Dear KMCI Virtual Chapter Members,

The next Face-to-face CKIM workshop will be held in Washington DC from
June 9 - 13, 2008. Here is a lengthy description of what it has to
offer. You may have seen the content before if you've been a member of
this list for some time. But if you need to review detail because you're
thinking of taking a great and comprehensive KM class, then this post is
for you.

Knowledge Management is now full of training classes and full of
Certificates and Certifications. There's nothing wrong with many of
those and your organization may well find them of value. But, in KM,the
truth is that there is no industry-wide agreement on basics that all
Knowledge Managers should know. There's no agreement on key concepts,
important models, processes, techniques, or software tools. And, on top
of that, everything is in constant ferment and changing rapidly. In such
a field, Certification is not as important as education, teaching a
comprehensive approach and a variety of other
materials and tools that can serve as a foundation for the continuous
learning that is the reality for any KM practitioner.

KMCI's CKIM workshop offers such an education in one week of intensive,
comprehensive KM education. Other alternatives, again, are available
besides ours, and we're sure that many others offer quality in various
respects, but we believe that our alternative, in addition to all of the
features described below has the inestimable advantage that it does not
'wag the dog' of Knowledge Management by primarily providing instruction
in the use of one of its tools or
techniques; but instead teaches you a comprehensive approach to doing KM
including concepts and theory, normative goals and objectives, and also
about a 'how to do it' methodology, including techniques for
intervening, impact evaluation and assessment, and core software tools
for applying the methodology.

Of course, there's a place in Knowledge Management for training in how
to implement CoPs, or Social Network Analysis, or Value Network
Analysis, or storytelling and narrative, or Knowledge Cafes, or other
important techniques. But workshops on those topics don't educate you in
how to do KM, but only in one of the initiatives you might use as part
of a KM intervention. You will need training in such things. But, even
more, you need training in the context of KM interventions within which
these techniques find their place. Otherwise you'll just be 'wagging the
dog' and not doing real KM.

It's in educating you about that context that our workshop excels, and,
we believe, excels above all others presently available, But judge for
yourself, read through the description of a previous Workshop I've
appended below and then look at the further information available on our
web site. Here's the description.

"The best value //in KM Teaching Conferences is KMCI's next
CKIM/K-STREAM(tm) Workshop. It will be held in the Washington, DC Metro
area from June 9 -13, 2008 at The Residence Inn at 550 Army Navy Drive,
Arlington, VA 22201.

CKIM, our introduction to Knowledge and Innovation Management
Certificate Class, teaches KMCI's comprehensive KM strategy and
implementation methodology (K-STREAM). In addition to covering the
methodology itself, we present a series of core KM tool types used in
support of it, and also have guest speakers representing vendor
companies come in to make related presentations about their specific tools.

During the June Workshop, we expect to have presentations on
ExpertChoice (a vendor of DSS software providing a wide range of
applications to K-STREAM), Pontifex (a system dynamics consultancy
presenting on iThink), Hyperwave (a vendor of portal, content
management, collaboration/ web conferencing, and e-learning software),
and Precipia Inc. (an enterprise knowledge processing system vendor
providing support for knowledge making and discovery, knowledge claim
tracking, and analysis of knowledge claim dynamics) illustrating either
KM core or intervention tools and providing a great IT tool context for
our presentations, round table discussions, hands-on exercises, and case
studies.

CKIM spends about one day on theory including complexity and
organizational learning approaches to KM, a second day on important case
studies relating KM to Business Processes and outcomes, and on KM
Strategy, and three days on hands-on, in-depth coverage of our K-STREAM
methodology and associated tools, including case studies and exercises.
Five days in total, all for only $2695, the highest-value face-to-face
program available anywhere, since not only will we be covering
contemporary KM theory, but attendees will also be provided with
training in a comprehensive KM methodology and tool-set.

You now have the option of completing CKIM in two steps. You can enroll
for the first two days on theory and strategy, and can come back another
time for the last three days on K-STREAM methodology. We've decided to
make this change because many people interested in CKIM find it
difficult to free up five consecutive days for the class, but may be
able to find two days here and three days there.

If you enroll for the two-step program, we'll provide an interim CKIM
Certificate covering KM Strategy, and then give you the CKIM Certificate
when you complete the last three days. Fees for the first two days of
CKIM on KM Strategy are $1390, and the final three days on K-STREAM
methodology will cost $1785. So there's a substantial economic advantage
in completing the 5-day program in a single week, and this reflects the
lower risks and administrative costs we experience if you take both
parts of the program consecutively.

For prior attendees of earlier versions of our CKIM program, given
before 2005, we are also offering a shortened attendance option, whereby
previous students can attend the new CKIM program at a reduced cost in
order to learn the new K-STREAM methodology, as well as our new
incremental KM strategy. For students who choose this option, attendance
is only required for the last 3-and-a-half days of the class and the fee
is $1845. In addition, all such prior students will receive K-STREAM
Certificates.

Main topics covered in CKIM include: The New KM Reference Model,
Organizational Learning, Problem Solving, and Action, Complex Adaptive
Systems, What is Knowledge? The Knowledge Life Cycle, A Framework for
KM, The Partners' Health Care Case Study, KM and Business Strategy, The
Policy Synchronization Method, The Open Enterprise, Communities of
Practice vs. Communities of Inquiry, KM Methodology: Scope and
Requirements, KM Methodology: The State of the Art and K-STREAM,
K-STREAM: Introduction and Overview of Phases, K-STREAM Phase 1:
Strategy and Assessment Phase, The Open Enterprise Template, Formulating
Alternative Strategies/Interven tions, Impact Models, Using Expert
Choice: A Core Tool with Multiple Roles (Guest Speaker), ROI and
Benefits, Portal/Content Management/Collaboration/elearning Software
(Guest Speaker), Performing a Knowledge Processing Gap Analysis, Impact
Modeling with /iThink /(Guest Speaker), Business Performance Modeling
and Measurement Schemes (e.g. Balanced
Scorecards), K-STREAM Phase 2: The Decision Phase, Performing The
Decision Phase, Phase 3: The Construction Phase, Performing The
Construction Phase, Phase 4: The Transition Phase, Knowledge Processing
and Knowledge Claim Tracking with Precipia's DIANE(tm) (Guest Speaker),
Phase 5: The
Maintenance Phase, Knowledge Claim Dynamics as a Basis for Impact
Analysis, Wrap-Up: What Have We Covered? Wrap-Up: Feedback.

The Workshop also includes plenty of group collaborative work in the
form of 7 roundtable discussions and 4 hands-on exercises, including
three directed toward practicing the phases of the methodology in the
context of a case study called Green Mountain Manufacturing.

This list of topics shows the progression of the CKIM workshop from KM
Theory to an important case study to the development of a comprehensive
KM strategy to the areas of methodology, measurement and metrics,
techniques, and tools. What it doesn't reflect however, is the
integration of topics through consistent application of the conceptual
foundation we provide in the first day. From the theoretical development
through the case study and strategy sections through the methodology
including its emphasis on metrics, techniques, and tools through the
delivery of the software templates for developing KM, knowledge
processing, business processing, and outcome metrics on the final day,
to the concluding wrap-up, this Workshop is about developing and
applying in practice the KMCI three-tier KM reference model we've
developed since 1998.

Everything in this workshop is connected to everything else. Nothing is
isolated from the mosaic we craft in the Workshop. Agree with us or not,
this is a coherent view of Knowledge Management, what it is, and how to
apply it. It is a view that addresses the lack of consensus, some would
say even chaos, in KM, and offers an answer to these conditions in the
form of a comprehensive map of our discipline and a set of guidelines
for playing a role in it.

Tangible takeaways from the CKIM workshop are the most extensive offered
for a workshop of this type. They include:

1. A set of extensive class notes in the form of Powerpoint Slides

2. Mark McElroy's book: The New Knowledge Management

3. Joe Firestone's book: Enterprise Information Portals and Knowledge
Management

4. Firestone and McElroy's book: Key Issues in the New Knowledge Management

5. A pre-publication copy of Joe Firestone's new book applying KM to
reducing risk called Riskonomics: Reducing Risk by Killing Your Worst Ideas

6. Davenport and Glaser's Harvard Business Review article on the
Partners HealthCare Case

7. Firestone and McElroy's The Learning Organization Journal article on
"Doing Knowledge Management", also featuring the Partners HealthCare
Case. This article received the 2006 outstanding article award for the
Emerald Journal, The Learning Organization

8. The Green Mountain Manufacturing KM case and hands-on exercises.

9. The KMCI K-STREAM^(TM) Methodology Baseline (.pdf file listing the
steps in K-STREAM^(TM) )

10. An ExpertChoice Trial License (see www.expertchoice.com)

11. The Business Process Performance Template (a KMCI Model applying
ExpertChoice) and a no-cost license to use it in perpetuity.

12. The Open Enterprise Ontology template (a KMCI Model applying
ExpertChoice) and a no-cost license to use it in perpetuity.

13. "The Sustainability Code:" A policy model for achieving sustainable
innovation in organizations

14. An offer for a no-cost, perpetual license to use the patent-pending
Policy Synchronization Method (PSM) for achieving sustainable innovation.

15. A CKIM(TM) Certificate of completion.

Background information is plentiful at: http://www.kmci.org
<http://www.kmci.org> and related urls.

Here is a sample syllabus for a previous CKIM, which is updated for
every workshop.

http://www.kmci.org/media/CKIMSyllabussummer2005.pdf
<http://www.kmci.org/media/CKIMSyllabussummer2005.pdf>

Please give it a look, and let us know if you have any questions about
it or would like to attend an upcoming class. We think you'll agree
that this is the most comprehensive, rigorous, pedagogically diverse,
and novel KM workshop in the marketplace.

Again, our next class is June 9 - 13, 2008 in the Washington, DC metro area.

You'll find registration information at:

http://www.kmci.org/datesandlocation.html
<http://www.kmci.org/datesandlocation.html>

Why not join your other colleagues in learning a new and comprehensive
"bottom-up" KM Strategy that takes advantage of the self-organizing
nature of human systems as well as K-STREAM, a new KM methodology for
serious practitioners?

Whether you're a novice looking for your first introductory workshop, or
an expert, who's now looking around for a new take on KM, you'll benefit
from participating in the most challenging five-day Certificate Workshop
in KM today. Please give me a call at the number below if you'd like to
talk about it!

Hope to see you there.

Best,

Joe

Joseph M. Firestone, Ph.D.
Managing Director
Knowledge Management Consortium International and CKIM Program
www.kmci.org

Managing Director
The Adaptive Metrics Center and
Center for The Open Enterprise, LLC
www.adaptivemetricscenter.com

CKO
Executive Information System, Inc.
www.dkms.com
http://radio.weblogs.com/0135950
703-461-8823