About

I have always struggled with writing biographies or describing myself for conferences or papers or whatever purpose. Instead I have enlisted my friend and (now) biographer Naomi Doessel. This is her About your Maitre d’…

Zaana Howard defies categorisation but as an artist, writer and thinker she sees the big picture in the way that the social, organisational and technological interact. Zaana has experience in a broad range of environments which have led to her pursuing a PhD investigating the practice of design thinking for organisational transformation and redesign – toward developing a holistic framework for redesigning organisations adaptive to ongoing change. With qualifications in knowledge management, library and information management, and fine art, Zaana has worked for more than seven years in a range of roles within the library, information and knowledge management arena. Through her work she has developed a unique set of skills that has seen her publish numerous journal articles and conference papers, and present innumerable lectures, seminars and workshops on the intersection between knowledge management, social media, organisational learning, teaching, leadership and collaboration (See her In Print and In Person page).

Zaana’s focus and way of working always returns to the social: despite her introverted, unassuming manner, she has become a leader in the library and knowledge management sectors on the topics of  organisational change, social and organisational learning, and social media. The ultimate goal of all of Zaana’s endeavours is that people are happier and better connected within their workplaces. While the use of “social media” is an integral part of how Zaana has achieved this, her approach is broader than simply the use of these technological tools. Rather, her approach can best be described as hybrid: she draws together the threads of design thinking in terms of service design, social business design, and organisational design with those of organisational learning, knowledge management, urban planning and learning and development frameworks to identify the relationship and interdependencies between people’s learning, environment and social connectedness.

Zaana manages to blend all of these amorphous tags into a whole of life pursuit and passion. Whether it is through her online presence, her writings, or through meeting her “in real life”, Zaana is worth the time to get to know. And as for what she will achieve in the future – the sky is the limit.