Dave Snowden

The guys at Cognitive Edge seem to be on a roll with all the video's they're creating!  The latest one to be released is of Dave Snowden retelling one of the very first (and best) analogies I heard him use to explain the difference between ordered and unordered approaches.

Enjoy!

KM (or Knowledge Management) is quite a hot topic nowadays.  There seem to be two factions, 1 believes that KM in it's existing form is a dying discipine, the other refuses to believe that.  These discussions get quite emotional, which I guess is a good thing as it shows the passion for the subject on both sides of the spectrum.

Personally I believe that most decision makers have developed a level of cynicism toward traditional KM, mostly I believe because of the seemingly pervasive (though unfortunate) association of KM with IT and the limited view that many practitioners have had of how KM should be implemented.  Best practices like Communities of Practice were largely followed blindly, without adapting them to local contexts, often leading to failed initiatives and wasted money.  ...

Dave Snowden is in the country early in August and will be giving a public talk for the Pretoria chapter of the KM Practitioner Forum at the CSIR on the 19th.  I've attached the invite for your convenience

The topic is "How to make KM strategic to your organisation".  Dave's talks are always challenging and entertaining.

Seats are limited and registrations are coming in quickly, so make sure you register soon to ensure your spot.  I hope to see you there!

This post is largely inspired by a comprehensive blog entry by Dave Snowden on a new approach to Scenario Planning.   Much of what he says is key to the thinking behind our new Thrive! product.

Seneca said: "The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty"

In one of her articles Margaret Wheatly writes about the metaphors we use when speaking about dealing with complex problems, most of these relate to attacking the problem, not actually engaging with it.  Most people and organisation seem to have an inherent dislike for complexity and uncertainty, wanting to eliminate or reduce it all costs.  In their efforts, they often cause more risk to their companies. ...

Dave is having some trouble with editors of the HBR who want him to "dumb" down the content of his next article for their more "astute" business readers. This is how he likens the process:

"In both cases it's rather like a conclave of dinosaurs sitting down in the wreckage of their world post impact, demanding more simple articles on dental hygiene to cope with the fur of these strange new things, the early mammals. Or if you want another illustration, playing that old familiar fiddle while the world burns down around you.

I hope Dave's knows the gravitas of what he's just written: are you playing that old familiar fiddle (your trusty old management framework/model) while the world burns down around you (amidst the global economic meltdown).

We are convinced that neither just "simplifying" things, nor relying on our traditional models and frameworks will save us from the deepening gloom of the current crisis. In fact, doing so will just deepen the uncertainty and increase the chaos.

Something else is needed ...

In a recent blog entry, Dave Snowden commented positively about the design elements that make up our corporate identity. Coming from him this is a great complement, as the interpretation of abstract ideas such as "probe, sense, respond" into visually compelling graphic elements was a challenge!

I'd like to express appreciation to our designer, Angela Lang for a job well done!

Maybe I should elaborate a bit on why we selected probe: sense: respond as a tagline. We see our core focus area as assisting clients to address complex and intractable problems through the application of narrative and intervention techniques based on Complex Adaptive Systems theory (and other disciplines such as cognitive psychology, physics and anthropology).

In conjunction with the Gordon Institute of Business Science, The Narrative Lab will be hosting Dave Snowden at a GIBS Forum next week. Dave will be talking about a leaders framework for decision making - a topic he wrote about in his November 2007 HBR cover article.

Date: Tuesday, 4 March 2008
Time: 17:30 for 18:00. Cocktails to follow from 19:30.
Venue: GIBS Auditorium, 25 Fricker Road, Illovo
Fee: R160 (Forum Members) R225 (Non Forum Members)

Please click here to register. Seating is limited. Feel free to pass on to your network.

From 3 - 5 March 2008, The Narrative Lab will once again be hosting Prof Dave Snowden, world-renowned thought-leader in the areas of complexity and narrative, when we will be co-presenting a Cognitive Edge accreditation training course in Pretoria.  Prof Snowden is also known for co-authoring the cover article (a leader's framework for decision making) in the November 2007 edition of the Harvard Business Review.

What do you get when you pull together a former meteorologist, an enigmatic maven and a former narrative therapist? Answer:The Narrative Lab and pretty informative breakfast conversation on complexity in the business landscape.

In an amazingly short amount of time we managed to showcase our keynote on complexity (The New Simplicity), listen to a customised podcast from Prof. Dave Snowden on the Cynefin framework, hear how our methods are applied in practice and to talk briefly about the SenseMaker software we use when working with mass narrative capture.

Thanks to all our friends, partners, potential par­tners, clients and client-hopefuls for coming along to our first breakfast conversation on Friday. For those that could not make it, we're sad - but there will be a next time.

As promised, we have uploaded Dave's podcast which you can download here(right click + save as - 8MB) and his accompanying slideshow here (right click + save as - 3MB).

­Dave Snowden, founder of Cognitive Edge co-authored (with Mary Boone) the front page article of the latest edition of the Harvard Business Review.  For those of us who've been involved in Dave's complexity and narrative work over the years, this is a key milestone - indicative of how our way of thinking is starting to make in-roads into mainstream thinking.