16 Suggestions from a Pragmatic KM Curmudgeon

Originally posted12-Dec-24

The late Melissie Rumizen wrote, “I’d like to play the role of Knowledge Curmudgeon, as long as I get to define curmudgeon as someone who is stubbornly and determinedly grounded in the practical.” Similarly, KM researcher Dave Snowden is a self-described “proud curmudgeon and pragmatic cynic.”

In this article, I take on the role of pragmatic curmudgeon. I would like to share sixteen suggestions for improved communication, collaboration, and choices.

Each of my suggestions begins with a critique of common practices I see online and ends with a pragmatic suggestion for better communication. Some of these may seem controversial, but I believe following this advice will result in increased clarity, focus, and collaboration.

1. Trite and True

Many online comments fall under the category of the banal, for example:

• So true!
• Congrats!
• Well deserved!
• Awesome!
• That’s amazing!

Most of the time, these comments can be replaced by just clicking the Like button. In particular, avoid sequences of comments such as:

• Cain: Congratulations, Abel!
• Abel: Thanks, Cain!
• Cain: You’re welcome, Abel!
• Abel: Don’t mention it, Cain!

Of course, that is intentional exaggeration to make the point that such comments are just wasting everyone’s time and attention.

Suggestion: Hit the Like button on posts to agree with or thank the person instead of posting trite comments.

2. Humble Bragging

Often what people post online contains a bit of boasting, for example:

• I am happy to share…
• Pleased to announce…
• Excited that…
• Thrilled to have…
• I am humbled by…

If you post about an achievement, try to include something that may be of value to the reader. For example, “I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to speak at KMWorld. Here is a link to my slides.”

Incidentally, “humbled” means “to make someone understand that they are not as important or special as they thought.” It is now common to hear people use this word when they mean “grateful,” as in “I am humbled to receive this award.” This is the opposite of the actual meaning, so it is better to say, “I am very grateful to receive this award.” Alternatively, you can use the word correctly by saying, “I was humbled to learn that my submission was not accepted.”

Suggestion: Include useful content when announcing something of which you are proud.

3. Six Degrees of Self-Promotion

Some people include a set of initials in their titles, for example:

• CCA, PI, QTE, CISM
• MKM, CKM, CKS
• LIS, CKM, CKS, CL
• CKM, KCS, MS
• CCXP, CP

While it is nice to be proud of your degrees and certifications, having them appear whenever your name is mentioned on LinkedIn can appear a bit excessive. Moreover, some certifications are of questionable value, so brandishing them may have the opposite effect of what is intended.

Suggestion: Just use your name in your LinkedIn profile and leave out a string of credentials. Let your content speak for itself.

4. Reduce Recycled Rhetoric

Have you ever heard any of these?

• Knowledge management is all about the people.
• Technology is merely an enabler.
• Data can be organized into information that can become knowledge, which can be distilled into wisdom.
• Increasing employee engagement is critical.
• Knowledge is power.

Many articles and posts consist mostly of recycled, tired, and predictable content. Instead of trotting out the same old bromides, try to offer new insights or tell stories about what you learned based on personal experience.

Suggestion: Before posting, ask yourself if what you are about to say is in any way new or insightful. If not, don’t post.

5. Short But Not Sweet

Much of what I read online consists of short posts rather than thoughtful articles. It is hard to write in-depth articles and publish book chapters or full books. Nevertheless, the extra effort is worth it.

Suggestion: Devote more time to researching topics and thoroughly expanding your thinking before posting.

6. TL;DR

This expression stands for “Too long; didn’t read.” Although it takes time to read complete articles and books, listen carefully to entire presentations and podcasts, and pay attention during webinars and conferences, it is the only way to grasp what is being communicated so that it becomes actual learning and understanding. Short attention spans, multitasking, and skimming result in missing a lot of important information.

On LinkedIn posts that contain links to full articles I have written, I have seen many likes and comments made over the years. I doubt that most of the people doing the liking and commenting have actually read the full articles. For example, my KM infographics always contain a link to the source post from which the image was derived. Rather than clicking through and reading that full article, some will post comments that ignore that content. They are commenting based on just the bullets in the infographic. On articles, some are commenting based on just the headline. I would like to propose a new meaning for TL;DR — To learn, definitely read.

Suggestion: Before commenting on a post, take the time to read the full content to which it links.

7. No-Shows

The SIKM Leaders Community has held over 230 monthly calls since forming in 2005. It has grown from the initial eight to over 1,240 members. Every member is a KM practitioner, or a professional interested enough in KM to join the community. Yet the typical number of attendees on the monthly calls is 20. I often wonder what the other 1,220 members are doing during that hour. Is it so important that they are unable or unwilling to spend 60 minutes learning from a thought leader and from their fellow members?

Years later, will you even remember what you did during that hour? You could have benefited from free presentations by Zach Wahl, John Hovell, Jane McConnell, Heather Hedden, Madanmohan Rao, Stephanie Barnes, Harold Jarche, Alex Bennet, Nancy Dixon, Art Murray, Moria Levy, Seth Earley, Gloria Burke, Patrick Lambe, and many other KM thought leaders. But you chose to do what, instead?

What about attending a webinar, conference, local KM community meeting, or training event? Too busy? Think about what is more important and make a different decision.

Suggestion: Make time to attend events where you can learn something useful. Then pay attention during the event.

8. Silence of the Lambs

During the monthly SIKM calls, there is always a chance to ask questions and engage the presenters in discussion. Of the roughly 20 people who attend, only a few will ever take advantage of this opportunity. This is expected behavior, as I wrote about in The Sound of Silence. It is still a shame that more KM professionals don’t choose to model the behaviors that they would like their KM users to demonstrate.

Suggestion: When attending events, speak up when offered the chance to ask questions or make comments.

9. Herd Mentality

People tend to follow the crowd and go along with what others are saying, what media channels are featuring, and what vendors are promoting. It is important to apply critical thinking and formulate your own ideas based on a combination of the writing of others you respect, and your own independent analysis.

Just because everyone else is jumping on the bandwagon of the latest trend, you don’t have to. Seeing many others present the DIKW pyramid, use maturity models, or try to compute the ROI of KM does not mean you should follow their lead.

Suggestion: Think for yourself, reject fads, and do not worry about being judged.

10. You’ve Got Mail

Despite the fact that online threaded discussions have been available for over 40 years, many people — including KMers who should know better — continue to converse via email. If as a profession we cannot do any better, how can we expect our users to participate effectively in communities?

We should lead by example and conduct discussions in communities, enterprise social networks, and other appropriate collaboration tools. Use email only for that which it is best suited: one-to-one, one-to-few, one-to-many, or few-to-few private communications — not many-to-many or public communications.

Suggestion: Use threaded discussion tools for multi-person discussions, not email.

11. The Right Tool for the Job

Beyond email, other tools are frequently used in ways for which they are not the ideal choice. For example, social media tools such as LinkedIn, chat tools such as Slack, and various Microsoft tools such as Teams, none of which are optimal for communities, are often pressed into use for that purpose.

LinkedIn posts and Groups, Slack channels, and Microsoft Teams can be used for commenting and conversing but are not ideal for community threaded discussions. In the Microsoft environment, Viva Engage (formerly Yammer) is much better suited for this purpose than Teams.

In the Lucidea environment, KM platform Presto provides Social Knowledge Networks that allow users to engage with content and add value by liking, tagging, rating, or commenting. For external communities, Groups.io provides excellent threaded discussion functionality.

Suggestions: To enable scaling up to a large number of members, preserving conversations in easily found threads, and better integrating with email and other tools, implement the optimal collaboration tool. Instead of discussing knowledge management in LinkedIn, join the SIKM Leaders Community and post there.

12. Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

The publisher priced my book, Handbook of Community Management: A Guide to Leading Communities of Practice, higher than I wanted. That should not prevent those who need to start a communities program from buying it and applying its principles and techniques. Nevertheless, I have heard from multiple potential buyers that it is too expensive. When I point out to them that the book draws from my multiple decades of experience in leading communities and that to engage me as consultant to provide that expertise would be much costlier, they scoff.

Worrying only about price, not potential value, is a mistake. What is the cost of a struggling or failing KM program? A lot more than the cost of one book. Similarly, the benefits of attending a conference, participating in training, hiring an experienced consultant, or licensing software to meet a specific need should outweigh the costs. Assuredly, you need to choose the right conferences, training, consultants, and software, but with proper due diligence, the investments should pay off and the minimal expenses soon forgotten.

Suggestion: Do not worry about whether the price of something seems “too high.” Spend money when doing so will result in significant benefits.

13. Breaking Bad

In curating content for my KM site and for my writing, I frequently encounter sites with missing content, “coming soon” or “under construction” signs, broken links, bad or obsolete content, ineffective search, poor usability, and other sins of commission and omission.

Here are a few rules to follow for offering better websites:

• Regularly check your site to ensure that all promised content is available.
• Add new content right after it has been created.
• Regularly test all links to ensure that they still work. Fix the ones that don’t, using the Wayback Machine as necessary to restore links to external content that was previously available but is no longer online.
• Never use “coming soon” or “under construction” on a site. Start small and grow but deliver only what is currently available and add more as it becomes available.
• Update or remove bad or obsolete content. However, do not delete content just because it is old. If the content is still of possible use and using it will not result in any problems, leave it in place.
• Avoid reorganizing your site in such a way that links that once worked will no longer work. If you must change URLs, ensure that all the old ones successfully redirect to the new ones to prevent broken links.
• Make site search work as well or better than a Google search aimed at your site would do.

Suggestion: Hire a usability consultant to review your site or learn about user experience and apply proven practices to your site.

14. Defining Moments

Some KMers love to debate definitions and other esoterica. I don’t spend time on that. For example, I have seen many protracted discussions on:

• Defining knowledge
• Defining the kinds of knowledge, e.g., tacit and explicit
• Defining KM
• The current state of KM
• The future of KM
• How KM relates to other professions, e.g., Learning & Development and Organization Development
• The latest trends in KM

I fail to see the value of these endless debates. I would rather talk about practical matters.

Suggestion: Ask questions and start discussions about what works, what doesn’t work, how to accomplish specific tasks, what technology can do for KM, lessons learned, proven practices, success stories, and how to solve problems.

15. Naïve Notions

Many initiatives start with the best of intentions but lack a sober view of reality. Examples include:

• An initiative on KM education with many committees, none of which took off or led anywhere
• An attempt to collect and unify all KM knowledge in a single place
• Efforts to create a single global KM community
• A program to promote tacit knowledge management as a new worldwide discipline, with ambitious goals for an extensive organization and high-level influence in government and business
• Attempts to come up with new names, definitions, and directions for KM

While I am in favor of attempts to reduce unnecessary overlaps, it is unrealistic to assume that most of the initiatives listed above will achieve most (or any) of their stated goals. I endorse collaboration, cooperation, and integration wherever possible. However, I oppose efforts that fail to understand why past ones in the same vein failed, and especially ones that are trying to reinvent the wheel or replicate organizations, communities, sites, or curated collections that already exist.

Suggestion: Before starting a new initiative, research the history of similar efforts. Spend time and energy on projects that have a reasonable chance of success. Volunteer to assist on an existing effort instead of replicating it.

16. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I am wary of so-called improvements in websites, software, and organizations. We have all seen promises such as:

• Introducing our newly improved site!
• The new version of our software will create a much better user experience.
• This reorganization/merger/acquisition will result in greater efficiency based on synergies yielding greater stakeholder value.

The reality is often quite different:

• The new site eliminated functionality, removed content that was useful, and is harder to use.
• The new version of the software deprecated useful features, required more resources, forced a time-consuming migration, is slower, resulted in crashes, no longer works the same, etc.
• The new organization functions much worse than the old one, many valuable employees have left, the new management team does not understand the organization, processes are broken, etc.

Suggestion: When making changes, ensure that those affected by them participate in the planning and implementation and have a voice in remedying anything that ends up worse than before.

See also Knowledge Management Sins, Pitfalls, Mistakes, and Causes of Failure.