Joyful knowledge management.
Yes, knowledge management is joyful, at least it is to me.
I enjoy it when I can find what I’m looking for: the answer to the question, the person who has done a project before and can share her/his experience and lessons learned with me. I enjoy pulling together the pieces to make a new picture, creating new pieces where necessary.
In fact, I think the creating is the best part, whether we’re talking about something that is completely new, something that is new to the organization, or something that is an improvement on something that has been done before (partly new).
How do we do that creating?
We can take a left-brained approach and use knowledge management activities, like expertise location systems, communities of practice, enterprise content management–processes and technology to help us find things that may be similar or provide a piece of the puzzle, activities that help make new/different connections.
We can take a right-brained approach and create space for knowledge creation activities like painting, drawing, photography, playing foosball, running, walking, swimming, playing squash. Activities that let us do something new, different, unexpected. Activities that create the space for us to make different connections and have different experiences rather than the “same old thing”.
I revel in the joy of finding a solution to a problem; I especially revel in it if it’s something new, different, unique. Something that someone else says, “wow, I’ve never thought of it that way before” or “I’ve been trying to figure that out for ages”.
I find things that I learn painting, helps me in my consulting, whether it’s to remind me of the importance of balance or giving things the time and space to develop into what they’re going to be.
This is joy, balanced, right-side, left-side, joy.
