Cognitive Edge is focused on rejuvenating management practices to better equip organisations when addressing intractable problems or seizing new opportunities in uncertain and complex situations. Where traditional approaches have failed to deliver success, Cognitive Edge techniques enable the emergence of fresh and insightful solutions seen from multiple perspectives.

Cognitive Edge solutions, comprised of open source methods, original research and the Cognitive Edge SenseMaker® Software Suite, are delivered through the Cognitive Edge Network. The Cognitive Edge Network is a widely dispersed, cohesive Network of experienced professionals in private and public sector organisations from diverse disciplines with deep-rooted experience in both business and science. It includes academics and practitioners, in house and commercial consultants. Membership of the Network is attained through participation in an Accreditation programme.

The Cognitive Edge SenseMaker® Software Suite provides a set of tools designed to enable informed decision making in organisations using both structured and unstructured data in a common environment. The Suite is fully integrated with a coherent body of formal methods is the outcome of several years of research into human based organizational complexity, sensemaking, decision making, knowledge sharing and narrative.

 Knowledge, Sensemaking and Social Computing: The strategic use of social computing

Theme

Understanding how to create, develop, enhance and distribute knowledge remains a core strategic objective of all organisations.  Key to decision making, vital to innovation the effective management of knowledge remains illusive.

The capability of technology during the “hype” phase of knowledge management from the mid-nineties had developed to support the structured, top-down design needs of process management and was ill-matched with the unstructured bottom-up needs of managing the tacit, fluid nature of human intelligence and social interaction.

The growth of social computing with its emphasis on fragmented material that is structured through social interaction is breathing new life into the effective deployment of knowledge.  The challenge is to handle the integration of an informal voluntary process with the more formal demands of an organisation.

Who should attend

  • Executives in the public and private sector who need to understand the strategic importance of modern social computing tools such as blogs, wikis, micro-blogging, and social networks.
  • Knowledge management professionals seeking to understand the capability of new technologies and acquire pragmatic methods to allow their implementation in an organisational environment.
  • Participants in Cognitive Edge accreditation programmes wanting to understand (or refresh their understanding) of knowledge management applications.
  • Learning and communication professionals seeking strategic insight and practical methods to apply developing technologies within their organisation.
  • Information technology staff seeking to understand the human factors associated with technology deployment.

Programme

  • Key insight and learning from the cognitive sciences and complex adaptive systems theory
  • What social computing tools and technology exist to support the effective management of knowledge
  • Initiating and sustaining a knowledge management programme based on social computing
  • Knowing what we know, new approaches to mapping and auditing knowledge
  • Understanding the role of formal and informal communities and how to support them
  • Using existing networks, and stimulating the creation of new ones across silos.

Outcomes

By the end of the seminar delegates will:

  • Achieve an understanding of the various social computing tools available and their application to knowledge management;
  • Acquire a set of methods (supported by documentation from Cognitive Edge) to apply that learning in practice; and
  • Understand how to make the business case for the implementation of social computing tools and manage the roll out programme.

Tutor

Dave Snowden is the founder and chief scientific officer of Cognitive Edge. His work covers government and industry looking at complex issues relating to strategy, organisational decision making and decision making. He has pioneered a science based approach to organisations drawing on anthropology, neuroscience and complexity.

Well known for his work on the role of narrative and sense making, he is an entertaining speaker and a formidable realist, and one of the few thought leaders who can bring together the academic and practitioner perspectives into a single, comprehensible purview.

His Harvard Business Review cover article with Mary Boone A Leader's Framework for Decision-Making, was selected as the 2007 Best Practitioner Paper by the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management. 

Upcoming dates and details for this course:

http://cognitive-edge.com/calendar-seminars.php