Globalization - a new member of my team

It is in a slightly tongue-in-cheek manner that this week's topic is presented, but given the focus on China currently, it is appropriate.  I have a new member on my KM team, and he is preparing for his probationary period.  His name is Feng Shui.  Of course I am personifying something that is an ancient practice with Eastern origins, but when you go to the abstract in thought and realize that you would call a robot a member of your team, generally, then it is not such a far reach to call any significant component of your approach to practice a member of the team.

I mention that it is on its probationary period because I am not by tradition, or conviction, a practitioner of Eastern philosophy, and the concept is often taken far deeper than a tool for work and becomes something around which people organize their entire lives.  I personally warn against this, but I also do attempt to constantly seek out ways to work better, so in the spirit of Da Vinci, as outlined by Michael Gelb in his studies of Leonardo, and especially three of his seven geniuses - Dimonstrazione, Sfumato and Connessione - I am giving the feng shui organization of my workspace a fundamental try out.

How does this connect with KM?  One might well ask what connection there is between data entry and an ergonomic keyboard.  There is a clear connection between information gathering and information facility, and this connection is directly-related to the quality of the KM work done with the data.  I remember well being a student in an engineering co-op program, and seeing my first testing unit (it was a Yokogawa - that's a name I haven't heard in years, but somehow it stuck with me) designed to measure the performance of an electric motor.  It had an incredible amount of memory for its day (1990), and it was indeed an impressive meter.  That would seem to indicate that the information gathering function was taken care of.

There was a problem, though.  The testing rate of the meter was so fast that it filled the available space within seconds.  That is okay to take a deep look at a partial picture, but no good if you need to evaluate a whole performance curve.  So in this case the facility of the data was not up to the same standard as the gathering.  What was gathered wasn't useful, in other words, even though it was gathered with precision and care.

So with this though I am going to take a few steps such as eliminating the 'to read' pile from my desktop so it doesn't face me every day, re-positioning my desk slightly to take advantage of 'command position' and creating an 'I love me' wall - military parlance for a wall displaying awards, trophies. etc. - though I don't place a large amount of stock in the value of such a wall, preferring instead to allow performance to define others' working definition of my value.  I also am toying with the addition of a water feature, but I must weigh its potential benefits against the danger of having 4 processors, 3 monitors and a mobile device in close proximity to water.

I intend to give the 'new' a chance and evaluate it s performance.  Feng may be a valuable co-worker, or he may be a form of 'time spam' (if no one has yet claimed that phrase. I'll take the opportunity).  He and I will work that out.