The Ferryman

Knowledge and Leadership

We held a Knowledge Cafe recently in Basel to discuss Knowledge and Leadership. The discussions were good and based on our notes I am currently preparing what I think is a nice co-created article. Below is a short summary and some photos from the proceedings. If interested in this topic and related activities, I welcome your comments or please contact me at barry.hardy (-at-) douglasconnect.com.

Barry Hardy

Summary based on discussions at a Knowledge Café held

in Basel, Switzerland, 25 April 2007 by

Shadab Lari, Joel Brun, Markus Hainzl, Hasan Al-Matrouk, Abdulaziz Addawesh, Adnan Sharif, Gladys Range, Nicolette Liller, Bernhard te Woerd,  Peter Ngunyi, Vera Olang, Pierre Neveux, Robin Micklewright, Douglas Weidner, Nicki Douglas, Barry Hardy, Heike Gutmann, Juergen Drewe, Harald Mauser, Markus Hegi, Eunika Mercier-Laurent, Monika Hochstrasser, Annette Höglund, Tobe Freeman, Chris Gopsill, Chris Pallaris, Beat Knechtli, Pavel Kraus, Giulio Pasolini, Richard Zbinden

Summary (as pdf):

Download leadershipkcafebsapril07_v2_3_summary.pdf

Introduction

On the top of the corporate leadership agenda is the responsibility for building the corporate community consisting of clients, shareholders, board directors, employees, partners, suppliers, authorities, research organisations and other stakeholders. We ask the question: how do we research, develop and apply new better practices to be taken in the knowledge management (KM) of an organisation involved in activities where leadership and innovation success could have significant performance impact?

 Knowledge gaps, bottlenecks, absence or under-utilisation of knowledge, lack of communication or collaboration, lack of access to or re-use of existing knowledge, difficulty in storing or retrieving knowledge, organisational or cultural issues may all contribute significant barriers to knowledge sharing and innovation, and leaders need to be able to identify and act on such areas to improve the organisational performance.

Relevant questions related to Knowledge and Leadership include: How should we lead knowledge-driven organisations in the 21st century? What skills and qualities are needed by today's "knowledge leaders"? What knowledge strategies should an organisation adopt for the next five years? What should organisations be doing today to ensure they have the right leaders, workers, processes, and projects in place by the turn of this decade? What changes can we forecast in terms of information and communications technology (ICT), knowledge management, creativity, learning and collaboration? And how do we prepare as individuals and organisations to confront these challenges?

A Knowledge Café was held on the terrace of the Merian Hotel in Basel on 25 April 2007 to discuss these questions through peer-to-peer conversations between managers and practitioners. The Knowledge Café lasted ca. 2.5 hours and involved 31 participants.

The six facilitators at the Café were Richard Zbinden (CEO, Software for Corporate Leaders), Barry Hardy (Founder, InnovationWell), Douglas Weidner (President, International Knowledge Management Institute), Chris Pallaris (ETH, Zurich), Pavel Kraus (President, SKMF) and Beat Knechtli (CKO, PwC)

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Advances in Information, Communications and Knowledge Management Support Systems for R&D

“The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes the middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own. Not unlike this is the true business of philosophy (science); for it neither relies solely or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it take the matter which it gathers from natural history and mechanical experiments and lay up in the memory whole, as it finds it, but lays it up in the understanding altered and digested. Therefore, from a closer and purer league between these two faculties, the experimental and the rational (such as has never been made), much may be hoped.”
Francis Bacon

We are holding a 2 day Community of Practice Workshop on “Advances in Information, Communications and Knowledge Management Support Systems for R&D” to take place 15-16 October 2007 at Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, USA.

The workshop will have a strong emphasis on peer-to-peer discussions with each workshop session involving a facilitated Knowledge Café discussion. On Monday evening we will have a Knowledge Dinner with good food and conversation menus at the Alumni House, whereas on Tuesday evening we will have a poster session, drinks reception and buffet dinner in Thomas Great Hall. We will discuss and share experiences with current information and communications technology (ICT) supporting R&D, to discuss current requirements and short term needs with electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) systems, collaboration support and knowledge tools supporting R&D, and to create a shared vision and roadmap for next generation knowledge management (KM) support systems. A wiki will be opened 3 months prior to the workshop to commence group documentation of supporting materials and to help to populate the workshop program with introductory materials, suggestions, ideas and experiences.

The workshop preliminary program and format are described below. To register please contact Nicki Douglas, nicki.douglas (-at-) douglasconnect.com Early registration and group discounts are available. Please book early to ensure a lower rate and place.

Program description is continued on blog post below or you can download the program and schedule and brochure as pdfs here:

Workshop Brochure:

Download KMWorkshopBrynMawr07web2.PDF

 

More Information on InnovationWell Website: http://www.innovationwell.net/COMTY_conferences

Advancing best practices in predictive ADME and Toxicology

On the 17-19 October 2007 we will host a joint eCheminfo and InnovationWell Community of Practice Workshop and Forum at Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia to discuss and advance best practices in predictive ADME and Toxicology, to develop best practices for comparison studies and validation, to review latest developments in method development and applications related to drug discovery and development, and to discuss the potential for collaborations between initiatives and international cooperation.

This conference, forum and workshop activity will consist of the following parts:

1. Workshops to discuss developments, challenges and  potential for collaborations. (afternoons of October 17-19).

2. Conference sessions on latest ADMET methods and application developments with presentations and panel discussions. (mornings of October 18 and 19)

3. Hands-on Workshop sessions with drug discovery informatics software (running during afternoons throughout week)

4. Evening Poster Sessions on latest modelling developments (evenings of October 17 and 18)

Workshop Facilitators
Joseph Tomaszewski (NCI), Artem Cherkasov (University of British Columbia), Dennis Pelletier (Pfizer), Richard Beger (FDA), Anthony Klon (Pharmacopeia Drug Discovery), Tony Hopfinger (University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy), Joseph Contrera (FDA), Christoph Helma (University of Freiburg and in silico toxicology), Vladimir Poroikov (Russian Academy of Sciences), Judith Madden (Liverpool John Moores University), Ann Richard (EPA)

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