10. Knowledge management means people management
Listen to this episode to meet Raúl Cano Argamasilla, Information & Knowledge Management Program Manager at the European Southern Observatory (21:59)
Raúl has worked with: the European Space Agency, Bayer, Air Traffic Control Systems and the European Southern Observatory in Chile.
Knowledge management is flows, bridges and mindset
He says his role is a horizontal one, and needed in all enterprises whatever the industry.
“I’m a plumber of information” he says and is more concerned about the flow than about the content.
His concern is that the right information gets to the right people. He build bridges between the islands inside organizations that have grown and evolved over the years.
Information sharing is above all a question of mindset. The generation of “knowledge is power” needs to evolve. “Knowledge management is people management” he says.
The Knowledge Argument
Raúl calls himself an “amateur philosopher on his LinkedIn profile. I asked him why and that led into a discussion about his website The Knowledge Argument.
Why do you call yourself an amateur philosopher?
It’s good to put arguments you have with friends about philosophical concepts in writing because “of course you cannot just talk a deep philosophy through WhatsApp.”
He also sees putting his thoughts in writing as a legacy he is leaving for his daughter.
We talked about 2 of his posts, which I’ll let you discover by listening to our discussion and reading his writing. I have shared 2 extracts here and will let you hear this thoughts in the podcast itself.
Knowledge comes before happiness
In one article that struck me he says “Knowledge comes before Happiness“.
Quoting from his website:
“If your ultimate goal is happiness, then you have to be very clear about three things: what you mean by a goal, what happiness really is for you and third, how to achieve it. That is, without the proper knowledge, you cannot know if the “happiness” you arrive to at certain point in time is the happiness that corresponds to your ultimate goal or it is merely a “demo” version of what could lay far beyond.”
Arithmetical and moral truths?
I then asked him about another article with a puzzling title: Arithmetical and moral truths
I quote:
“Another way to see morality is as the set of all truths that relate to our behaviors or “what we ought to do” when conscious beings are involved.
“My claim is that this set of truths is universal and just like logic, it applies to everyone, everywhere. I am not aiming to show what those truths are; for that, moral philosophers have been discussing for millennia. My claim is, however, that those universal truths of morality exist.”
Gig mindset yes, but not in all cases
Raúl is a gig mindsetter trying to get people to see that trying and failing is a greater risk that not trying. He does make an exception for some activities such as sending satellites into space which hits home for him in his current job. He says he is still “struggling to think about how the gig mindset applies in situations regarding critical systems”.
Originally published July 5, 2021
You can reach Raúl on LinkedIn and on his website: The Knowledge Argument