Cory Banks, of the QKM Forum (our counterpart group in Queensland), is currently recruiting at Parsons Brinckerhoff.  See the links below for more info on the positions or to apply:

• Knowledge Manager (Permanent, Full-time) 
• Intranet Coordinator (Permanent, Full-time) 
• Intranet Support Contractor (3 month fixed term contract)

NB: The role descriptions state various locations. This is a limitation of the system and is not accurate. The roles can be based in any of PB’s major offices in Australia & New Zealand so don’t be limited by this.

Please feel free to forward to anyone you feel would be suitable. Application will be taken over the next two weeks, closing 28 May 2010.

December reflections

The changing face of Knowledge Management

Wednesday 16 December, 6:00 pm

And so we near the end of a very busy year.  It has certainly been busy for the KMLF, with 13 sessions over the year!  (You can read what Nancy White had to say about our November meeting here.)  

As mentioned, our final session for this year will celebrate our tenth anniversary, and will feature some open discussion on this history, and how the group has emerged over this time.  We will have some of the founding organizers of the KMLF along to share their thoughts, and we particularly welcome any of you that we haven’t seen for a while to come along and share your stories.  This will also be a chance for us to say “thank you” to those that had the vision to put this group together in the first place. 

One question to start with will be to tie down exactly when the KMLF got started – is it actually our tenth anniversary? Other points may include: 

• The motivations behind the formation of the group – are they still relevant today?
• A brief look at the history of the group, how we organized ourselves, and how it worked.
• What the KMLF has meant to us – what insights did we gain, what important relationships did we develop, how did what we learned help us to overcome obstacles in our work?
• Is an awareness of history relevant to KM?
• Finally, we will talk about of where we think we are going (and why).

This will also be a time of celebration of the end of the year, and our usual time of networking with colleagues.

After the session, anyone interested can join us over dinner for further discussions.

Agenda 

6:00-6:30          Networking with other thinking collaborators (over drinks and nibbles).
6:30-7:15          December reflections – The changing face of KM
7:15-8:00          Informal conversation amongst the group to explore the ideas and concepts.

Venue: 
RMIT Graduate School of Business, 300 Queen Street. Melbourne
Lecture room 158.1.2B (Ground level – just behind reception).
Ample metered street parking nearby in Queen Street (between La Trobe and Little Lonsdale).

RSVP: by email to melbournekmlf@gmail.com

Realising Our BroadBand Future – This Thursday

The Government is hosting the “Realising Our BroadBand Future” forum on 10 and 11 Dec to map the applications and business models that will thrive in Australia’s high speed broadband future.  

We have an opportunity in Melbourne to contribute to the discussion, at 8:30 to 12:00 this Thursday 10 Dec.  Deloitte are very kindly hosting us at 550 Bourke St.  This is a free session, but you must register.  See the details, and click through to register here: http://bbfmel.civictec.net/. 

We’re talking about our connected future. This isn’t about technology, it’s about how we can all use it – to connect communities, build businesses, improve our education and health systems, create and innovate, improve our quality of life for all.

For those of you wishing to come along, please register as quickly as you can, as there are limited places available!  If you are unable to make it, please pass on the invitation.  It would be great to see some KMLF people there.  If you can’t make it, follow us on Twitter at #bbfmel.

Information continuity

Safeguarding business & community identity

Early notice and call for papers for inForum 2010

 The RMAA are holding their 27th International Convention at the Gold Coast Convention Centre on 5-8 September 2010.   KMLF members are invited to respond to the call for papers for this convention.  Their intention is to broaden the scope of topics and the audience.

 For further information, please refer to http://inforum.net.au/.

2009 has been a great year for KMLF (see events summary below).  It is the first year that we have offered events in every month (two in August!).  We collaborated with other networks (KM Roundtable and VPSCIN) to manage a larger activity and hosted three international speakers.  Participants have enjoyed a wide range of topics and formats and we have successfully kept the events interactive and conversation based. This has generated a lot of positive feedback and good participation throughout the year.

The KMLF organisers are very much interested in your feedback and participation (both face to face and on-line).  This December (Wed 9^th) we will be hosting a preview/review conversation about where KMLF is at and where we want to be. We will start with drinks and conversation at the Business School and then walk to a nearby restaurant to continue dialogue over dinner.

Please start the conversations with colleagues and feel free to share your ideas with organisers through any of the means below (starting tonight at the meeting with Peter and again with Nancy White on Mon Nov 16^th).  

You can follow KMLF activities and events in many ways:

Talk with other members at events is always best, but alternatives exist:
Twitter use search tag #KMLF

KMLF Google Calendar see future events (usually 4^th Wed each month):
http://www.google.com/calendar/render?gsessionid=F6HUGXAlSpyYoDAK4TxCbw

KMLF Blog for comments and feedback: http://www.melbournekmlf.org/

KMLF mailing group for all previous announcements: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/KMLF/

KMLF LinkedIn site for sharing comments and access to members blogs
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=1981496&trk=anet_ug_hm&goback=%2Eanh_1981496

Events Summary 2009

Some info from our previous meetings, notice of future events, and other updates. 

Knowledge Integration or Corporate Disintegration?

You can now download Bill Hall’s slide pack from the 26 August session.

Adaptive Leadership for Turbulent Times

Dave Snowden’s special session on 30 July was based on two earlier sessions. You can access the slide pack and a podcast of his session at the Civil Service College in Singapore on the Cognitive Edge site.  A shortened version of this was delivered to the IPAA in Melbourne on the same day as our presentation – the slide pack and podcast of this are also available at Cognitive Edge.

Leading Successful Knowledge Initiatives – Enhancing personal and organisational performance with embedded knowledge flows

As advised earlier by email, our own Arthur Shelley is delivering a two-day KM Masterclass for Ark Group in Melbourne on 28-29 October.  It will be at the Novotel Melbourne on Collins, and will feature a series of interactive conversations, supported by practical exercises to help you build your own knowledge-based strategy.

 As usual, a discount applies for Melbourne KMLF members. For all details, please refer to the online brochure. (We also have printed copies of this available at our meetings.)

Nancy White in November

We are in the early stages of planning for Nancy White to address us while she is in town.  Please keep the evening of Monday 16 November clear for now – more details later.  See the Full Circle Associates blog for more info about Nancy.

While she is here in November, Nancy will also be undertaking a series of workshops across Australia, in partnership with Innotecture (Matt Moore’s company) . I highly recommend this!  (Disclaimer: I am assisting  Matt with the Melbourne session.)

The Australian Collaboration Software Report

A reminder – if you are in Australia, and currently using collaborative software, or planning to acquire it, please fill out the survey at http://tinyurl.com/ozcollab now! This will give you the opportunity to benchmark your experience against that of others.  Read more about the survey on the OzCollab blog here; and our preliminary findings here.

(This initiative is being conducted by Matt Moore of Innotecture and myself).

Get the Buzz

Although the KMLF is mostly about the face-to-face meetings, you can follow some news and join the online discussion via our LinkedIn group – Melbourne KMLF. 

You can also check what’s going on by following the Twitterers amongst, or by searching for #kmlf on Twitter, or searching on #hashtags. (Results may vary!)

A few items of interest:

Melbourne KMLF LinkedIn Group

As you should have seen from your latest group email, we have now set up a LinkedIn group to provide an additional channel for knowledge sharing between members.  If you haven’t already joined the group, please click here to apply.  Feel free to add news articles or other items of interest to the group to share with everyone, or let us know what news feeds you would like to see. (Thanks to Luke Grange for setting this up!)

The Australian Collaboration Software Report

Are you currently using collaborative software, or are you planning to acquire it? Would you like to benchmark your experience against that of others? Are you based in Australia? Please fill out the survey at http://tinyurl.com/ozcollab now! (If this is not relevant to you, you may like to pass it on to any colleagues that may be interested.)

Matt Moore of Innotecture and I are currently researching the use of collaboration tools in Australia. “Collaboration” is a buzz term at the moment, and we want to get behind the hype to discover how organisations are selecting and implementing tools and whether they are benefiting from them. If you have experience with selecting, implementing or maintaining a collaboration tool within the last 12 months, then we would like you to take part in this survey.

Read more about the survey on the OzCollab blog here; and our preliminary findings here.

KM Australia – Reminder

Remember that you can get a member discount to KM Australia in Sydney in August. Apply quickly if you haven’t already done so, and wish to attend. Mention that you are a member of Melbourne KMLF to receive your discount.

Go to the KM Australia site for more information, and to download the latest brochure.

 - Keith De La Rue
   Organising committee

On Monday and Tuesday Feb 9-10, the ARK Group are running their Knowledge for the Experienced Practitioner event.  ARK do not normally organise dinner functions, so for the last few conferences some of the “regulars” (members of KMLF and associated bodies from other states) have been organising an informal evening gathering over a meal.  There will almost certainly be an informal gathering on Monday evening.

Patrick Lambe and Arthur Shelley are delivering workshops on the Wednesday, so for Tuesday evening (Feb 10), I was thinking of arranging a social interactive activity in the form of “musical chairs”.  This is where we book a venue to serve three courses of food to round tables of six to eight people and after each course. Between courses we all get up and move to another table to enage in conversations with another group.  This format builds our networks more widely and provides the opportunity to get to know like-minded people better in a relaxed and social atmosphere.  I believe I can encourage many of the speakers to attend and have the endorsement of ARK to proceed with this.

Please let me know if you are interested in attending so we can judge the feasibility of this format.  I have done it before and it works very well with groups of 20 and up.

This will NOT replace the February 25th event for which we will soon announce a speaker.

KM Leaders of Melbourne and interested parties,

We have a lot to discuss this year, so we are planning to set event dates for the whole year to assist members to plan their calendars in advance.  The more we can maximise attendance, the more networking and interactions (and fun) we can generate.  We will meet on the fourth Wednesday of every month from 6-9 PM (with the odd exception to fit visiting speakers etc).  Events will take a variety of forms including open discussion, workshop games, technique sharing, proposal development (to influence industry and decision-makers about knowledge issues) and others in addition to the usual invited speakers.

2009 starts off with a new aproach in a new venue.  RMIT University’s Graduate School of Business have generously agreed to provide facilities every month for us to have a place we can call KMLF Home.  The first session will look at conversation as a tool for knowledge sharing.  The format is a facilitated discussion in which everyone is invited to participate. Conversations that matter (also known as constructive dialogue or courageous conversations) have been getting more attention as a mechanism of knowledge exchange, influence and communication in recent times.  So please join the conversation about conversations!

Conversations as Knowledge Tools
RMIT Graduate School of Business 300 Queen Street.
Melbourne City (between Little Lonsdale and La Trobe)
There is some free car parking on site and ample close on street parking (meters active until 7 PM). Location is only one block from both Flagstaff and Central Stations.

See you all there.  Wine, Cheese, Tea, Coffee, chocolates and nibbles will be provided

Just in case you were wondering, it has turned out that we were unable to arrange a speaker for this month, so there will be no KMLF session for September.

However, we have now lined up a couple of treats for you over the next two months. Watch this space for more info!

Suffice it to say for now that you should keep your calendar clear for the evening of Thursday Oct 16, when we will be holding another joint session with VPS-CIN and the KM Round Table.  This will feature a Knowledge Café with David Gurteen.

More details to follow as they come to hand…

While this conference is aimed at training and elearning professionals, there will be many opportunities to learn about learning beyond training and web-based tuition. Robyn Ciuro and I are presenting on a staff induction project for Aboriginal people in a government department and how we used business narrative techniques.

http://www.learnx.net/learnx/index.html

It’s time we get the KMLF active again. Keith De La Rue and I are starting to organise a set of events for the rest of 2008. We are planning to normally schedule the KMLF meetings on the 4th Wednesday of each month at 5:45 pm.

We are still looking around for a good venue in the city. Our criteria is, low cost or free, close to good places to have dinner and a few drinks, can hold up to 50 people. Please add your suggestions as comments.

We are aiming to hold our next meeting on Wednesday 25th June where I’ll kick off the session with a presentation on building a collaborative workplace (based on this paper). We are currently looking for speakers so please contact myself or Keith with suggestions.

The KMLF co-ordination group is meeting for lunch on the 3rd Tuesday of each month. The next meeting is on the 17th June. Let me know if you would like to join us and get involved in running the KMLF.