In Invisible Learning, John Moravec and Cristóbal Cobo, define a knowmad or nomadic knowledge and innovation worker as a creative, imaginative, and innovative person who can work with almost anybody, anytime, and anywhere.
In a post John lists the 9 characteristics of knowmads:
- Are not restricted to a specific age.
- Build their personal knowledge through explicit information gathering and tacit experiences, and leverage their personal knowledge to produce new ideas.
- Are able to apply their ideas and expertise contextually in various social and organizational configurations.
- Are highly motivated to collaborate, and are natural networkers, navigating new organizations, cultures, and societies.
- Purposively use new technologies to help them solve problems and transcend geographical limitations.
- Are open to sharing what they know, and invite the open access to information, knowledge and expertise from others.
- Develop habits of mind and practice to learn continuously, and can unlearn as quickly as they learn, adopting new ideas and practices as necessary.
- Thrive in non-hierarchical networks and organizations.
- Are not afraid of failure — and see their failures as learning opportunities.
Are you a knowmad? While I have worked in hierarchical organisations all my working life, participating in social networks have shown I can adapt to to loose networks without structure. I reckon I am pretty close to a knowmad.
