A Comprehensive Resource for Knowledge

There is a unique and interesting family of online publications and resources which are part of a group called Freepint. www.freepint.com
As those of you familiar with the British pub scene know, Freepint translates in American English to Free Beer. You have to admit, the name gets your attention.


One of the publications is www.resourceshelf.com, and is run by a knowledgeable guy named Gary Price. For those who love to find valuable, useable and fun information on the web, I have seen fewer more valuable sites then Resourceshelf. The site is designed for professional searchers-- need I say more? You will find everything from copyright information and online sources to real time resources (weather, transportation, public safety-anything that can be tracked real time), business resources and fun stuff.


Gary and his contributors pull together the best of the best resources for information. In other words, they do all the heavy lifting and we reap the benefits.
I can not recommend this site more highly. If you have any questions, contact Gary and you will find him responsive, helpful and gracious.

Another sister publication in the Freepint group is Jinfo or www.jinfo.com
This publication is designed to help information scientists, knowledge managers and others in related fields find jobs. Though it is focused on the UK, again it is well worth the read. Check out the article I recently wrote for them on job transition.

For those of you who are familiar with the people who work in the reference library portion of the New York City Library (and you can call those people with questions at anytime on any subject), you will see a similarity here, especially with Resourceshelf. These folks are here to help. Isn't that what KM is all about?

Learning lessons as a lifestyle

Have you ever noticed how life imitates work, or work imitates life? They say that about art, but I believe it is also true about the work we do. We learn the lessons we need to learn on and off the job, at home and at the office. Stuff happens and we have a choice. We can decide that it is happening TO us, that we are victims and helpless.....or we can chose to turn each event into a lesson, learn from it, teach others, improve our lives each time we face a challenge. It's all about the choices we make in how we approach issues, the paradigms we choose to accept and take on.

The same thing happens in organizations except in that space we are able to say things like "we need to shift our marketing paradigm to be in step with our client base." Yep, and sometimes we need to change our personal paradigms to keep in step with those things we are in the midst of in our lives. We do not change our values and our core beliefs, we change how we think about things in order to turn each of the small day to day, or the larger and more life changing challenges into valuable moments of learning. Why not? We can make ourselves the type of people who sustain personal (whatever that means to each of us) success just as we want our organizations to be those listed in books like 'From Good To Great.'

For me, Knowledge Management is a way of life, not a job. It is part of who I am, not what I do 9 to 5. And, as I am faced with those things in life which each of us are faced with, I am grateful for the attitude and the understanding of learning. This work that I love has made my life a better place to be. There is little you can not face, if in fact it is simply a learning, a class on how to be a better person and do the right thing.

OK, enough of that. I am off for a few days and will blog again next week. Here is a teaser:
Go take a look at Gary Price's ResourceShelf for an incredible rich source of information about almost anything. Gary is a professional information scientist and his site is fantastic. If there is something you don't find but need, let him know. ResourceShelf Newsletter http://www.resourceshelf.com/