What is Personal Knowledge Management and Why is it Important?
Summary
A Tale of Three Generations
People born between the years 1965 and 1980 have witnessed an extraordinary shift in life becoming online and competitive.
My parents belonged to this generation. On a typical evening in the 1980s, they would spend their free time reading newspapers and books. The international trade is booming and electronics such a Televisions are slowly becoming purchasable.
The Internet is not here yet, so they keep in touch with their family and friends using dial-up telephones. At work they reach out to their colleagues using fax machines or by sending mail by post.
Fast forward to the year 2000, those of us born between the years 1982 and 1994 are coming of age.
On an average day, we would be found playing?video-games on our desktop PC. FM Radios and borrowing CDs are a thing. By the year 2010, many of us can afford internet connections and write emails to friends. Jobs are booming for our talented seniors who will later migrate to high income locations.
By 2011, all of us, including those born between the years 1992 and 2012, have witnessed an unprecedented escalation.
The Internet has become ubiquitous. Everyone has Smartphones and no one can imagine a day without Facebook. On most days, my nephew would play games with his friends over the internet, and my niece watches crafting tutorials on YouTube. We now use Instant Messaging platforms such as WhatsApp to keep in touch.?
As we near 2021, Big-tech companies have expanded, and a terrible pandemic has hit us worldwide. Many of us are now struggling with the new normal— Remote work, layoffs and a sudden scarcity of job opportunities.?
With changes in the wind, a lot of us are now considering alternative income sources through gig-work and social media marketing. Now that the AI applications are booming – we have never been so worried about being replaced by automation before.
The concept of Personal Knowledge Management is not new. It has been around as early as the late 90’s. The term usually refers to the process of gathering and organising information, and generating insights from such information to create value for the self.?
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These value-additions for the self come in all kinds of boxes. Benefits of Personal Knowledge Management include supports received in prioritising options, taking critical decisions, learning effectively and solving complex problems. Personal Knowledge Management offers unique potentials to anyone who is willing to adapt and improve instead of living in stagnation.
What is Personal Knowledge Management and How do I do it?
There is no one correct answer here.
People who adopt and practise Personal Knowledge Management pursue a set of?mental models?and?applications?that support the process of extracting new knowledge or insights from the information they have access to. They adopt and make use of certain?principles, techniques, habits and tools?to produce value for themselves.
People who do Personal Knowledge Management often have a Personal Knowledge Management System or a Personal Knowledge-Base.
Personal Knowledge Bases are the footprints of what we do to manage our personal knowledge.?It is a system we have for collecting information, processing knowledge and creating value for ourselves through insights generated. It is a place where we –
The result of this complex interaction is a collection of very precise, refined and powerful ideas or insights that gives us leverage in our personal pursuits.
A Personal Knowledge-Base is meant to be used for personal endeavours. We start with a basic structure and then keep adding curated information while refining existing ones. Our initial Personal Knowledge-Base evolves as we explore new topics, adding depth to our existing impressions of things.?
Maintained with consistency and quality, a Personal Knowledge-Base becomes?an incredibly valuable intellectual asset.
The purpose of Personal Knowledge Management is to support our personal goals in the pursuit of our desired lifestyle, relationships and interests in life.?
In times of globalized competition and rapid technological advances, we are forced to make sense of a world that is increasingly becoming volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. And this is far from being an easy task.
Circumstances like these hold especially grave implications for those of us who were born after the 1990s. In the light of these developments, Personal Knowledge Management is a great practice to stay relevant in times of rapid developments.