact in business?

6:30pm Practice Focus: Knowledge Mapping

We are currently developing a document that outlines the range of approaches to knowledge mapping and when to use each one. This session will feature a few presentations on different techniques and a brainstorming session to “map” out the range of techniques we want to investigate

Presentations will include:

*	Cate Jerram, University of Western Sydney – Will present a Sensemaking Framework for Knowledge Mapping (using Weick's concept of Sensemaking as major foundation, and other theories built in on top of that).

*	Daniel Lisset from Merk will talk about using mapping in business process design

*	Tim Kannegieter from BEA will present on the language used to describe different levels of mapping such as “primary” mapping techniques and “secondary” mapping techniques.

*	Back up presentations include:

*	James Robertson on "Using structured stakeholder interviews as a simple form of knowledge mapping."

7:30pm Close

Thursday 1 May

Establishing a Community of Knowledge Management Practitioners

This meeting will be devoted to establishing a Community of Knowledge Management Practitioners. The following agenda is designed to work through the issues required to develop a set of practices that Knowledge Managers can use practically in their organisations.

5:30pm Start

5:45pm Cultivating Communities of Practice – An summary of Etienne Wengers approach including definitions of Domain, Community and Practice.

6:00 – Discussion of the COP approach – including Wenger’s 7 key steps to cultivating a COP.

6:15 – Establishing an action plan for the development of a KM COP.

Thursday 6 March 2003

4:45pm Opening – Browse through copies of the Interim Standard

5:00pm SHARP - Stewart Crawford – Landcom – Knowledge management Coordinator will present Landcom’s KM Strategy and early implementation efforts.

5:30pm – Kate Andrews on Knowledge Commercialisation –

The Knowledge Economy throws the spotlight on what firms know, where they know it, and how they use what they know to create value. Kate's presentation introduces a Knowledge Commercialisation Model as a framework for realizing value from firm-level knowledge. Knowledge has a value within the firm: the discipline of Knowledge Management focuses on improving innovation, efficiency and customer focus by better utilising information and knowledge. These are achieved by knowledge reuse, sharing and integration. The second element of the Knowledge Commercialisation Model is the value of knowledge outside the firm – the market value of knowledge. In our changing commercial environment, even mature public sector organisations are developing an interest in market revenues. Commercialisation options include sale, licensing and joint ventures. Alternatively, an organisation may choose to forego financial returns and give away intangibles – for example, to achieve public good objectives or to build their market image. Kate will use case studies to illustrate the model and the interaction between internal and external value.

6:00pm – The Australian Interim Knowledge Management Standard presented by Rowena Loo, one of the committee members that developed the Interim Standard.

"Bottling the fog": Developing the Australian interim standard for Knowledge Management AS 5307 (Int) Knowledge Management was published last week. Come and hear Rowena Loo, a member of the committee tasked with developing the standard,discuss this landmark document that seeks to captures the multidisciplinary nature andmyriad ways of approaching knowledge management. 

6:30pm – Open discussion.

7:00pm Close

Thursday 7 November 2002

Eric Tsui – Chief Science Officer at CSC, will talking on Technologies for Personal and Peer-to-Peer Knowledge Management

There has been numerous articles published on the role of IT and KM systems in organisations but there is a lack of research into server-less KM tools/systems at the individual and group levels. Eric has been undertaking research, funded by a CSC LEF Technology Grant, on tools that assist the Individual Knowledge Worker (IKW) who, in today’s competitive knowledge-based society, has a constant need to capture, categorise and share/distribute knowledge on multiple devices and with multiple parties. Furthermore, knowledge sharing between IKWs often extends across organisational boundaries. As a result, personal KM tools have very different characteristics to the enterprise KM tools mentioned above. At the group level, the impact of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing, a disruptive technology, on Knowledge Management has been specifically identified as file sharing, distributed content networks, collaboration, and search. This presentation delivers a holistic view of the KM technologies at three key levels of focusses – individual, group and organisational.

Jenepher Surbey - Manager IT and Knowledge Strategy - Equal Opportunity for Woman in the Workplace Agency

This small federal government statutory Authority is moving from an ad-hoc to a strategic approach to KM. Jenepher will present the challenges to the audience which will be asked to discuss how they would move forward with KM.

Wednesday 2 October 2002

Duncan Robinson – Chief Knowledge Officer - Leighton Contractors Pty Ltd

Duncan will present Leighton’s approach to knowledge management that addresses business-to-business collaboration and business process improvement.

Derek Jardine – Information Solutions

Developing user-centred taxonomies – Derick will address the relationship between how readers (users) search for and use information, their business context, and the content itself, and the impact of these three elements on the development of taxonomies for knowledge bases. I will be drawing from experiences relating to the evolving design of online knowledge environments in IAG and National Roads and Motorists Association. He will also demonstrate examples of online web environments that utilise a 'user-centred' taxonomy approach.

Thursday 1 August 2002

Alastaire Rylatt and Tim Kannegieter will be facilitating a general discussion about knowledge management. Alastaire is in the final stages of writing a book called "Winning the Knowledge Game: A Formula for All Business Success". Alastaire has agreed to use the hard work he has put into this book to come up with a series of thought provoking statements related to knowledge management that we will debate. It will be quite a free flowing dicussion that allow us to explore areas of KM that the participants are interested in.

Thursday 4 July 2002

Speaker 1.Aseem Prakash

E-Hubs Asia Community of Practice Leader

He said: "I have been cultivating E-Hubs Asia since May, 2000. It is a global community of practice focusing on e-business, organizational designs and social capital issues. I am currently wearing two hats. My primary hat represents graduate studies in organizational learning via communities of practice at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. The second hat represents my role as the practice leader of E-Hubs Asia community and practicing in the area. I founded Interactive Knowledge On-Line (www.ebusinessknowledge.com) in July, 1995.

Aseem will lead a discussion on Communities of Practice.

Speaker 2: Cai Kjaer

Senior Consultant, Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) Cai will be talking about his very practical experiences with implementing knowledge management projects, and will outline a range of success factors he has identified.

Thursday 6 June 2002

Speaker One:

Dale Chatwin –Knowledge Management Initiative –

Australian Bureau of Statistics

The Australian Bureau of Statistics knowledge management strategy has been described as probably Australia's 'longest running'. This presentation will provide an insight into the processes and technologies put in place to nurture KM in the ABS and will include a demonstration of the applications that 'enable' the ABS knowledge environment.

Thursday 2 May 2002

Speaker One: James Thomson – KM Standards Project Manager – Standards Australia

James Thomson is Standard Australia's project manager for the Interim Standard on Knowledge Management. Much work has been done on the early drafts of this Standard, and it is about to enter an exciting phase, with its imminent release to the KM Community for comment.

James will be providing a brief overview of what the Standard is about, and where it is up to. He will then be happy to answer all our questions about the Standard and the Standards process.

Speaker Two: George Nawar, Lecturer UNSW

George Nawar is a lecturer at the University of New South Wales, in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He has a keen interest in knowledge management processes and theories.

George will present a new model of knowledge management, designed to meet organisation goals within strict boundary conditions. Based on mathematical models (such as fuzzy logic) this approach will be demonstrated via concrete OH&S examples.

Thursday 6 February 2003

Dr Meliha Handzic – School of Information Systems, Technology and Management, University of NSW

The challenge of educating KM professionals is growing in importance as the industry matures. Meliha will discuss the training and educational requirements that organisations need to consider when hiring and training knowledge workers.

Dr Carl Rhodes – Oval Research – UTS

Carl Rhodes is a Senior Research Fellow at The Australian Centre for Organisational, Vocational and Adult Learning. He will be speaking on the role of stories in developing new models of learning and work. He will recount some of the insights developed in gaining his PhD and his practical experience in using stories to evaluate a performance management system at Citibank. In particular he will discuss the effect of bias in story methods and challenge the audience to discuss how you might go about detecting which “small signal” stories are important to listen to and which to ignore.

Thursday 10 April 2003

James Dellow — Ernst and Young

Linking Knowledge Mapping theory to practice

"A knowledge map - whether it is an actual map, knowledge "yellow pages" or a cleverly constructed database - points to knowledge but it does not contain it. It is a guide not a repository" (Davenport and Prusak).

In the summer of 1999/2000 the former IT and management consulting division of Ernst & Young commissioned the development of a simple electronic knowledge map. While ultimately it was quickly discarded by the consultants for newer (and more exciting) technology, it was subsequently adopted by the accounting services side of the business.

This particular knowledge map tool is now reaching the end of its useful life and this presentation will retrospectively compare the knowledge map concept provided by Wexler (2001) with the use of this tool at Ernst and Young. It will discuss knowledge map roles, the benefits of allowing users to innovate within the framework provided by an IT tool, the use of knowledge maps as a deliverable from a knowledge audit, and the implications for electronic knowledge maps in the future.

Reference: Wexler, M.N. (2001), The who, what and why of knowledge mapping, Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 5, Number 3, pp. 249-263.

Christena Singh - Office of Small Business - Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources

The Office of Small Business is the Federal Government’s unit for small business policy advice located in the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources. It is a small group of approximately 30 staff, who are organised into five groups, structured around main policy advising areas:

For public sector organisations, recent decades have seen outsourcing of service delivery, leaving work units focused on policy advising roles – a knowledge intensive activity. However, knowledge management is an area that has not been formally embraced to a large extent in the public sector in Australia. For small public sector organisations particularly, examples of effective knowledge management are more noticeable by their absence.

Christena will outline the development of a knowledge management strategy for the Office of Small Business.and describes a knowledge audit that was undertaken using a social network analysis technique.