I just saw a most interesting documentary, ”Bassidji”, directed by Mehran Tamadon. The documentary is a co-production of Iran, France and Switzerland and is an exploration of (as I understand it) the Iranian religiously motivated police force calling themselves Bassidji. The Bassidji are now part of almost every aspect of public service, and life in Iran, and seem to exert constant influence on Irani life and thinking.

The Bassidji have come into existence after the Irak-Iran war in 1980 – 1988 during which about half  a million of Irani and Iraqui soldiers were killed. The Bassidji came to exist to defend ”pure Islam” (I would call it, risking to be incorrect and  improper because I am not an expert in these matters!) which according to them has been agressed throughout the centuries and most recently during the Irak-Iran war. 

The film is both insightful and humorous … in ways it does not necessarily intend to be so. It just happens which is why it is quite ingenious. It brings forward paradoxes and asks questions which, apparently, can not be answered within the realms of certain discourses, i.e., religious and other discourses happening in Iran.

It is interesting that I feel like I understand the essence of the Bassidji quite well, perhaps, and haven’t got much mental itches trying to make it out. Finding a language in which to explain it though is difficult, at least because the nature of farsi (not that I speak any) is different from that of English. In any case, books can be written analysing the movie. It opens a Pandora’s Box on the Iranian society (some aspects of it, at least).

A few thoughts came to me as I watching the documentary:

- The Bassidjis are fascinated by ”martyrdom”. To them, the Irani soldiers who died in the Iran-Iraq war sacrificed themselves for the Islam religion and for Iran. In other words, martyrdom is a good thing to do. (Uf, no.) But, there is another dimension to this though. The Bassidji also think these solders died because they’ve been able to come close to ”God” and so then dissolved themselves in it. Some Bassidji, quite young, are totally dedicated to the idea. Off course, they are all men (!! and ??).
The idea of dissolving oneself into something is actually good, and valid. It happens with many things, if something is your passion and you are doing it, then you dissolve yourself in it and this is how you become part of that flow of thought and activity. It is a beautiful thing actually, and is perhaps what the Chinese would call ‘wisdom’.
In the above context though, dissolving oneself in ”it” has some important implications. First, you die – is this what you wanted? Second, they say you’ve dissolved yourself in ”it”, but is this true? Third, are you sure you’ve died for your cause, or the cause of somebody else? … Anyhow, you tell me. Perhaps the wise way of dissolving oneself into something is not exactly the wise way. …
And so, there seems to be some fascination on behalf of the Bassidji with dying for a ”holy” cause as well as a strong tendency to in my opinion … live in the past. …

- Perhaps as it would be expected, there were few women being interviewed in the film. Apparently, this was because it had been difficult approaching them and talking to them, and because women would not be necessarily spoken to (!! how could then a society be legitimate?). Because women were mostly not there, I could not help questioning the thruthfulness of what was being said by those who spoke, expressing their reflections. Unless different gender view points are well balanced and integrated, how could it be true …?

- At one point, the question of men never ever looking women into the eyes came up. A woman said she found this very difficult as a society to live in. She challenged such a custom. She could not understand how it could help with anything but hold a society back. She felt this was minimizing her role and potential in a society. I guess she also felt she lived in a society crippled by fear.
This was a particularly interesting point in the documentary. Then, a few Bassidji and an imam tried to explain the importance of never ever looking a woman in the eyes. The Bassidji were semi-laughing through their explanations, as if the question was a tough one to address and they could not express a convincing answer because they beleived in it. 
The imam though gave some very ardent, passionate answers. According to him, men do not look women into the eyes because women, by turning their eyes in such and such a way and/or looking at men in such and such a way and/or fluttering their lashes in such and such a way (the observations the imam shared were very detailed)… would give men thoughts of wanting that paprticular woman. Well, yes, that is life man, face up to it.  Also, if this is what one (a man) is thinking then that is what it shall be … Their thoughts would be creating their reality. Is this good? No. And by changing the thoughts it can all change … Think change.

- Finally, the film ended rather abruptly. It ended with a question concerning whether the Bassidji and the current religious situation in Iran are not in fact purposed to serve the Iranian government. … This was an interesting moment. Suddenly, the Bassidji that was being spoken to could not talk about the issue. Without it being fully articulated, he said such an issue does not exist. It seemed like such a thing is unheard of and can not be talked about, ever. And so the film left it at that. …

On the overall, the film did not bring too many surpises but it did make some aspects of Iranian reality more clear to me, also and most importantly aspects that I think should change.

As part of my consulting work for the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, I have been bringing people together to do Peer Assists. Here below is a version of what I just posted on an internal FAO blog on Peer Assist, to tell people about it, and create conditions for them to reflect on whether they can use Peer Assist in their work.

Peer Assists: Can they be useful?

In organisations that are bureaucratic, hierarchical, silo-ed and with little trust, it can be common to be faced with a problem and to not know whom to turn to for advice and solutions. It can also be common to know whom to turn to yet find it difficult or impossible to approach them. Not fun, right?

In such situations, Peer Assists are a simple way via which to reach out to others we need the advice of. Peer Assists can break down organisational barriers creating conditions for what we know to be accessed by those who need it and when. Peer Assists can be useful, yes!

Peer Assists: What are they, really?

Some of you would already know about Peer Assists: Peer Assist is a knowledge sharing technique which can be used within and across organisations, groups and teams. Central to a Peer Assist is that a peer (i.e., a colleague, a team-mate, a friend) is faced with a problem to which she/he can not find a solution. (Sounds familiar …?) This is why a Peer Assist is organised during which a group of assisters (ideally not more than 8-10) brainstorm perspectives and solutions to the problem of their peer. Simple, right? Yes, it certainly is not rocket science, just common good sense. Then why not do more Peer Assists …? Here is how:

Peer Assists: How to do them?

• Do you have a problem that seems unsolvable? Do not despair. First, articulate your problem clearly. The more specific you are, the better.
• Discuss the problem with your peers and/or your informal network. Be practical in whom you approach. Explain that you need to find people who may have perspectives and/or could be able to offer solutions to the problem. Is it about putting together an intranet for your department? Or is it about creating a newsletter for your network? Or is it about training your staff in and/or sensitizing your managers to a particular skill/approach?
• Search for people (in other departments, and partner organisations) who may have tried something similar (be it successfully, or not). Use your judgement yet also heavily lean on your intuition in who would be a good assister for your to consult. Be proactive, ask for help, and listen.
• Once you have found and approached your assisters, find a facilitator for the Peer Assist. (It is important that this is not you!) Anyone who has had experience facilitating and/or is a good facilitator can facilitate the peer-assist. They would just need to be familiar with the process. One key thing for them to know is give all assisters a voice during the peer-assist discussion. (A good description of the process is given by this short video:www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObmQyW3EiiE
• Bring everyone (yourself, assisters, facilitator) together at a particular time. Do not allocate more than two hours for the exercise (maximum time for people to stay focused and contribute).
• Do the Peer Assist: At this point, the facilitator will take over from you. She/he will ask you to explain your problem, after which she/he will enable a discussion take place among you and the assisters on how to possibly approach and solve the problem. If all goes well, you will get a lot of practical ideas and suggestions, energised by the fact that all assisters have been discussing their approaches and perspectives not only with you, but also among themselves.
• Ok, you’ve done it! Now implement the ideas and suggestions that are best for your case.

Peer Assists: Examples? 

Here are a few examples of Peer Assist being used at the Food and Agriculture Organisation:

1. In May 2008, a group of colleagues from FAO assisted the Right to Food team in whether and how to organise an e-conference prior to the Right to Food conference.
2. In October 2008, a group of colleagues from FAO, FAO RAP, ILO, CGIAR, and external consultants, assisted colleagues in the FAO Trinidad and Tobago regional office on how to go about organising a knowledge fair.
3. In November 2008, a group of colleagues from FAO assisted the EasyPol team on how to market the EasyPol service to interested users.
4. In January 2009, a group of colleagues from and outside of FAO assisted the Cashmere Forum team on how to go about enabling and sustaining a geographically distributed knowledge community. This happened during the Share Fair: http://sharefair2009.blogspot.com/search/label/peer-assist

Peer Assists: More information

A concise yet full description of Peer Assist can be found on the ks toolkit wiki, here: http://www.kstoolkit.org/Peer+Assists

Now go Peer-Assisting/Peer-Assisteeing!!

Somebody just brought an interesting article to my attention: ”Sharing is Creepy” by Nicolas Carr. In a nutshell, in it Nicolas discusses the supposedly soon-to-be-recognised psychiatric syndrome ”avatar anxiety”, or the anxiety that sometimes people may experience if they:

- either refrain from behaving online under the form of twittering, posting information on their online profiles, and engaging in online discussions, or

- they overtly and abundantly engage in such online behaviours.

http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2009/01/sharing_is_cree.php

Apparently, the fact that online behaviour is somewhat removed from the self and so does not let its genuine expression leads some people to experience anxiety to quite extreme degrees.  In my opinion, this is not because there is something wrong with those people but rather because of the set-up in which they live or have created for themselves.

Twittering, posting on online profiles like Facebook and LinkedIn, sharing photos and engaging in online discussions can greatly optimise how we live life yet are not life, our life, ultimately. What motivates online behaviours of any sort is the desire to be with, communicate with, share things with people per se, in other words, desire to see and get to know people. In this sense being online can optimise our being ourselves, yet it can not be our being ourselves. 

Online communication is limited in how much it can convey. Online communication only makes sense in the context of other forms of communication as the latter gives us references and clues with regards to how things stand between us and other people. The latter forms of communication tell us how much to give away and how much to not give away when we communicate online. I guess this may be something to not loose sight of when engaging in online behaviours.

In other words, ”avatar anxiety” has a solution called ‘’seeing the big picture”.

I was very pleased to hear today that SlumDog Millionnaire (the motion picture) has won the 2009 Oscar for best film.  This is not because I do not like the other movies it was competing with. All are really excellent. Without being a close follower of the Oscars, however, I dare say it may be for the first time that a movie of this sort, the sort of SlumDog Millionnaire, wins an Oscar.

By a movie of this sort I mean one which has, intentionally or not, succeeded in bringing in ”development issues” such as poverty, slums, inequality, injustice, exploitation, crime, corruption, mafia, etc., plus the very values and cultures these development issues would rest on, as the very background from which the story unfolds.  In this, though, these issues are not the story; they are, however, imbuing the story in its every aspect and by this creating an incredible awareness about them.

The story itself is a story about love and destiny, in fact a story about the love which is the destiny of the main character Jamal. Because of what I say in the above paragraph, you may think that the movie is incredibly depressing. Truth is though (according to me) that it is quite the opposite (not just because of the Bollywood ending!), it is one of the most positive movies I have seen, I guess precisely because of the completeness of what it shows and how it shows life can be beautiful.  Other movies may tend to show that life is beautiful, too, however perhaps not showing life as it is, or rather as it is increasingly becoming nowadays, in terms of ”developing” and ”developed” being increasingly collided and super-imposed.

SlumDog Millionnaire does precisely that, it collides and superimposes ”developing” and ”developed”, this in a way as seamless and non-preaching as it can be. The purpose of the movie is not to tell you how little you know (about development), and give away messages already digested. In this sense, would you call this an example of socially responsible movie-making? I think yes. Why? Because by the story being as it is, and told as it is, it helps those seeing the movie to learn about it and the circumstances it may have been inspired by to their best.

”Development issues” are not the focus of the movie. SlumDog Millionnaire does not throw these into your face, almost as if blaming you for not knowing about them, not having experienced them, not being in them (which makes me think of another movie doing precisely that, i.e., Seven Pounds, and for which reason I find weak …). They are, however, presented in a way that creates the experience of these being precisely what life (our peoples’ life, on planet Earth, now) is made of. And if you were to think about it, this is that way. It is just that we (some of us, all of us, considering that ‘’development issues’’ are about both ends of the spectrum!) do not see it all at once as we can see it in that movie.

Hopefully more movies like this will be made, this without taking away the benefit of being touched and struck by what they show. The fact that a movie such as this ended up winning the Oscar is truly indicative of what the world is going through at the moment … A couple of years ago a movie of this sort would have gone much praised yet unnoticed.

Have not seen SlumDog Millionnaire yet? Go get your tickets.

I had the good fortune to participate in the organisation and ”delivery”  of a Knowledge Share Fair jointly organised by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Food Programme (WFP), the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and Bioversity International. The Share Fair took place on Jan 20 – 22 2009 in the FAO HQ in Rome. The purpose of it, as I understand it, is two fold:

1. Create conditions for the people in the participating organisations to see what others are doing within their own organisation and also across the organisations. In this way, people would see linkages between their own work and that of others, and, if they are so willing, build on shared visions and eliminate duplications.

2. Show those who were at the Fair how different knowledge sharing methods, and tools, can be applied to the work that they do. These methods (like chat shows, peer-assists, after action reviews, fishbowls, etc.), and tools (like blogs, discussion forums, RSS, wikis, etc.), if they are used, introduce more of a dynamic set up to how people work. They encourage thinking together, discussion, and dialogue. They also encourage lateral thinking, collaboration, networking and leadership. (All of which are prerequisites for innovation.)

Interestingly, the purpose behind the Share Fair was not in any way more specific.  It was all about: ”We create the conditions for you to construct your own meanings.”

Throughout the weeks approaching the Fair, we were in a big heat preparing it:

- We went through 160 or so cases people at the participating organisations had submitted in order to share with others at the Fair. Based on this we combined the cases in an agenda. These cases were projects and ideas having something to do with knowledge sharing, according to how the person, or group of persons who is behind the case, understands knowledge sharing.

- The domains and cross-cuts of domains from where the projects and ideas came were incredibly various which we could nevertheless group under eight general Share Fair themes. Looking at these shows what the sharing of knowledge, as a concept, was being referred to in the cases we received. Sometimes this would be down to databases and information systems. In other cases, this would be down to development of institutions and partnerships. In yet other cases, this would be down to empowering local communities. We extracted those themes in order to make easier the communication of the rich content that underlied the Fair.

- We created a brochure summarising key information about the Fair which was sorted by theme.

- A key aspect to the Fair was FACILITATION. We invited a team of experienced facilitators to help with the flow of the Fair in order to achieve on the purpose I explain above.

- We worked on the logistics of organising the Fair on the FAO premises, in terms of planning and setting up the Fair space layout (booths, information points, registration, bar, cosy corners). We also booked meetings rooms and assigned sessions to each.

- We recruited, trained and coached more than 40 volunteers to help with the running of the Fair throughout its three days.

As I guess you can see, all of the above were quite a task that a group of key people and the Share Fair Steering Committee had to meet. Did we succeed? I think we did:

What worked well?
- at least 700 people participated in the Fair, in the end;
- all sessions were full with the sessions that introduced to and trained people on how to use knowledge sharing tools being the most popular;
- some people made useful connections by going to sessions that interest them and/or seeing people at the bar;
- some people have discovered that others in different divisions and/or organisations are working on very similar projects!
- people have now asked for more Share Fairs;
- some people have got feedback on their work and projects which has helped to put them on a better track;
- some people have decided they could run their events, and meetings, differently from mere conferences and/or power point presentations;
- in addition to the planned agenda, there were sessions that were planned ”on the spot” as part of an open space, thus encouraging sharing and learning from the bottom-up even beyond what we had planned.

Why did it work well?
- The team spirit that we had was incredibly good. Everyone took leadership in what they did. Volunteers, Facilitators, Steering Committee: all did a very good job.
- The facilitation which was a key aspect to the event was excellent. For the most part, we had very good facilitators who, through their style, approach, and curiosity, helped to push people to talk and do things differently and pull perspectives and opinions out of them that they may have not otherwise thought to share.
- Those who participated in the Fair were incredibly positive and open about what they know, in addition to enjoying the experience! They were curious, constructive and critical and willing to emerge themselves in different way of working that is more fun.
- The leadership of all organisations endorsed the Fair and encouraged all their staff to actively engage and participate, explaining this is both work, and fun (and so better work!).

And … concluding hopes!
I am happy I have been part of organising the Share Fair. This is because I think it was planned and happened as it should have, i.e., it was not top-down and/or orchestrated, just enabled.
For it to truly have worked, it should also go towards achieving the following:

- Show the organisations a path of continuous learning and, importantly, innovation.  Encourage people to start walking that path.

- Enable a ‘’shift” in how the participating organisations do business, a shift  following on which they are better equipped with skills and approaches helping them do what they do better and be more relevant.

- Understand that individuals, and their interests, are of increasing importance to the business of any organisation. The way in which organisational systems can support the evolution of individuals’ interests is by having organisational systems that are organic, like communities of practice.

- Flatten hierarchies and communication structures.

- Encourage facilitatory leadership (coming from the top) and distributed leadership (coming from the bottom, and everywhere!).

- Bring about culture systems that support knowledge sharing and organisational learning.

- Change the focus from ”command and control” to ”initiative and innovation”.

- Encourage the collective building of a business case for knowledge sharing, and networking.

- Change the focus of monitoring and evaluation from outputs and outcomes to processes and structures.

With all that being said … what’s next?
Follow-up!

I just read an excellent post on the blog of Christian Kreutz entitled ”Web2forDev One Year After – a Critical Review”. So excellent that I could not resist from commenting:

Here is the post and comments:

http://www.crisscrossed.net/2008/09/09/web2fordev-one-year-after-%e2%80%93-a-critical-review/#comments

A discussion on how to demonstrate ROI on knoweldge management has just started on LinkedIn. The discussion is taking place within one of my LinkedIn groups, ”KM Experts”. You can find it here if you are also a member of ”KM Experts”:

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=47726&discussionID=20983&commentID=21237&goback=.hom

The discussion is interesting, and so is the topic. Here is what I’ve just posted:

”To really demonstrate ROI on KM, you would have to be strategic about KM and what is being achieved through the KM methods and tools one is bringing about in the organisation. Why KM? … Once the answer to this question is clear, you can design all sorts of measures and tools (such as the ones suggested by Celso and Patrick) through the results of which to link KM to financial performance. My argument is that the strategy/strategic vision behind KM is what will determine the metrics and more importantly what you will measure using them.

The problem with ROI is that it is a quantitative measure which means it is very specific. The nature of KM, though, does not lend itself to specific measures. You can not measure KM, per se, using quantitative measures. KM, by its nature, and for it to work, is broad, multiple, rich, and transformative – not just about sharing documents!! In this way, linking KM to ROI in a direct fashion, in order to evaluate the success of the KM programmes, is, according to me, impossible. You should not be trying to do this. It will divert your attention from what you should be looking at, really.

Still, what you can do is 1. measure KM in a qualitative way, 2. then second-measure some of the qualitative outputs in a quantitative way and link those to ROI. Off course, any ROI on KM estimate you would ever have would only be an indication, at the particular time, of how successful the KM is!! The real and true benefits of KM strategies and approaches span across at least a few years! If well done, these would be increasing with the advancement of the years. ”

As already mentioned in a previous post (in fact, my very first post on this blog), I love simple statements that are both rich and straightforward in ways that encapsulate a lot of meaning, meaning that is so true, and so vast, and general, that it is impossible to get one’s head around it in words alone. Such wholistic perspectives fascinate me which I think are crucial in understanding this world.

A wonderful chill-out piece, very ”leger” but still going deep down the surface of things, is ”Every Soul upon the Earth” by Space Brothers. It is a great example to illustrate what I mean. You can listen to the song on You Tube: http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ude8PPV-jU

And here are just some of the lyrics: …

Every truth that’s ever spoken … Every voice that’s ever heard … You all share the same emotions …
Every soul upon the Earth …

Every man from your beginning … Every woman, every bird … You all share a common reason …
Every soul upon the Earth …

We can only love you … We can only love

Everybody says there’s danger … Everybody feels the hurt … You all share a common future …
Every soul upon the Earth …

Travel home to your self … Find your place in the world …

Every heart that’s ever broken … Every dream that’s ever cursed … You all share the same emotions … Every soul upon the Earth …

We can only love you … We can only love …

Travel home to yourself … Find your place in the world …

The song comes across a lot better than just the lyrics, and so I would encourage you to just listen to it. It is nice, no?

In terms of one travelling to their place in the world, things may not only seem too meaningful and so it is important to see beyond the words in order to know our journey. The good news is that there is a meaning. The not so good news is that it is sometimes difficult to see it. In order to see it, you need to have some emotional knowledge and poetry (and any other art that you like, or sport, even) can help you get that. Try it. It works.

And so, if the meaning is not there, it is important to search for it. And simple statements, and poems, of this kind, can provide some good guidance when one is looking into oneself. If it happens a lot to you, do not worry, just connect with your emotions instead of looking too much.

Another example of the power of poetry , or poetry in action, is the work of Drew Dellinger, a poet I found out about during my CSR Certificate studies. Check out some of his work under the links below – nice, no??

http://www.drewdellinger.org/llmw/hymn.php

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=XW63UUthwSg 

Drew’s work I find saturated to the utmost with politics, concerns about the environment and sustainability, personal responsibility, collective responsibility, love, emotion, time and non-existence of time, urgency and buddhism. I find it a great example of how poetry can be that door, or just window, which enables one to look into themselves and understand things better. It works for me because I like it.

To conclude, at the very bottom of it, poetry is very emotional; yet unless there is emotion, there is no understanding, either.  And so, if you are feeling lost, just read through a poem that makes you feel. That would bring key emotions into the picture which would enable you to understand what is going on, for you, in that picture.

As a friend once told me: rational thinking does not help you make sense of things; emotional thinking does.

I recently read an excellent paper by Mark Schenk, Shawn Callahan and Andrew Rixon. You can access it here.

What is good about this paper is that it is just sweet and punchy. It goes straight at the heart of what is knowledge, and knowledge management. It does this by, paradoxically, not explaining knowledge and knowledge management, and not trying to. It simply draws the picture many organisations face with regards to what referrents (such as data, databases, and the like, as well as culture, whatever people understand by this) they can use in order to enable the sharing of knowledge and catalyse its management by the organisation.

The paper pinpoints the fact that knowledge, and knowledge management, are hard to pin down and, in such a way, can not really be managed. It also pinpoints the fact that data and tools are a lot less important to knowledge and learning in organisations, in sharp contrast to organisational culture.

The thing is that, unless the organisational culture is right for knowledge, sharing and learning, nothing else will be right in order for an organisation to be a knowledge-based, and a learning, organisation. And, because of the characteristics of knowledge, it is not possible to enable a culture of sharing, and learning, and hence knowledge management, unless you recognise that knowledge is fluid, that the major part of knowledge processes is about tacit knowledge, and that you can not really capture, and codify it …

This brings me to the thought I read somewhere, by somebody (I am very sorry to not remember where and who) concerning the need to refer to knowledge leadership instead of knowledge management. I would agree with this completely, simply because, in order to be a good knowledge manager, one does need to posses a lot of the ’’soft skills”  usually attribited to good leaders and not necessarily good managers. As we know, management and leadership are far from one and the same (Kotter) from the point of view of skill, knowledge and intuition, despite that, in good organisations, these complement each other in a reinforcing interplay.

Here is how the authors of the paper explain this:

Increased understanding of organisational culture, using approaches such as narrative techniques (see our website at www.anecdote.com.au for details), social network analysis, open space technology and other participative approaches which help the organisation to become self-aware, is important in creating an environment that enables more value to be extracted from knowledge and information resources.

Some favourite quotes:

”Knowledge is that relatively intangible resource within every individual. The very intangibility of knowledge works against its effective use in many organisations because it does not lend itself to the process-focused and reductionist approaches of industrialage companies.”

“You can’t do knowledge management until you accept that you can’t manage knowledge”.

”Efficiency encourages codification; effectiveness encourages lower levels of codification and greater flexibility. The more you attempt to codify and capture knowledge as information, the more you reduce flexibility, the more you fossilise it.”

“trust is the bandwidth of knowledge sharing”