A knowledge manager's musings

Making connections

On occasion, a man wanders round Brighton with a tiny video camera clipped to his glasses. Not because he’s working under cover or has a worrying voyeuristic streak but because he’s capturing the every day. And every day he films, he says something interesting happens. 

Sam and I met about three years ago. I bought one of his paintings on a visit to the seaside and it now lives on my dining-room wall. Since then I’ve taken friends to his London viewings – Susie now has a Hewitt too. I introduced him to George when I found out his company supports artists and to Elizabeth when she was looking for art for the TechHub walls.

Recently, as a thank you for “being determined to help” him, he invited me to the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea where some of his work was on sale. This was unexpected. Not the gesture, but the sentiment, because I haven’t considered myself as being determined to help. I’ve just been making connections when I see them.

It’s the nature of this connection making that’s been niggling at me for some time, especially since working on the knowledge manager’s journey.

I’ve always marvelled at how I will start a new project and it seems that the whole world has developed a sudden interest in the topic or I’ll meet someone under completely distinct circumstances and it happens to be their specialist subject. I used to think it was happy coincidence, but now I realise it’s the lenses we look through.

I’m sure somewhere there are academic papers that go into this with far more rigor and there’s every possibility I’m just stating the bleedin’ obvious. But just as Khal, Victoria and I talk about information overload and a lack of reflection time, an article appears in McKinsey Quarterly on that very topic. And just as Sam and his camera stumble upon happenings in Brighton, all these things would have happened anyway, we just wouldn’t have been switched on to them.

I am the last person to see celebrities in the street. Despite living in London I don’t expect to see them and so I don’t. I once stood next to Al Pacino for 10 minutes in a hotel bar completely oblivious (although, to be fair, he really is rather short).

But it’s more than just spotting these things, there’s also an element of nurture involved and being open to making connections.

Maybe Sam and I started talking about this at the show because we were sitting among so many beautiful objects with hopeful artists waiting for somebody to connect with them. Maybe it was Sam talking about how he connects the images he sees and photos he takes with the paintings he wants to create. Maybe it was because of the somewhat serendipitous way we met.

But Sam had also just read Tribes by Seth Godin, which has caused him to think about the way he fosters the connections he makes and the opportunities that present themselves.

I often describe my work in knowledge management as creating environments that allow people to share and find the knowledge they need, whether they know they need it or know it exists. While we can provide the conduits to knowledge and help people build their networks, everyone needs to look for, nurture and make connections for themselves.

Too many times have I heard people complain that they haven’t heard about a recent project or nobody told them about a new widget that would have been invaluable. If you’re not open to making connections, if you don’t expect there to be useful knowledge outside your immediate network or don’t search for it, don’t be surprised when things don’t just fall in your lap.

And if you’re in Brighton and you see a man with a tiny video camera on his glasses, for goodness’ sake do something interesting. 

Picture credit: Main Square with Car, Sam Hewitt