Matt Mower is asking good questions about the right context for business journalling (his working term to replace the ugly 'k-log'), here and at more length here.
In the second piece, he talks about two problems: knowledge as a separate activity, and lacking a voice. On the latter, he says:
I think most people are conditioned to not say anything they don't have to..... Business journalling turns this don't speak until you're spoken to ideology on its head. Now you're given a blank page and told to say whatever you think you should say (within limits). I think that the evidence so far supports the conclusion that people are not comfortable with that.
The fear of lacking a voice is an excellent observation. It stands alongside other fears such as the fear of making mistakes - in this context, of expressing an opinion that may be proved wrong or out of synch with the way other people (for which read senior managers) are thinking.
But even if you're willing to express your opinions and stand by them - for example, speaking up in a meeting - there are many people for whom writing in a personal voice is an alien and disquieting experience. Most people have mastered the impersonal business-speak of a report and the off-the-cuff remark in a short email. But a business journal demands something less stiff than a report but more personally committed and revealing than an email.
I know I have problems with finding the right voice when I don't know my audience. With my weblog, it's less of an issue - I'm my target audience and I've been writing (although not blogging) for long enough to be comfortable with my 'natural' voice, the one I use when I'm not considering a particular audience. But many people don't have a voice they're comfortable with. I've worked with people who are perfectly cogent in conversation, terse and effective in a short email note, but fall apart when asked to 'write'. Sentences become long and meandering, sense comes and goes, words and syntax are contorted. The blank screen strikes fear - the reaction is silence or self-conscious gibbering.
Even though I've worked through these issues with a lot of people as an editor (long ago) and a manager, I've not really considered lacking a personal voice in terms of business journalling or any other aspect of knowledge management. I frequently come up against problems of trust and fear of committing to an opinion and fear of making mistakes - all common KM issues. But I'd not really given much thought to fear of how to say something rather than fear of what to say. It's an excellent point well-made and one I'll definitely be factoring into my work in the future.
12:34:41 AM
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