Meet Will Watson

Hello Kumunity!

My name's Will Watson and I’m excited to join you all as the next member of the Kumu team. As head of Customer Development and Support I’ll be working with many of you, so here’s a bit on who I am, how I came to Kumu, and what I’m excited to bring to this community.

I come to Kumu from the field of knowledge management, specifically in expert knowledge capture and retention. Primarily working with Larry Wilson of Knowledge Harvesting and interconnecting.com, I’ve focused on tool-based approaches to knowledge management and organizational learning design. Under Larry’s mentorship, I’ve become fascinated by the power of associational thinking for enabling organizational and systemic learning. Recently, another Will and I have started working on a consultancy of our own: like humans, specializing in individual and organizational development and design. With our first initiative, “work like humans,” we hope to help individuals and organizations become more aware, more intentional, and more human through a values-based approach to individual development and organizational purpose design.

While working with Knowledge Harvesting, I began using Kumu as an affinity mapping and associational thinking tool, quickly seeing massive potential in using the tool to support organizational alignment and cascading strategy to execution through Kumu’s incredible capacity for storytelling. I completely agree with the potentially misattributed Einstein quote: “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.” Holding that belief, I am working to support the shift in consciousness necessary to deal with some of the complex emergencies we humans face. Fundamentally, I believe Kumu can help organizations and individuals increase their capacity for learning.

Here at Kumu I hope to create a fantastic user experience. I’m working to make the power that sits within Kumu more accessible to more people, and as I get started here I’ll be working with Jeff to make docs.kumu.io easier to use toward that goal. This week, we’re adding a new-user tour within the app. Moving forward, I hope to develop a community of practice around Kumu, with a network of users that are all about solving problems collaboratively. To that end, we’re looking at a new gallery of Kumunity projects, a better user-onboarding and training experience, and more powerful controls for advanced users.

When I’m not hanging out with y’all or working to make “work more human,” you can find me outside or around local coffee shops communicating in babbles and hand motions with Amelie, my 11 month old daughter. She’s a riot, and it’s evident she will soon leave me behind with her crawling prowess and powerful intellect, i.e. mad skillz. Sometime I even speak English with my wife, Keri, who is a PhD student at the University of Vermont’s Gund Institute for Ecological Economics. When I’m not speaking, I’m either climbing or trail running depending on the weather. If the latter, it just means that it’s raining and I’m waiting for the cliffs to dry. We love all things outside, and try to get out cross-country skiing, hiking, climbing, camping, and splashing around in Vermont’s many swimming holes whenever we’re able.

I can’t wait to dive in and get to know you all and the great work you’re doing. Super excited to be here at Kumu, and a part of this team. Look me up if you’re ever in Vermont.

Until then, enjoy the journey,
Will