A culinary metaphor
A meze is a meal made of 6 or more small dishes common around Eastern Mediterranean sea. People pick from each dishes to compose their own meal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meze
Personal Knowledge Meze is a good explanation of what is PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) and it shares the same Three Letter Acronym.
Personal knowledge processes are rather similar from person to person: reading, inventing, watching videos, creating, trying, taking notes, sharing our experiences. What is different is the mix: choices and quantity.
We can agree on each process and explore them in depth like we share recipes of typical meze dishes: Hummus, Falafel. Some like it spicier, with more oil but it stays the same. This is the goal of the Periodic table of Knowledge processes.
Later we compose them based on our needs, our goals and taste. When you sit at a Meze you can have a fully vegetarian meal while sitting at the same table, sharing your meal with grilled meat lover. The same applies for PKM. Some like to focus on learning and sharing only, some prefer to learn, apply and deepen the understanding until they reach new ideas. Picking dishes from a meze is to eat wisely and optimize your pleasure. PKM is to get quicker and deeper on knowledge, while avoiding overload.
Now imagine 10 persons in front of a very rich Meze with 18 dishes. Ask each of them who they would compose their dream meal out of it. When you collect all those views you can have a reasonably faithful image of what PKM really is.
It seems a bit unnatural to interview people on what they will eat in the next minute. Eating is part of us. Being selective and attracted by nice food is also deep in us. We don’t intellectualize it, we don’t have a reflective thinking of it, we don’t name it. PKM is also like this. Most people in various knowledge base work practice PKM continuously but they don’t name it. They just do it. If you stop them they will describe the processes they used but not the whole.
I want to hear how people combine knowledge processes without naming it ‘management’. let’s just compare our mix.
I picked this idea from our last PKMChat on promoting PKM. It’s my main takeaway.
I found the analogy later, I’m always interested in fine cuisine.
Were I came from
I arrange this chat to think collectively on two ideas keeping me busy recently.
– Most people I meet keep learning, developing their career, expertise. Almost none of them use the words Personal Knowledge Management. For this goal, they use plenty of means, some unknown to me. Last week in Paris I discovered hackjams. 30 people in a room unpacking a new software library and trying to rebuild it to understand it deeply and quickly. When they describe how they learn and maintain their knowledge it’s very similar to me, just they don’t name it and don’t overthink it.
– PKMChat audience is shrinking and we wish to promote it, bring more people to participate. How do you promote a chat if the concept central to it is not understood? I don’t want to start a movement like #WOL, I like freedom too much. It’s not formalized and documented like GTD. Everyone could use GTD, even with no learning involved. I don’t want either to reduce PKMChat to the prepackaged bento Seek Sense Share wich is known only in the L&D community, it would be thinking inside the box.
This idea of meze expresses clearly the idea of being free to compose one’s menu at every time. Each time you share a meze you can taste different dishes. You can have a veg period for 3 months, followed by a protein low carb diet for another 3 months. It’s adaptable until the last minute. What stays are the elementary process. We can share our mastery in each of them, let people discover new ones, share learning tips. What brings value is to share our mix and which overall benefits we get from them.
Key Tweets
Here are the key tweets I collected from this chat:
PKM is not a widely used acronym
#pkmchat A1 Until this chat Iβd never heard the acronym uttered. If others are doing it theyβre either mum on subject or has another name.
— urbie delgado (@urbie) April 5, 2017
A1 my closed ones have their PKM routines and practices but i don't think they call them by that name π #pkmchat @pkmchat https://t.co/R8zfEzWc6k
— Dr Ross Espinoza π (@DrRossEspinoza) April 5, 2017
A2) It serves a purpose helping people to develop a system to cope with all info noise. Does it need to be "PKM", no. #PKMchat https://t.co/fwEJz05czI
— Dave Lee (@dcleesfo) April 5, 2017
PKM is a natural activity, “open source” (no ownership)
Q0 I do it out of intuition. I do enjoy learning and applying knowledge #pkmchat @pkmchat https://t.co/EC2bLROgx7
— Dr Ross Espinoza π (@DrRossEspinoza) April 5, 2017
A2b) Although PKM is some what "open source" compared to GTD or other proprietary systems. #PKMchat https://t.co/LzCcjamI1P
— Dave Lee (@dcleesfo) April 5, 2017
Agreed. It is natural and organic #pkmchat @pkmchat https://t.co/CITP0WI2G3
— Dr Ross Espinoza π (@DrRossEspinoza) April 5, 2017
A3) I don't think it can. Everyone has their own interpretation. The idea is to think about how we process knowledge. #PKMchat https://t.co/nDlnXlxVz9
— Dave Lee (@dcleesfo) April 5, 2017
@brunowinck @IsabelDeClercq may need to call it something else, if collective thing, would need to agree what "it" is #pkmchat
— Simon R.J. Fogg (@srjf) April 5, 2017
Let’s just say PKM is a mix in a choice. What we bring from the original definition is the list of possible processes. It’s an open list but it’s a great base to choose from. Everything you can do to create knowledge flows and optimize the use of it.
PKM is really the mix you make for yourself, Organic PKM.
A3: would we all share the same view of what PKM is, and how it is defined? PKM has a specific meaning/web site #pkmchat
— Simon R.J. Fogg (@srjf) April 5, 2017
@srjf @IsabelDeClercq What about a string of blog posts on PKM and pointing to all of them from #PKMChat site, leading to a discovery journey for newbies ?
— Bruno Winck (@brunowinck) April 5, 2017
while doing so you eventually share on how you learn, get deeper on things.
A4) I was just thinking about how it's like promoting meta-learning (reflecting on how you are learning what you are learning). #PKMchat https://t.co/aiBwQtYI2i
— Dave Lee (@dcleesfo) April 5, 2017
A3 There could be a sharing of practices so more like models of practice rather than role models #pkmchat @pkmchat https://t.co/Jjs82i5jmt
— Dr Ross Espinoza π (@DrRossEspinoza) April 5, 2017
What do think? feel free to add your point of view below or on Twitter