On The Train, May 6, 2005

Knowledge Accidents

I thought it was going to a usual Friday morning ride today but I was in for a very nice surprise. As I was sitting down when I got on at Bangi I saw somebody familiar through the left corner of my eye. I am very sure I know that person so I completely turned and sure enough there was Col Abd Razak, my super senior from my school days, sitting comfortably holding his business jacket. Although we were totally from different years and era we met few times through various activities. In short we are brothers. I straight away abandoned my seat and walked over to sit next to him. It was a nice surprise to find out that Colonel is actually staying at Taman Semarak Nilai that is quite close by to my place. You guess right what happen next... endless SDARA stories until both of us disembarked at Bank Negara station. Luckily we were not loud enough to control the whole coach. Colonel was actually meeting Yon, another friend, for a high-powered meeting in KL. In reflection I would have not had that opportunity if I were to drive and that is another good thing about train. In KM context this is a very good example of ‘knowledge accident’. Colleagues accidentally bump into one another and started to talk and share a lot of new insights. Most of the times these insights very much related and useful to both sides. For instance when Colonel talked about his mate it happen to be the very person that I have been trying to get in touch with. So, we have to create a lot of situations and spaces for knowledge accident to happen.