Knowledge Management People

For some time now I've been participating in a group of information and knowledge management practitioners ('DutchOpen KM'). These friends work in large, international companies, based in the Netherlands.

The idea is simple: We get together about 2-3 times a year, define a topic per meeting and discuss that topic. Sometimes some participants will give a short presentation about the topic and how it's addressed in their company. Sometimes a couple of lines of text is enough to spark the discussion.

I'm always happily surprised about the way these meetings go. The open way we talk, the respectful way disagreements are discussed, the great ideas that are shared, the contacts these meetings give afterwards, etc.

Is this just a coincidence? We just happen to have a nice bunch of people grouped together? They definitely are nice. But I don't think it's a coincidence. It's what I also see in the blogging community - at least the part I interact with. It has to do with what I call 'knowledge management people'. Good KM practitioners should be open, willing to share, interested in different and strange ideas, social, etc. And the nice thing is they often are. They don't have to be knowledge manager, just to be a good KM practitioner. One other characteristic is they are not self-centered and usually share their knowledge without asking back up front.

In short, it's great to work them and be with these kind of people.

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