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Staff directories

A lot of useful information came out during the Intranet Peers in Government forum last week. One of the topics discussed was staff directories.

There are some impressive systems out there, capturing a lot of useful information about staff. Based on the details identified during the forum, here is my expanded list of what you might consider including in your staff directory:

Anything missing, any other ideas?

Posted by jamesr on February 25, 2003 11:24 AM
Categories: Intranets, Knowledge management

Comments

pronunciation of name, office hours (particularly if part timer, hot-desking, or teleworking), ...

Posted by: Eric Scheid on February 25, 2003 03:25 PM

Check out http://tacit.com. They mine worker emails, blogs, and documents to extract full-text profiles. It's almost impossible to anticpate every need, and always impossible to get everyone to fill out such comprehensive self descriptions. Tacit presents their mining results to you, letting choose what to share with your colleagues and whether to share it anonymously. On the search side, you find three French speakers with an HR background, two with public contact info and one anonymously that tacits contacts on your behalf.

That's why klogging becomes so important. Lots more description of things that interest and matter to each person.

Posted by: Phil Wolff on February 25, 2003 04:42 PM

I like the option of including day-to-day whereabouts for a week or three in advance (for frequently travelling employees as opposed to as you suggest location/map above for more "stationay" employees). Mini-CV details like "previous projects worked on"/etc are also useful.

Posted by: andersja on February 25, 2003 09:29 PM

I like the option of including day-to-day whereabouts for a week or three in advance (for frequently travelling employees as opposed to as you suggest location/map above for more "stationary" employees). Mini-CV details like "previous projects worked on"/etc are also useful.

Posted by: andersja on February 25, 2003 09:30 PM

This is a good list.

From a KM perspective, there is a brilliant chapter in Learning to Fly by Chris Collinson and Nick Parcel. This is really a "yellow pages", but there are some interesting dynamics around trust and problems around actually writing some of the sections.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/184112124X/qid=1046190747/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-7943860-9346345?v=glance&s=books

How do you extract the Personal Information and keep it up-to-date?

I'd also recommend looking at http://www.sigmaconnect.com as its technology BP used for their KM initiatives around staff directories/yellow pages.

The users themselves update their information and can include what they feel comfortable with. So as well as the normal 'fields', the user can add personal details, hobbies and interests.

This has a very strong effect on the person reading the profile. If for example the reader was searching for an expert, and find someone they have never met or talked to before then they may understandably be wary of ringing the said expert out of the blue, which may put some people off. By reading personal information, hobbies and interests you feel like you 'know' the said expert and feel more comfortable contacting them to ask that all important question.

Ok, ive probably been a little brief here, but i'd recommend the book and they also have a website and discussion forum with some interesting threads on 'Yellow Pages'

www.learning-to-fly-org

That my 2p worth.

Lee Allen
Knowledge Analyst
Zurich Financial Services

Posted by: Lee Allen on February 26, 2003 02:34 AM