Smart People

It has been my pleasure to know - for the past 10 years or so - Jerry Ash.

Jerry is a thought leader in Knowledge Management. Jerry founded the Association of Kowledgework in the late 1990s. AOK is a Community of Communities of Practice that brought people together to discuss various aspects of KM. Probably most famous for the "Star Series" discussions (nearly 50 of them), Jerry was either connected enough, wise enough, or just gutsy enough to ask and get the KM leaders of our time to engage with the members of the AOK community. It was unprecedented.

As happens with bright individuals, Jerry was snatched up and given a writer and then editor position with Inside Knowledge Magazine, where for the past few years he has been writing articles on various aspects of Knowledge Management and being Editor for a little more than a year.

But now in approximately another 2 weeks, Jerry will be launching a new project; it's an exciting new magazine called Smart People.

In his own words, Jerry says,

....Smart People magazine will be a 'new media' publication. I think the most important feature of new media is that its readers be given the ability to be prosumers, not consumers. Prosumers aren't passive, they're active and the networks are there to help them decide what the future content and purpose of Smart People will be.

We've also learned that the Net Generation we see as our biggest potential market is the prosuming type. At least that's what Don Tapscott says in his new book Grown Up Digital and his opinion is backed by $4 million of research he did for a consortium of clients. Not only is Don Tapscott one of the feature writers for the first issue of Smart People, his book provides us with the best market research we could buy.

We want Smart People magazine to reflect who our followers are, what they think. While we think we know our intended audience and we have an idea what will be interesting to them, only our audience knows for sure! And so, we are looking to you in these discussions to shape the future of Smart People magazine.

That's not a new idea for us. In fact, the very appearance of the first issue is the result of the collaborative process we chose to involve some 60 volunteers in an open workspace.

This is an exciting time in human development. We are all so fortunate to be a part of it. And Smart People magazine -- *powered by smart people* -- will play an important roll. Let the fun begin!

While the collaborative aspect of the magazine is certainly intriguing, and probably groundbreaking, what I like about it is that it focuses on the people. Knowledge Management is always about the people - whether they use/capture/share - knowledge at home, work or play...It's the individual at the use level that is smart and finding ways to be/work/play even smarter.

Good luck to Jerry and to Smart People Magazine - debuting in Mid April.