On The Train, Mar. 23, 2005

(Knowledge Management: A bit of Complexity Theory)

I just had my breakfast at the KL Sentral and went down to platform 5 to wait for the train to Subang Jaya. I was going to Sheraton Subang Jaya to learn about the new IBM offering on the Lotus products. I reached KL Sentral from Bangi at 7.33 am and decided to hang around there for a while as it was too early. I walked to the next level and was surprised to find that the Niles Bookstore was opened so early. I went in and stayed browsing for about 20 minutes. There were certain books that I was looking for that I wanted to buy but they were not there. I decided to have breakfast at KL Sentral but not because of the food but more to make sure I had something before I took the train to Subang Jaya. The Koay Teow that I had was lousy if you wanted to know.

It was 8.33 am when the train came and not many people boarded. I was sitting observing…no actually…absorbing the surrounding. I was actually trying to gauge the difference between this route and my daily route. I could not place any actually I guess it was more or less the same. The same habits and peculiarities. But what set me to think was the perception of out-towners. What would the people from outside of Selangor think about us when they observe us on the train? Probably a totally different perception that we have never think off. I mean to us things that we took for granted everyday could mean something else for them. In knowledge management theory this new environment would create a knowledge discovery for the person and if the person would share his or her perception with me I would have learn new perception out of the norm. I was in a ‘known’ quadrant according to Dave Snowden and to ‘jolt’ me to learn new perspective is to introduce ‘chaos’ in my schedule or thought process. This would force me to recreate my perspective and thus continue to learn. Not complacent or satisfy of my current achievement which was already obsolete few days ago. What I am saying is in order for us to continue to learn once in a while we have to introduce disturbance or chaos in our daily routine. Just as what I was experiencing while riding the train to Subang Jaya. A new set of knowledge were being created in my mind and at the same time I unlearnt certain things that use to be true to me. Confusing? That’s Complexity Theory 101 for you.

From the Subang Jaya Komuter Station I walked to Subang Sheraton. I decided to do that because it was not that far and furthermore I need to keep to my daily exercise schedule. Personally the event was a bit disappointment. Still there are enough things that I could learn. For example I learned that Maybank is embarking on their Corporate Portal project based on Learning Organization and KM strategy. Although I question by what they mean by KM nonetheless it was a good sign.

I was reading the Malay Mail on the way home when I came across the news where the parliament was said to be debating the issue of the validity of the train advertisement/courtesy campaign. Some of the MPs were arguing that it was a stereotype of depicting Malays having no manners and courtesy. It became a racial debate in the parliament the previous day. I just could not help smiling broadly reading the piece. The advertisement that they were debating was the one that I describe not so long ago. Remember the one that my friends joke that I was the character that refused to vacate his seat even to a blind man.