Storytelling 
Passport to the 21st Century
John Seely Brown, Steve Denning, 
Katalina Groh, Larry Prusak: 
Some of the world's leading thinkers
explore the role of storytelling in the world

 I Introduction to storytelling I John Seely Brown on science I Steve Denning on change I Katalina Groh on video
Larry Prusak on organization I Discussion I | Contact us | Bibliography on storytelling

Storytelling: Organizational Perspective: Larry Prusak
Making knowledge visible? 

  The second most successful thing or activity in knowledge management that you might want to think about it, is visibility. This takes three different forms. 

 Who knows what?

One way of making knowledge visible lies in making explicit, who knows what? What groups of people know things? Where are they? And what do they know? A knowledge map. Some way to find who knows what. I would have loved to have found who the IBM client team for that big Japanese firm. I don’t care which individuals: I mean, just anyone But, it can’t be done. They spent $18 billion on internal systems, but I, 

and I do know how to use these systems, can’t find the person I need when I need to.
   Very interesting development. I’m not singling out IBM. It just happens I’m there. I’ve seen this story in many settings. And of course people say that their firm is the same way.
   So visibility: who knows what? Where are they? What is it that they know? I don’t mean what do they know at some small or pico level. I mean: what do they in some grand way? You know, some kind of large way that makes sense. 
    Use the word, “sensemaking”. It really helps. If you can improve sense-making in any organization, by one percent, you’ve earned your salary for life. Sense-making is really more than information-seeking. It’s more than knowledge-seeking. It’s helping people make sense of their own organization for action. There is a very good book on the subject by a guy named Karl Weick called Sensemaking in Organizations. That’s one way to make knowledge visible. 
Books and videos on storytelling 
*** In Good Company : How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work
by Don Cohen, Laurence Prusak (February 2001) Harvard Business School Press
*** The Social Life of Information, by John Seely Brown, Paul Duguid
(February 2000) Harvard Business School Press
*** The Springboard : How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations
by Stephen Denning (October 2000) Butterworth-Heinemann 
*** The Art of Possibility, a video with Ben and Ros Zander : Groh Publications (February 2001)

 Copyright © 2001 Larry Prusak ... 
The views expressed on this website are those of Stephen Denning, and not necessarily those of any person or organization
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