Bundle of joy number 2 has landed!

A bundle for those who are interested in innovation, collaboration and metrics (and knowledge and learning of course).

Today’s bundle includes:

Total value just over £647, but bundled for you at £300.

There’s just one bundle available, so if you are interested, drop me an email (helenerussell@theknowledgebusiness.co.uk) or comment below sometime before 5pm on Friday 6th September 2019 and I’ll put your name in the hat.


If you want more info about yesterday’s bundle for PSLs/KLs and their leaders, follow this link and if you want to learn more about the background to this, click here.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Back-to-school – Bundle 1

Our first bundle of learning will be of most interest to PSLs/KLs and their leaders, but will be of interest to others too.

Our first bundle contains:

Total value is a little over £626, but bundled up here for £300.

If you fancy this bundle, email me at helenerussell@theknowledgebusiness.co.uk or comment below and confirm that you fancy Tuesday’s bundle and I’ll put your name in the hat and let you know on Friday if you are lucky.


Background/further info

It’s a win-win. To help everyone with their back-to-school learning and to help me with clearing out some spare books, I’ve created some bundles of learning, which I’ll be selling off at around half price this week.

There’s one bundle per day.

If you see something you want, email me at helenerussell@theknowledgebusiness.co.uk and confirm which bundle you fancy.

I’ll put all the names in a hat on Friday and pick out the lucky people then.

For the workshops, I’ll try to include a couple of possible venues so you can choose the nearest, but if you can’t make the session yourself, you are welcome to gift it to someone else in your firm or swap it for 2 personal coaching video calls.

If you have trouble with budgets/approval processes, which will make difficulties for you in the timescale, feel free to email “yes, subject to approval” and if you can’t get the approval, I’ll pick a second person out of the hat. These are paid-for bundles, not freebies, but they are about/better than half-price.

Any questions, just ask.

Good luck!

Good luck!
Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Back to school

My youngest started secondary school today.

Things went pretty smoothly. We walked there, so there was time for a chat on the way, and she arrived on time, in the right uniform, with the right stuff in her bag and wandered off into the (massive) school pretty happily with a friend. Job done.

But isn’t it funny how “back to school” time stays with you?

I still have a sense of a “new start” in September: hope for the future; excitement about what new learning there’ll be (and a strong urge to tidy up).

Personally, I find that it’s a good thing to harness.

It’s a great time to reflect on your strengths and achievements, reassess goals and understand/plan to work on any gaps.

Do you agree?

Why not commit to finding 10 minutes today to reflect on how far you’ve come, where you want to go and how you could get there?

If you are wondering where to start, this post of mine on reflective learning, written for the beginning of the SRA’s needs-based learning, might be useful.

And keep an eye out for my special back-to-school clear out offers, coming along this week. Sign up for the newsletter to be the first to hear about it all.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80, Henry Ford
Anyone who stops learning is old
Posted in Personal Knowledge Management, Training and learning | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Smooth seas

Smooth seas do not make skilful sailors - African proverb
Posted in quotes, Training and learning | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Determined to learn

If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Off to Scotland!

Are you based in Scotland or the North of England?

I’m coming to Edinburgh at the end of September, so it’d be great to see you if you are around!

Beautiful Edinburgh

I’m running a series of workshops on knowledge, learning and innovation for professional services firms: 3 afternoons and a morning and you’ll be up to date!

There are four workshops:

You can book to come to one event or all of them (at a discount).

One firm is also welcome to share a joint ticket, so your new PSL/IMer can come to the foundations workshop, your senior PSL can come to the metrics one, and your Head of Knowledge can come to the strategy and ISO standard workshop.

All the information is here on Eventbrite.

And if the workshops aren’t for you, but you are around, let’s have coffee.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Tomorrow’s KM

As you’ll all be tired of hearing by now 🙂 I’m tremendously interested in knowledge, learning and innovation, so I’m extra excited to hear that Ark’s multi-author book on the topic has been published today. My chapter is the first, all about what innovation is, where KM fits with it and the role that diversity plays (including some practical top tips to help diverse teams get along).

More info here.

I can’t wait to get my author copy, so I can read the other contributors’ chapters.

Posted in innovation | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Sharing Knowledge – Peter Senge

A quotation by Peter Senge about motivations for knowledge sharing.
Posted in knowledge-sharing, quotes | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A bit too Britney Spears and Brit Pop?

I had an 90s flashback the other day.

It all felt a bit Britney Spears and Brit Pop, a bit beanie babies and Gameboys.

I was chatting to someone from law firm management and (s)he was so irrepressibly and joyfully confident that a new database was *the best and only answer* to all the firm’s lawyers’ knowledge issues, that I had a complete 90s flashback.

What am I on about?

Back in the late 80s and 90s, when KM was relatively new as a field (although lawyers have been “doing” ad hoc KM since lawyering began) there was a strong sense that technology was *the answer*. It was thought that all knowledge could be distilled into something explicit and straightforward and put in a database where it would be joyfully harvested by a new global workforce.

Of course we now know that it didn’t work like that.

Lots of businesses wasted time and money.

Nancy Dixon explained it beautifully when she described the first of her 3 Eras of KM, which you can read here.

Don’t get me wrong, database-warehouses work perfectly for some types of knowledge and should certainly be part of your overall knowledge management picture, along with process and quality management and automation, but we now know that management of more complex (often more valuable) knowledge requires different tactics.

It took a while, but KMers and the wider business community gradually learned that some knowledge is too complex to be shared via databases and that, for some knowledge and business sectors, conversation and connections were just as important.

So when someone confidently tells me that databases are *the answer* to all their law firm knowledge needs, I can’t help hearing that Brit Pop and Britney and smile.


If you want a bit more Britney and Brit Pop, follow the blog using the button at the top right, or for a fortnightly summary, sign up to the newsletter.

Posted in Knowledge type, technology | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Boosting innovation

July’s First Friday News is all about how you can boost innovation in your organisation.

If you think that sounds interesting, click here for more.

If you think you might want this sort of thing once a month (and a shorter round-up in between) you can join either the general newsletter or the one for textbook owners by following the links. I promise I won’t inundate your inbox. If anything it’s a bit hit n miss for once a fortnight!

A smiley robot.
Posted in collaboration | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment