The Kindness of Strangers
At this week's KM Europe I took part in Dave Gurteen's 'Knowledge Cafe' and, by lucky coincidence joined the table of Ton Zijlstra, a fellow blogger whom I met last year. A discussion on trust we had threw up an interesting insight for me. Why are people altruistic to strangers on the net (e.g. blogging, offering help in discussion groups etc.) but often so reluctant to help in the workplace? Ton pointed out that on the net you are not competing, so have nothing to lose by helping another. Whereas at work there are factors like status, jostling for promotion and potential negative comeback (e.g. for bad advice) that are all deterrents.

more on KM Europe soon...