Think Globally, Act Locally

 A significant portion of my professional life has revolved around knowledge work, delving into analytics, and navigating the realm of words, documents, and evidence. It's a landscape of abstraction, particularly in the context of international development where my focus on knowledge management often leads me far from the tangible impacts we aim to achieve. While you can envision how your efforts contribute to projects worldwide, the chain of impact often feels elusive.

A couple of years ago, I made a deliberate shift towards more hands-on involvement, seeking tangible actions beyond the confines of my analytical mind. Volunteering became my avenue for hands-on local engagement, with two organizations in Arlington:

• Arlington Neighborhood Village, where I assist older citizens with garden tasks and engage in regular conversations with those who may benefit from more social contact.
• EcoAction Arlington, where I engage in various activities, from park clean-ups to improving housing for low-income residents, promoting energy and water conservation.

In embracing this ethos of localization, I've come to realize that sustainable development isn't bound by geography. It's a universal principle, applicable everywhere. I take comfort in being able to act locally in alignment with global sustainable development goals.

Through volunteering, I've gained insights into the diverse fabric of my community, encountering individuals and systems that enrich my understanding of local dynamics and governance structures, imperfect as they may be.

Receiving the Impact Award from EcoAction Arlington last week was a humbling affirmation of these efforts.

Holding my Impact Award.  Photo by Alexandra Fillip. 

Curated Nuggets of Knowledge - Week ending 4/28/2024

Let's start with a quote I recently curated.

"I'm drawn to the idea that the key to creating in the age of information abundance is to become a skilled curator. With so much content available, the ability to sift through the noise and identify the most relevant, compelling, and thought-provoking ideas becomes invaluable." 

~Joan Westenberg, How to be a creator in the age of information overload, Medium, March 2024.

Knowledge Mapping: Preparing for Two Upcoming -- related but different -- Presentations

Knowledge Mapping has been an interest of mine for years, perhaps a couple of decades now.  While I have treated it as a niche area of interest and expertise rather than a specific service or method, I now have the freedom to explore and see if there is more to it.  More recently, knowledge mapping has led me to knowledge graphs and a whole new world of technology-enhanced mapping.  

And now I have an opportunity to talk about Knowledge Mapping in a more public arena, through my friends at Consult KM International on May 23rd and then with the KMGN Research Community on June 19th.  As I prepare for the presentations, I am faced with a couple of challenges.  I have not had to explain knowledge mapping to many people. I tried it in February with a small, safe audience and I learned a few things from that. Most importantly, I need to be as clear as possible about what I mean by "knowledge mapping", how it can be used -- without overwhelming the audience with too many examples -- and I need to stick to a relatively simple message.  However it's okay to say "I'm still exploring this and I don't have success stories or proof that it works in every context".

I have also not been very consistent with names.  I call it "Applied Insight Mapping" and "Insight Mapping" on this site.  I've called it "KMAPs" when I was doing mapping at NASA.  I've also referred to it as conversation mapping because I was using maps to document Pause and Learn sessions which are essentially facilitated conversations.

Knowledge Mapping in the context of Knowledge Management can also refer to a specific set of practices meant to document organizational knowledge.  I apply the term more broadly to refer to any visual representation of a knowledge domain that relies on words and concepts rather than images, with a focus on relationships between components of the map (nodes).  That's where it connects with knowledge graphs.

So, how do I coherently talk about something that has been so deeply engrained in my work for so many years. Serendipity to the rescue.  I opened LinkedIn and came across a post that points to this course:  Curse of Knowledge for Specialists.  I must have posted about the curse of knowledge in the past but here I need to watch that I don't fall prey to this cognitive bias as I prepare for this presentation. 

The two presentations are related but intended for different audiences.  The first one will focus on "mapping" and its possible applications, based on 20+ years of experience with concept mapping, and touching on knowledge graphs perhaps just at the end while the second presentation is more about my learning journey looking forward, exploring knowledge graphs as a (scaled and automated) extension of concept mapping. 

For more information about these upcoming presentations:

•  ConsultKM International, Knowledge Mapping in International Development: Applications, Purpose, and Benefits, "Live with an Expert" session #4, May 23, 2024. 
  
  
•  KMGN Research Community: From Concept Maps to Knowledge Graphs: A Learning Journey and Possible Research Agenda, June 19, 2024. 

Atomic Notes for Personal Knowledge Graphs

I came across the work of Ivo Velitchkov on Personal Knowledge Graphs yesterday.  Some of it goes well beyond my current level of comprehension because of the technical aspects but I enjoyed the more conceptual elements and the history of the evolution of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM). 

Digging deeper into technology-enhanced notetaking made me question the way I take notes and whether I need to make better use of some of the more advanced functionalities of TiddlyWiki, and by extension, TiddlyMap.  In particular, transclusion seems to offer ways to create more atomic notes.  

For example, taking notes on a book I am reading in a single page or Tiddler) could result in a very long page with many different ideas.  I can tag the page with keywords but I want to be able to quickly reference specific elements of my notes.  I want to be able to quickly pull a specific visual.  The way to do that is by creating "atomic notes" that are then transcluded in the page for that book.  Each atomic note becomes a node in the graph, with its own properties and relationships to other nodes. 

Created by DALL.E:  Atomic Notes in the Context
of a Personal Knowledge Graph 4/24/2024.

This exploration into note taking also made me wonder whether it would be worth revisiting all kinds of paper-based notebooks I have accumulated over the years into my growing TiddlyMap.  The first notebook I came across is a small notebook meant to capture quotes.  I know I also have collections of quotes in other TiddlyWikis.  Bringing everything together (with a focus on the key themes I have already identified) would be a very integrative exercise.

Another question worth exploring is whether it would be possible to integrate personal knowledge graphs with enterprise knowledge graphs.  That is, to some extent, what the Microsoft Graph does and how Microsoft Copilot for M365 pulls content from individual employees' email, Teams, files, and combines that with whatever enterprise content the individual employee also has access to.  

What if there were a way to structure OneNote notebooks for atomic notes and a personal knowledge graph?  What if that personal knowledge graph could be integrated into an enterprise knowledge graph?  I am not suggesting that a personal knowledge graph be share with the enterprise.  I am only suggesting that an individual employee should have easy access to their own personal graph, the enterprise knowledge graph, AND external graphs (like Google's Knowledge Graph) through a single interface.