Thank you for touching my life....

By now I know that when something  happens in my life, it is for a good reason. I've learnt that even if I do not understand why something is happening, I should not ask too many questions, as  sooner or later I may understand the "design" and intent of the event. And more importantly, I've learnt that the best and perhaps the only thing I can do is to learn so that I can grow.

These life changing events can come in different flavours. They can be a life changing incident, or a life changing encounter with a person.

Today, I wish to say thank two extraordinary people who over the course of the last twelve months were my travel mates on a journey of self-discovery and introspection.....

The first person  is a total stranger by the name of Luiga. Luiga came to my life when I most needed someone who could help me verbalize my feelings and state of mind. With  beautiful eyes and a disarming emotional intelligence and empathy she managed to dig  deep into my emotions and thoughts, she held me by hand, listened to the words that came out from my heart  without passing judgement and said a prayer for me.

I feel blessed, fortunate and privileged to have  learnt the art of  selflessness and giving from this wonderful person. Thank you Luiga.

The second person is my coach who taught to see opportunity in vulnerability and showed me how to transform fragility to strength. She helped me understand that all events of life are a gift. She made sure I remained engaged and motivated; helped me explore the uncharted waters of  mindfulness; taught me the importance of pausing and setting aside time to reflect, breath and showed me how to ask powerful questions; and reminded me of the power and potential of being curious.

I will eternally be grateful to her for helping me get back my life in my hands. I hope she is proud of me for putting to practice the power of pause - something that I am really looking forward to as I enter the final countdown to a new chapter in my life .....

I'll be for ever indebted to both of you. I hope I can give back some of the wonderful things I learnt from you both and to make a difference in someone's life, the way you made a difference in my life.

THANK YOU for touching my heart, for lighting the extinct flame in me, for shining light and holding my hand as I found my way through a bumpy and dark trail. I am very lucky to have had both of you as guides, coaches and mentors. As Marcel Proust said, you are the gardeners who made my soul blossom. THANK YOU.

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” — Marcel Proust

Be the leader who opens the door to knowledge #kmers #km

Peter Drucker many years ago said, "If knowledge is not challenged to grow, it disappears fast". He also cautioned that "Knowledge is infinitely more perishable than any other resource we have ever had."

So, what does it take to make sure we do not perish our most valuable resource: our knowledge?

After seeing many different incarnations of knowledge management initiatives and activities, I have reached the conclusion that we do not need more than the umpteenth website or a publication to keep knowledge alive... What we need is leadership.

We need leaders who create:

• the right environment to increase the flow of information and learning both inside and outside organizations
• a safe space for people to share their successes and failures
• a collaborative environment  based on trust that fosters organic learning and sharing

And we need leaders who move their people beyond sharing what's already known and allow them to dig deep so that they can unearth the many hidden gems.

If you want your KM initiative to succeed, show leadership.... Resist the temptation of putting in place a stand-alone KM activity. Be bold one to put in place a KM initiative that supports the mission and vision of your business.  Get your head around the fact that reinventing the wheel is not only an expensive proposition, it simply not an option at all.

Before embarking on a KM journey, ask yourself: "Do I know what knowledge I have and do I know what I need". Once you've answered this fundamental question, consider the following:

• are you acting on the knowledge that you have
• are you using the knowledge that you have to create something new
• are you sharing and documenting what is working and what is not working
• are you motivating people and allowing them to share their successes and failures
• are you creating a sense of purpose for people to share their knowledge

Remember learning and sharing is rewarding and needs to be considered as an act of love. 

For knowledge to grow, as a leader you need to keep at bay internal rivalries, you need to make sure people do not feel threatened by sharing and help them understand that sharing knowledge is a pathway to growth. 

So as a leader of your KM activities and agenda, have a vision and lead your people to translate the vision into reality.  Show your leadership by removing all barriers, create a space safe to learn, share, generate new knowledge and influence. Nurture those who share and learn willingly.

And yes, be inspired by Rumi..... "The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore"..... so ignore the naysayers and continue to pursue your vision of being a leader.

And remember as Rumi said "Ignorance is God's prison. Knowing is God's palace. " So lead and be the one who opens the doors to God's palace.

The battle of giants.... Taxonomy vs folksonomy

Martial Raysse - Painting exhibited at
Raysse exhibition in Paris

The other day I came across Patrick Lambe's (Patrick is one of my knowledge management mentors) book entitled "Organizing Knowledge: Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness".

Patrick wrote this book about seven years ago. Reflecting on the changes over the last seven years, and more specifically the fact that folksonomy has somewhat invaded and overshadowed taxonomy's territory, I am wondering how relevant taxonomy may be today....

Of course, it goes without saying that taxonomy is the foundation for folksonomy.

To use an analogy, while today there are fewer and fewer artists producing Piero della Francesca type masterpieces and perhaps we see more Martial Raysse type works of art; yet both pieces of art stir emotions, are admirable, appealing to our various senses.

Portrait of Duke and Duchess of Urbino
By Piero della Francesca

Art critiques go out of their way to analyze both the old and the new. And art students cannot finish their degree without learning all there is to learn about art history.

In a way, this may holds true with folksonomy. Do we need to have some understanding of taxonomy to create good and meaningful hashtags, tags or labels?


No doubt that the 21st century knowledge worker, needs to have some understanding of good classification practices - and I guess you can call it taxonomy.

Similarly, Martial Raysse most probably studied Piero della Francesca's work extensively before he did his masterpiece.

I'm not an art critique, so I will limit my observations to the KM world..... I believe today's knowledge worker  is perhaps a bit luckier than his/her ancestors, as  thanks to folksonomy - which is a less rigid,  more dynamic and user-friendly - we do not need to adhere to "forced rules" and can create our classification as and when needed.

This means that while some of the classifications (hashtags, tags or labels) will end up staying with us for a long period of time, others, once they have served their purpose will die of natural death.

More importantly, folksonomy does not require us to retrofit our classification system.... What ever was - continues to be - and what ever is to be, will benefit from the new classification.

Another advantage of folksonomy is the fact that we do not  need to use or memorize a huge tome of terms,  become experts or rely on experts to classify content.

When hashtags - which are our new way of classifying content - go viral, we all become experts as we find it pretty intuitive to use the right hashtag, label or tag  for  the right content.

I may have oversimplified it tremendously, but I cannot help asking myself whether we still need taxonomy in its original incarnation to help us share content, or if folksonomy and what ever will come next is doing an equally good if not a better job?

I  love to hear Patrick's and your view on this.

Regaining our lost wisdom: Art of wisely breaking the rules #leadership

When in need of inspiration, I often resort to watching a TedTalk, as this helps me to reinvigorate my soul and mind.

Last week in one of my moments of seeking for inspiration, I came across the passionate talk "Our loss of wisdom" by Barry Schwartz.

In his talk, Schwartz, shows us how we've lost our wisdom together with our sense of virtue, kindness, care and empathy.

The following day after watching Schwartz's TEDTalk, I witnessed what Schwartz referred to as "loss of wisdom, virtue, kindness, care and empathy", and Voltaire's words about common sense came to life:

Common sense is not so common

As I was living through my "loss of wisdom" experience, Schwartz's words kept ringing in my head:

• "It takes lots of experience to learn to take care for people." 
• "You do not need to be brilliant to be wise, but without wisdom, brilliance is not enough"
• "Rules and procedures may be dumb, but they spare you from thinking" 

Schwartz is damn right: "The truth is that neither rules nor incentives are enough to do the job. Moral skill is chipped away by an over-reliance on rules that deprives us of the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisations. And moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy our desire to do the right thing. And without intending it, by appealing to rules and incentives, we are engaging in a war on wisdom."

In his talk, Schwartz quotes Aristotle: "Practical wisdom is the combination of moral will and moral skill." and says:

A wise person knows when and how to make the exception to every rule, as the janitors knew when to ignore the job duties in the service of other objectives. 

A wise person knows how to improvise, as Luke did when he re-washed the floor. Real-world problems are often ambiguous and ill-defined and the context is always changing. 

A wise person is like a jazz musician -- using the notes on the page, but dancing around them, inventing combinations that are appropriate for the situation and the people at hand.

A wise person knows how to use these moral skills in the service of the right aims. To serve other people, not to manipulate other people. 

And finally, perhaps most important, a wise person is made, not born. 

Wisdom depends on experience, and not just any experience. You need the time to get to know the people that you're serving. You need permission to be allowed to improvise, try new things, occasionally to fail and to learn from your failures. And you need to be mentored by wise teachers.

Thank you Mr Schwartz for showing us that we're only a step away to avoid commit the sin of losing our wisdom. So let's hope that we all regain our wisdom, become more virtuous, caring and empathetic.

And thank you for a passionate and thought-provoking talk!

Selfie: narcissism or solitude?

Wikipedia describes selfie as:

A selfie is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a hand-held digital camera or camera phone. Selfies are often shared on social networking services such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Tumblr. They are often casual, and are typically taken either with a camera held at arm's length or in a mirror.

Once a novelty, selfies have now become our bread and butter....

Be it you are President Obama at Madiba's funeral, be it the oscar star studded selfie, be it a biker on a Roman bridge, be it an F1 fan going to a race, be it a 9 year old playing with mum's or dad's phone or iPad and experimenting a selfie.

Even NASA could not resist the charm  and glamour of a selfie and decided to launch a campaign asking folks to take a selfie. Guess what 36,000 people (where they narcissists or terribly lonely folks) responded to their call, resulting a stunning mosaic of our planet to celebrate Earth Day.

I guess if you are anywhere between 5 and 50ish, chances are, you may have done a selfie. Not sure anyone will admit that their selfie is a sign of narcissism, and I am equally sure no one will admit that it is a sign of solitude..... Maybe it is somewhere in between.

What struck me the other day, as I was crossing one of the beautiful bridges in the eternal city, were two ladies, one a bike, and other one obviously travelling on her own, both of them fully engaged in a selfie. I had the urge to ask them whether they wanted me to take their picture. But their posture and look of pleasure on their face taking a selfie made me reconsider my offer.

Before the advent of selfies, we would have stopped someone, conversed and asked them to take our picture. Today, on the other hand, conversation seems to be luxury and the quest for self-sufficiency and immediacy seems to annihilate everything else.

I committed the same sin on Sunday.... We were getting ready to leave for the Monaco F1 race and I had the urge of posting my excitement on social media. While my family was getting ready,  I resorted to selfie......

After committing the sin, I thought to myself, would it have made a difference if I had posted the picture 15 minutes later? And of course the answer is NO, not at ALL. So why did I resort to a selfie......

And the honest answer, is I do not know, maybe because I had never done one before..... Maybe because I was super excited and wanted to share my excitement with my friends in real time. But then so what? Did they really care? Did they see it the moment I posted it?

What ever the motivation of a selfie, I wonder how it will at the end of the day transform our identities and culture. Now that we've seen the selfie version of our planet, of the Pope, President Obama, Hollywood stars and you and I, what next?

The demise of innovation and creativity

Curiosity killed the cat and conformity killed innovation

I am on the final leg of what ended up being a very eventful trip back home. Looking out of the window, while the crew is finalizing the boarding procedures I see these ads:

"We invest in sustainable future and sustainable partnerships" 

"We understand the value chain from A to Z and the ppl who keep it moving"

Reading them made me realize that now a days innovation and creativity are rare commodities.... 

Think about it, how many brands you know carry the same messages as these ones and how many advocate for the same things?  I am sure you will come up with quite a few. And I am also equally sure that the brands you came up with belong to different sectors.

These particular ads belong to a bank, but they could easily be those of an NGO, a development organization, be it a multilateral, bilateral or for that matter an international financial institution or a supermarket chain.

This all made me reflect that today, more than ever, it is a challenge to create a brand proposition that stands out and is unique. Only a few succeed and when they do, it is because they have something unique and outstanding to "sell". 

When that is not case, we end up with more of the same, which then means a lot of noise and we end up either getting deaf, or not hearing anything at all. 

Some end up justifying their copy-cat syndrome by calling it replicating or scaling up......

All of these fancy terms to justify lack of ideas and innovations and adopt a cookie cutter approach which brings about conformity and kills diversity.

Bless the few innovators and geniuses that are around. May you be given the necessary space to spread out your wings and create something unique. 

May the world churn out more innovators who are bold, take risks, rock the boat and advocate for business as unusual. I want to sign up with them and be part of their agenda.

Want to be a fly on the wall when Barack Obama and Pope Francis meet :)

In a couple of minutes, in a hermetically closed eternal city, President Obama and Pope Francis will  meet to discuss issues around economic inequality.Undoubtedly they will also be talking about world politics, Russia, Ukraine, Crimea and who knows, maybe even talk about my country - the ancient Persian civilization.....

I wonder if they will also discuss the root causes of inequality which go beyond economic issues. Hope they'll  address also issues of social inequalities, how lack of mutual respect foments inequality, how resistance to embracing and accepting diversity of views and culture can cause inequality.

I guess for the first time in my life, I wish I was a fly on the papal walls to listen to the conversation of these two giants.

Hope we get some good soundbites and pearls of wisdom from this meeting.

The backstory of the unexpected success of structured chaos - better known as ICO speedgeeking #ifadgsm

If you’ve ever been on a blind date you probably have experienced the accompanying sense of apprehension and anxiety....

As you are getting ready to go on the date, you are thinking to yourself, Oh My God, what am I doing.... What if the guy or the gal turns out to be a psychopath... You are thinking, I must tell someone I am going on a blind date. And you may be contemplating to ask your friends to go to the same restaurant, so that they can keep an eye on you.....

As you enter the restaurant to meet your blind date, the sense of apprehension becomes panic and you start to consider turning around and leaving... That is when you start praying to all the saints in the heavens to let you come out of this experience unharmed.....

On 24 February 2014 at 2pm when my colleague Willem, stood on what a couple of minutes earlier was our nurse’s medical booth, we held our breaths and prayed to all the saints in the heavens to make the speedgeeking work. And surprise surprise, it WORKED.

Willem a born leader #ifadgsm pic.twitter.com/UuacS41Qt8
— adriane del torto (@adeltorto) February 24, 2014

It worked because THE PARTICIPANTS made it work. It worked because our country office colleagues gave nothing but their best by sharing compelling stories to engage the folks who visited them.

It worked because the stories were informative, fun and had the perfect blend of facts, figures and cultural aspects of their countries. It worked because the people visiting the various stations were curious and humble to learn.

It worked because everyone had put away their “I know it all attitude” and were wearing their “I want to learn more” garments. It worked, because it was a different way of interacting. It worked because it was of interest to everyone. It worked because it was a nice break from an orchestrated meeting - and was a structured chaos!

It worked so well that there was unanimous request for more of these things. Colleagues wanted the session to be longer so that you had an opportunity to visit more stations.  This comment on one of the feedback forms was music to our ears: “We have become a knowledge organization as we’ve embedded KM in all our processes”.

Thank you for making this blind date a pleasant and memorable experience. Hope you found your better half and that you’ll live happily ever after :)

Willem Bettink rallies the troops at the #ifadgsm pic.twitter.com/ZnxR2y991S
— Neil Sorensen (@NeilSorensen) February 24, 2014

Backstory of the ICO speedgeeking

In the spirit of knowledge sharing, here is the genesis and the backstory of this structured chaos.

The challenge: Give air time to 34 country offices to show case in 60 minutes three key characteristics of their countries, a challenge, and a remarkable achievement and learning.

The unknown: Number of participants showing up for the speedgeeking.... The million dollar question was how best to divide the participants so that all stations received and interacted with an equal number of colleagues.

The known: Given the time limit, participants could only visit a maximum of 4 or 5 stations

The moving goal post: Do all in the plenary hall.... Divide the speedgeeking between the plenary hall and the conference area.... Use the lounge and the corridor leading to the plenary hall..... If the weather is nice do it in the parking lot....... And you know what, we still had not completely made up our mind until 1pm.

The process:

• Meet with focal points and brief them on what was expected
• Ask our country office colleagues to respond to the above three questions
• Follow-up, follow-up and follow-up
• Organize briefing sessions with colleagues as soon as they arrived in Rome
• Brief volunteers on how we were going to conduct the structured chaos
• Discuss the structured chaos with security folks  to get tips on how to move people
• Reassure the planning committee and management that it will work
• Make sure the layout allowed for a seamless flow of the various groups (we had 16 stations in the plenary, 10 in the lounge and 8 in the corridor connecting the lounge and the plenary hall)
• Ensure variety.... Mix the countries and avoid participants visiting countries from the same region
• Give clear instructions and prepare a straightforward itinerary
• Distribute people in such a way to avoid collisions and bottlenecks
• Believe in the speakers
• Rehearse the structured chaos
• Pray that all the stars align in the best possible manner
• Hold your breath when people start filing in through two different doors that you all stands have visitors

The moment of truth: No matter how much you’ve rehearsed, how many times you did your calculations and simulated the structured chaos you will only know it succeeds when it happens.....

Going on a virtual tour of 34 @ifadnews country offices at #ifadgsm pic.twitter.com/VBppzEOASc
— Roxanna Samii (@rsamii) February 24, 2014

As the people started filing in with their itinerary in their hands, we realized we had fewer people that the expected 600. This meant that the first stations had more visitors. Thinking on our feet, the volunteers jumped into action by going around and redistributing the participants. This allowed us to have a better distribution.

We managed the time in the best possible way, allowing participants to visit between 4 to 5 stations.

Our knowledgeable and extraordinary ICO colleagues did the rest....
The end-result was a memorable and magical moment resulting in people getting acquainted with different country realities, finding out that some of their challenges were already addressed by others, making new connections and learning from each other.

In other words - perhaps for the first time - we finally took a step to find out what we know by connecting with each other!

Lesson learnt:

• Definitely repeat it
• Allocate more time
• Start with making your groups smaller. If you have more participants, enlarge your groups
• Plan and rehearse
• Have an intimate knowledge of your space
• Leave somethings to chance, and think on your feet
• SMILE and have fun

In closing,  thanks again our brilliant ICO colleagues, all the folks who played ball and participated in the speedgeeking, the GSM planning group in believing in this method and not micromanaging its deroulement, the volunteers who made sure it all worked and our facility management colleagues for reconfiguring the space in record time.

Now that people have seen how this structured chaos knowledge sharing method works and rated it as one of the highlights of the Global Staff Meeting, hopefully it will get replicated in other upcoming events.

THANK YOU for making this blind date a memorable one.

Less pressure for missions you can take your time, visit regions even b/w supervisions : Cameroon #ifadgsm pic.twitter.com/kEwnCovY2O
— adriane del torto (@adeltorto) February 24, 2014

.@knwanze visiting kenya country office stand t #ifadgsm pic.twitter.com/Xjfns0szPZ
— Roxanna Samii (@rsamii) February 24, 2014

Learning about the country offices' challenges and opportunities #ifadgsm pic.twitter.com/0BDTF4vJWQ
— Beate Stålsett (@beatews) February 24, 2014

~ At #ifadgsm, the #Brazil Country office staff member speaks about the activities IFAD carries out to improve lives. pic.twitter.com/cPpsrNWKlE
— Marcello Barnaba╰☆╮ (@vjt) February 24, 2014

Sierra Leone - the mid generation without education because of war. #ifadgsm pic.twitter.com/DSCPKyLcpx
— amedeo (@amedeo) February 24, 2014

Listening to Bolivia ICO at speed geeking session #ifadgsm pic.twitter.com/RSGDLAiaAJ
— Suyun Kim (@skim2009) February 24, 2014

~ Turnaround at #ifadgsm! We go around each Country Office delegation and hear, get inspired, learn how to do better. pic.twitter.com/sa8PAcAn3P
— Marcello Barnaba╰☆╮ (@vjt) February 24, 2014

@knwanze listening to the experiences from IFAD country office in DRC. #ifadgsm pic.twitter.com/x3fRKMog6V
— Beate Stålsett (@beatews) February 24, 2014

~ Value Chain Development strategy explained at #ifadgsm: understand what’s good for the poor, and get it done! :-) pic.twitter.com/Ljh3AvRSHJ
— Marcello Barnaba╰☆╮ (@vjt) February 24, 2014

The wonderful structured chaos of speed geeking and challenge of moving 500ppl #kmers #ifadgsm pic.twitter.com/2gMsKO1kRS
— Roxanna Samii (@rsamii) February 24, 2014

~ Yet another colleague asking for better tools and modern technology. I’ll work hard to make this happen #ifadgsm. pic.twitter.com/3yQWT0Mq8L
— Marcello Barnaba╰☆╮ (@vjt) February 24, 2014

~ #ifadgsm in a nutshell: get all IFAD staff in one place and make them exchange ideas. This is how it looks like :-) pic.twitter.com/YjRTc3qjXe
— Marcello Barnaba╰☆╮ (@vjt) February 24, 2014

~ OK, time is up for me at #ifadgsm for the afernoon. Colleagues need better tools -> /me develops tools -> /me needs getting them done now.
— Marcello Barnaba╰☆╮ (@vjt) February 24, 2014

#ifadgsm pic.twitter.com/3A7O63TikC
— Daniela Cuneo (@dnlcuneo) February 24, 2014

When a vision becomes reality - the story of my organization's social reporting team - aka dream team

When you have a vision, you want to inspire others so that they can help you achieve it.  Usually the transformation of a vision into reality requires that people either “see” the vision in its entirety or at least “see” some elements of it. Alternatively, and in the best case scenario, the people who need to help make the vision come true, are like-minded folks who trust you and YOUR vision. In that case you are in business.

If on the other hand, you have cynics, naysayers and people who go out of their way to pull the rug from under you, then fulfilling your vision becomes an uphill journey, as it is highly unlikely for a visionary person to forgo their aspiration.

The realization of a vision is always accompanied by a sense of joy and pride. The second best satisfaction for a visionary person is when a respectable person outside their immediate circle sings the praises of and acknowledges their vision.  That is when you sit back and think to yourself - well, you know what, it was worth it all.  And if you are amongst the lucky ones who had people around you who “saw” your vision and accompanied you on the journey, then you feel truly blessed and accomplished.

This is exactly how I felt when I read Nisha Pillai's blogpost, singing the praises of my organization’s social media efforts. I think it is fair to say that introducing and mainstreaming social media has been quite a challenging experience. But comments and words of appreciation from seasoned professionals like Ms Pillai warm my heart. Thanks to my organization's social reporting team, today more people see the power and potential of social media. 

I thank the DREAM TEAM for sharing my vision. Through out our journey, you gave nothing but your best to overcome all the challenges. You continuously and consistently championed and mainstreamed an alternative communication paradigm. 

I go proud of what we managed to accomplish together. I am proud of never giving up, preserving and forging ahead as if there was no tomorrow. I am proud of your unwavering support which allowed us to turn the vision into reality and to make our organization's social media practices  a model to follow.

Well done DREAM TEAM. You are and will continue to be a DREAM TEAM.

THANK YOU and love you all.