Tales from the river to the ocean

Brest Maritime International Festival

I am currently living in Atlantic Wharf on the banks of London’s Thames, and September’s Totally Thames festival is in full swing. This timing is a perfect opportunity to make connections; London and Dalmatia; the Atlantic and Adriatic; industry and artistic endeavour; environment and exploration. It is clear that we can learn from those who spend their lives on and around water. Teamwork, effective communications, information sharing, and contingency planning are all essential.

The Croatian Literary Baroque

Bartol Kašić (1575-1650)

On my island of olive growers and fisherman I feel as far away from the baroque as is possible. The landscape is dotted with tiny café latte tinted stone chapels, perfectly contrasted with the pine green forests and iron rich soil. These appear to have sprung out of the earth, so sympathetic are they with their natural, yet cultivated surroundings. Human in scale and spiritual in content, they are reminders of a simple, aesthetic and pure faith. This seems to be what the architects of the baroque were trying to bulldoze in their efforts to appeal to the emotions and senses of the wavering congregations. Revision here is quite entertaining, and what follows is a fleshing out of the notes that I'm working through - it is inevitable that an art style which I really don't like has produced so many posts!
 

Some Poetic Playing: Mrtva Luka, or Dead Harbour

The new writers group I've just joined here in Split talked about inspiration. What inspires us, why are we here in Split, what is making our lives colourful? Although I have yet to put pen to paper about that, the previous day I was incredibly struck by a meeting I had with a PhD student from the University of Split. Although we were initially having a coffee to discuss klapa, we covered pretty much everything within our broad range of interests. Talking about music naturally leads to discussion of poetry. In my opinion, writing about music in a cold academic way is one of the hardest things to do and whenever I've tried to do it for fun, it seems best expressed as a poem. After all, what is poetry but music expressed as words?

Are we alone?

Sam - alone; sole; only

Samoća - solitude; loneliness

Samostan - monastery

Samovoljan - self willed; obstinate 

In a Split art gallery yesterday there was an incredibly evocative wooden sculpture called 'Sam IV' (1972) by Branko Ružić. It was in dark old wood, a trunk hollowed out to resemble a seated figure, hunched against the world. His back, shoulders, and head are rounded, hands seemingly tucked under his thighs. The effect of Ružić's simple, empathic carving is on the surface utterly bleak. If a friend or loved one was to sit like this, you'd think their world had fallen in. 

'We Need To Talk': Conversations and KM

Barriers to communication

My first post was about jargon, which is a very effective barrier to communication within an organisation. In this post I want to discuss the importance of face to face communication. If knowledge management is all about capturing the personal experiences of people, then I would suggest that one good way of extracting it is through human interaction – that is to say an old fashioned conversation. But first we need to overcome some problems.

Virtual Distrust?

Electronic methods of communication (inclusive of emails, texts, DMs, any other social media, LinkedIn etc, blog messages) are necessary in a global business environment. When used effectively to link people around the globe, you wonder how we managed without them.