KM strategy bears fruit in Russia

Chris Collison, founder of the KM consultancy Knowledgeable, shared mini-cases of KM used by the Sochi Winter Olympics committee, and idea management at Sberbank. "It is tempting to forget valuable old lessons during the excitement of innovation," cautioned Collison.

Other case profiles from Russia were from the industry associations for artists and SMBs (small and medium businesses), and addressed collaborative models, motivational forces and classification of emotional types. There were also interesting debates on how the art of conversation can be improved in KM, anchored by David Gurteen and Nancy Dixon. (See my previous article at kmworld.com/Articles/News/News-Analysis/The-new-conversation-manifesto-92665.aspx).

I shared examples of how KM has worked well for many Asian organizations: globalizing companies (productivity, innovation), government agencies (knowledge retention), technology providers (SMAC: social, mobile, analytics, cloud), and for startups and SMBs (entrepreneurship).

Keynote

Keynote speaker Larry Prusak, joining via video conference, said, "I am pleased that Russia is having a KM conference. I am of Russian ancestry myself." A researcher and consultant, Prusak was the founder and executive director of the Institute for Knowledge Management.

"We need to accelerate how knowledge is used in organizations and society. One of the great achievements of the last 50 years is the democratization of knowledge, especially after the end of the World Wars and Cold War. Never before have so many people known so much about so many things," said Prusak.