Contactivity 2006

Just spent two interesting days at Contactivity at the University of Greenwich. Contactivity is a sort of fluffy people focused KM event which has grown out of KM Europe (which is considered to be too systems focused). The first Contactivity event ran alongside KCC Europe in Amsterdam last November (see previous entry). It’s supported and promoted by Knowledge Board. It was an unusual event to say the least, with lots of opportunity for participants to contribute to the agenda.

Day 1 was the most structured – I helped facilitate a Cayenne project simulation for over 60 people, we also did some structured networking (Peter Toxler) and witnessed the launch of a new free KM book  (see separate article).

Day 2 was a lot more free-form comprising three do-it-yourself sessions:

Future Forwards and Backwards - This scenario planning tool  is used a constituent of the Cynefin stuff used by Dave Snowden. It's a little confusing initially and we didn't really have time to complete the exercise properly, however I do like the approach and it would be good for a whole range of scenario planning activities (including defining your business strategy).

Open Space - An free-form collaborative experience with built-in agenda setting...the best bit is the principal of 'two feet' which allows you to circulate freely until you find something that interests you.

Knowledge Café - David Gurteen's 'conversations in a cafe style' based loosely on World Cafe.

Taking part in three such events in one day was probably a little ambitious – at times I would have loved to have had a breakout session for a couple of PowerPoint presentations – if only for the visual stimulus! One advantage of such an event is the complete lack of notes one makes – you’re so engaged in discussion you don’t have the opportunity to transfer your own ideas or reflections to paper. However your own notes are partly replaced by the flip charts that each group produces – the plan is to share this as an output online (see links below). The strength of Contactivity apparently is in the conversations and I have to agree that my lasting impression is of a bunch of slightly quirky people (me included) who have a passion for exploring issues in the domain we loosely call KM.

The next Contactivity is in Israel in September – don’t think I’ll be able to make that but I’m keen to do another one closer to home sometime. Not sure if there are any plans to run it alongside KCC Europe this year?

Photo is courtesy of Ed Mitchell at KnowledgeBoard (forgot my own camera) - lots more images at Flickr.

If you took part in Contactivity and you are reading this please leave a comment!

Link: Contactivity 2006 Wiki
Link: KnowledgeBoard Event Write-Up
Link: Contactivity Amsterdam

Comments

[Martin Röll]

Hi John! It was good to meet you. I hope we find more time for conversation next time!

[Ed]

Nice one John,

It reads like you *quite* enjoyed it. I've just finished the feedback and it's good - with the constructive comments I hoped for from such an expert crowd. Post event information is here:

http://groups.headshift.com/display/CONT06/After+event+information

Most of us noted that day 2 was a little OTT; many of us reached conversation-overload-induced delirium I believe (!) - the thematic point of it being slightly waylaid because the whole 'wiki emergence' experiment didn't happen, but there you go we all knew it was an experiment. I am proud that everyone tried the wiki (well over 50 % of us had not used one ever before); all ages and all technical abilities. And the wiki process will learn much from our findings (report will be made public).

What we have now is clear results from KB's deliberately risky alternative to the powerpoint focused events we all know - and can work back to the middle ground. On day 3 (KB internal SIG editors meeting day), Andrew Lewis presented an absolutely fascinating presentation about Accenture's active, working real-world KM system which handles upwards of 1,000 projects every month, and raised vigorous debate about the industrialisation of Knowledge. This made me think we should have had a couple of diametrically opposed presentations in between the workshops. And then perhaps a yoga session. And walking. And other stuff...

Thanks for coming and lending your support and your belief.

Ed

[John Curran]

The debate on the 'industrialisation of knowledge' sounds a good one. Reminds me of a book I read ages ago called 'The Industrialisation of Intelligence' (Kennedy, 1989).