KMWorld Conference, November 2010, Washington, DC. | Wordle.net world map.
As I think back over the ideas shared during KMWorld 2010 http://www.kmworld.com/kmw10/ this year, the phrase "boundary crossing" summarizes my core takeaway this year. I moderated a track entitled "Optimizing Organizations through Collaboration" and many of the speakers spoke to this idea of crossing, or spanning, boundaries:
- Analyzing social and organizational networks to understand knowledge gaps.
- Ensuring communities of practice are aligned to the business goals and encouraging sustainability through people to people connections and participation.
- Capitalizing on the power of social networks to build effective and adaptive learning organizations.
- Growing expertise requires knowing your current proficiencies, setting goals, and crossing many boundaries to grow new ideas and expand your knowledge.
Organizational growth is closely correlated to individuals who are willing network and collaborate outside their normal sphere of influence. People able to span the organizational hierarchy and build internal and external networks cannot help but grow and adapt. Growing adaptive organizations, transformational leaders realize the importance of blurring organizational lines, supporting collaborative communities and breaking down silos to encourage transparency.