Tim Wood Powell     The value of knowledge

I hope each of you is enjoying this new year — whenever it is that you celebrate its beginning.

For me, 2017 is already full of new beginnings and revelations.  To recap:

Launch of KVC Clinic v.2.0

In the fall of 2016, we launched an expanded version of our KVC Clinic. This includes three days of on-site work with each intelligence or knowledge services group, as well as depth interviews with internal clients. It’s a hybrid event incorporating experiential team learning, organizational diagnosis, and customer research.

We received enthusiastic engagement from our initial host team, and were able to quickly develop a solid set of recommendations going forward. We are delighted that this client has added the KVC as a major 2017 initiative in their knowledge services program.

Launch of St. Clair knowledge services book

I am fortunate in my work to have been introduced to many of the world’s leaders in the fields of knowledge and intelligence — and even more fortunate that some of those have becomes colleagues, confidants, and (in a few cases) friends.

One of the latter is “Mr. Guy” St. Clair, a pioneer in moving-and-shaking libraries into the modern field of knowledge services. Guy’s wide-ranging set of professional experiences and contacts, and his lively and creative mind, make him someone people in this emerging field want to listen to.

In his important new book, Knowledge Services: A Strategic Framework for the 21st Century, Guy lays out a program for any organization to move ahead and capitalize on the rapidly-moving developments in this field. Devotedly “Druckerian” in outlook, he rightly emphasizes the leadership and organizational cultural aspect of enterprise knowledge — those constants that do not change rapidly, and that constitute much of the difference between success and failure.

Though Guy’s own voice comes through clearly, he also cites and includes contributions from a range of experts, some of whom have been assistants or guests speakers in his classes at Columbia University.

Among these, I am delighted that Guy has generously cited and discussed the KVC framework. (It was through his initiative that the KVC framework was added to Columbia’s curriculum.) He positions the KVC as the framework for conducting a value-added organizational knowledge audit — generally acknowledged to be the starting point for most any successful improvement initiative.

To use Guy’s words, he and I are “fellow travelers.” I value our frequent dialogues, and count myself wealthy in having him as a colleague and friend.

Eric Garland’s KVC analysis

And speaking of colleagues who became friends, another of these is futurist and digital man-of-the-world Eric Garland.

Eric is a master of digital engagement, and a knowledgeable speaker who always entertains — and who never minces words. His 127-tweet thread on the 2016 US election went viral and has been called (among other things) “a Federalist Paper for 2016″. He has a shot at becoming Tom Paine meets Hunter S. Thompson meets the Internet.

A few weeks ago, Eric totally surprised me with his KVC-based analysis of the Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. Interesting indeed, and certainly an innovative and useful application of the KVC framework.

Columbia IKNS Capstone projects

It’s the chance to meet rare individuals like Guy St. Clair and Eric Garland that have always driven my engagement with professional networks (such as SCIP), and now drive my engagement with students and peers in academia.

To that end, I have been asked by Program Director Kate Pugh to re-up as a Capstone project instructor and coach for Columbia’s Information and Knowledge Strategy program. Kate is the central driving force of the program, the hub of a wide network of interesting people, and herself a leader in the “knowledge” field.

I look forward to working again with two returning members of our “2016 instructional dream team,” Madelyn Blair and Nita Gupta.  I will greatly miss working with Vanessa DiMauro, with whom I collaborated often — but hope to be working with her on other initiatives.  I welcome the chance to get to know and work with Chris Samuels, who is joining us.

We will use the KVC as a Capstone framework that integrates others’ work in the value and ROI of knowledge. There are few experiences quite so fulfilling as interacting with students — the future leaders of the world’s knowledge economy!

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