Like everything else in HK it's best to keep the Gweilos? as ill informed as possible . It appears that the world of HK KM is no different from any other aspect of Hong Kong life according to this? wonderfully vitriolic post from blogger Baoman..
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Here at HOB we're not yet informed enough about the KM societies here to fully concur with Baoman's observations. The simple fact though that it took HOB about 3 years to discover that there were any KM associations in the city? tends to suggest that his observations are on the mark.
Hong Kong does like to perceive of itself as a major international city ..but like the mainland the simple fact is there is minimal transparency and an attitude by locals still to exclude outsiders as much as possible in most areas of life. Such attitudes do not build the culture for a long term an international hub. One day HK will be Aleppo... centres of power shift and HK will be very surprised when it does.
Baoman writes
http://baoman.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/hong-kongs-secret-knowledge-management-societies/
Knowledge managers frequently talk about the importance of openness, transparency and sharing. Openness means to new ideas and new people. Transparent means easy to understand, available for critique or suggestion and freely available to anyone who is interested with low and weak barriers. Sharing means exchange of ideas, expertise, advise, connections to other people, information technology and other sorts of tools and how to use them. I can?t imagine any knowledge managers objecting to openness, transparency and sharing as concepts and activities that should be promoted and encouraged. Well, I couldn?t but then I joined the secret knowledge management societies of Hong Kong and was in for a big surprise.
In Hong Kong we have secret knowledge management societies. Take a look on my list of knowledge management organizations in the Pearl River Delta area here. The HKKMS (Hong Kong Knowledge Management Society) and the KMRC (Knowledge Management Research Centre) are two of the many knowledge management groups in Hong Kong. I?ve been a member of the HKKMS on and off since it was founded in 2001 and I?m a member of KMRC by default for 2 years since I graduated from the HKPolyU MSc KM program. In my opinion, these two organizations run themselves like secret societies. By secret I mean they don?t open-up themselves to new ideas, they don?t encourage their members to know each other and they don?t promote their activities widely, openly and transparently.
These two organizations like to hide behind the reason that they have Chinese members who don?t like to be open, transparent and share. I?ve listened to this reason for poor openness in Hong Kong for 20 years and what I notice it that it is normally the reason given by westerners and very westernized Chinese who live and work in Hong Kong and want to appear to be ?experts? on the local Chinese culture. I?m very doubtful on the validity of this observation because I?ve run very open and transparent projects, activities and groups in Hong Kong with mostly local Chinese members on many occasions for many years. Most of the knowledge management organizations on my list are very open and transparent but these two, the most westernized in Hong Kong in my opinion, are not open and transparent at all.
The HKKMS has not had a current website for a few years now. There is no way of knowing what the HKKMS has done in the past or what it intends to do in the future. The society has tried to ?amend history? by removing the name of its past president from its webpages but it can still be found on the ?way back machine? see here [!warning this takes time to retrieve!]. This is really alarming and rather like Stalinist USSR or Mao?s China. I tried to help the society last year so I ran a list of HKKMS activities from March 2009 ? March 2010, see here. The HKKMS resists mightily the idea of sharing the names of members among its members. I suspect their are about 25 to 30 individual members and 4 to 6 corporate members. I?ve asked several times over the past year and was told the society does not share such information for privacy reasons. At the time I wondered how the numbers could be private. The society was supposed to publish its accounts and balance sheet as part of its last annual general report but this was conveniently ignored, see here. I found it spooky to be a member of a society where I didn?t know the number of members, the types of members or the members? names. The lack of transparency in the accounts is disturbing. I?m no longer a HKKMS member and I actively discourage others from joining the society or renewing their membership.
The KMRC sponsors and supports many knowledge management events in Hong Kong and sometimes in the surrounding area. However, if you go to the KMRC website it only lists a few of the many activities it sponsors and supports. My list here has many more KMRC events than the KMRC official website. Normally, the KMRC sends out emails to its members informing them of upcoming activities. I suspect it classifies its members into groups and sends out emails to only those members it thinks may be interested in a particular type of event. The center is a closed world of HKPolyU academics, students and possibly clients of past KMRC projects. In my opinion, the centre doesn?t promote the free flow of ideas, expertise and advice that would come from encouraging members to know each other. There is a ?member?s corner? in the KMRC website but its been ?under construction? for a long time. Interestingly, the HKPolyU is embroiled in a big controversy on the lack of transparency in its operations and there is an ongoing enquiry now in progress, see here and here. I won?t renew my KMRC membership when it expires and I actively discourage others from joining the centre or renewing their membership.
