I received an email from a very weak tie yesterday. Bijoy Goswami is former Nortel employee who knew someone named Greg (whom I can’t remember with only a first name for a clue) who referred Bijoy to me. Bijoy noticed that Rob Cross gave me an acknowledgment in The Hidden Value of Social Networks, and so got in touch because he is doing work now on the “people side” of knowledge management.

In an article-to-be-a-book-chapter on his site, Bijoy uses the metaphor of The KM Coat, the collar more precisely. When you pick up a coat, it’s best to pick it up by the collar, and Bijoy suggests that the collar is not document databases, it’s not AI, and it’s not change management. It’s looking at people and their roles in the organizational structure.

Here’s the part I really liked: he goes back to a concept developed by Marcus Buckingham in the book First, Break All the Rules. Buckingham summarizes three vital talents that good managers recognize in people:

Analytical

Relational

Results-creation

Bijoy then does a nice quick comparison of these to three of the roles described so well in The Tipping Point:

Mavens

Connectors

Evangelists

Good insight. Thanks, Bijoy!