Articles by Category: Knowledge management

Enterprise social tools: components for success

Thomas Vander Wal has written about achieving success with enterprise social tools. To quote:

Social tools require much more than just the tools for their implementation to be successful. Tool selection is tough as no tool is doing everything well and they all are focussing on niche areas. But, as difficult as the tool selection can be, there are three more elements that make up what the a successful deployment of the tools and can be considered part of the tools.

Posted by jamesr at 05:22 PM | Permalink
Categories: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge management

Wikis in the Enterprise

Wikis are spreading like wildfire within organisations, driven by their quick setup and comparatively easy use. As yet, however, little has been written on how to make wikis work well.

That is why the new report from J. Boye, titled Wiki in the Enterprise is so valuable. Many have written about the potential value of wikis, but this work talks about what has worked in real-life (and what hasn't).

Drawing upon research done in a number of organisations, this report discusses the reasons for deploying wikis, the cavets, and how wikis meet reality.

Most importantly, this reports a range of practical and pragmatic recommendations on how to setup and use wikis. These will give teams a valuable leg-up when approaching this new publishing technology.

A recommended addition to the dialogue on wikis, and I'm looking forward to future reports from J. Boye.

Posted by jamesr at 02:40 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Intranets, Knowledge management

Comment on pilots and avoiding training

Graham Oakes (based in the UK) emailed me a great perspective on my story about pilots and avoiding training. Here's his thoughts in full:

One thing to consider behind this is what is the real corporate objective? A lot of this sort of training is done for compliance -- if the corporation can demonstrate that their staff have done the course, then they avoid liability if anything goes wrong. Having the pilots pass the test at the end is simply their way of proving that the pilots have done the training.

From this, it flows that all the corporation want is a record that the pilot has passed the test. They may not care one iota what the pilot actually ends up knowing: they just want the box ticked so their liability is protected.

In this scenario, the corporation may be really happy that their pilots have found a way to tick the box without wasting time on the training. (But they don't want to know about it, because then the liability comes back.) And it's a very common scenario...

Cheers
Graham

(Graham is a down-to-earth expert on governance, so he's worth listening to on this topic.)

Posted by jamesr at 02:38 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Knowledge management

5 ways to improve customer service in call centres

Iain Barker has written about 5 ways to improve customer service in call centres. To quote:

Over the last few years I’ve conducted a number of contextual research studies in call centres. It is an interesting environment in which to conduct contextual research. Generally I’ve double-jacked in to calls, observing how the customer service consultants address the queries, and then asked a few questions of the customer service consultants.

Posted by jamesr at 08:00 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Knowledge management

Managing taxonomies

James Kelway has written a post on the process for managing taxonomies. To quote:

Taxonomy creep inevitably occurs to all sites and there is a need to be able to monitor and adjust the taxonomies without impacting on the user experience or the workflow of the content producers. Here I propose to set out a process that businesses can employ that will ensure their taxonomies are accurate. That they reflect the industry, user groups and business objectives of the site and will utilize their web technologies and people available.

[Thanks to Patrick Lambe.]

Posted by jamesr at 09:00 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Knowledge management

How to innovate right now

Scott Berkun has written an article on how to innovate right now. To quote:

he biggest secret of innovation is that anyone can do it. The reason is simple: It’s just not that hard. Look up the word “innovate” in any dictionary and see what it actually means, instead of what you think it means. You’ll find something like this: To innovate is “to introduce something new.” That’s it. It doesn’t say you need to be a creative genius, a workaholic, or even have on clean underwear. It’s just three little words: introduce something new. And I promise that by the end of this essay, you’ll have all the secrets needed to do it yourself.

Posted by jamesr at 11:15 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Thoughts on Google’s 20% time

Scott Berkun reports on Google's 20% time, as a way of driving innovation. To quote:

Google’s 20% time is more of an attitude and culture than a rule. First, hourly time isn’t tracked there, so there’s no way to enforce or even know what percentage of time people are spending on side projects. But more importantly, the entire idea seems to function more as an attitude - that new projects should be spawned by whoever has the best ideas, not who is in what place in the hierarchy, and the culture is based on this fundamental belief. There seems to be way more support for the pursuit of ideas generally than in most cultures, and simply creating a 20% rule doesn’t give you that culture.

Posted by jamesr at 08:11 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Community of practice success story

Mark Schenk has written a post on a case study from Rio Tinto on their community of practices. To quote:

Rio Tinto has made a short video on one of the stories and this is publicly available on their website. Well worth checking out and using as an example of how collaboration can make a big difference in unexpected ways.

Posted by jamesr at 05:32 PM | Permalink
Categories: Collaboration, Knowledge management

Collaboration is about people

| View

I've just uploaded the presentation I gave today at a KM Roundtable meeting in Melbourne. A great group of people, lots of good questions, only just scratched the surface in the time we had available.

(I think there's huge amount of value in all these types of groups. The simple act of getting together and sharing information face-to-face is immensely valuable. So if you're into KM, definitely look into the KM Roundtables, held in Victoria and NSW.)

Posted by jamesr at 03:02 PM | Permalink
Categories: Conferences & presentations, Knowledge management

Knowledge management lessons

Shawn Callahan has shared his knowledge management words of wisdom. To quote:

View every knowledge management initiative as a change initiative, which means helping the leadership group to imagine what it will be like when it's done and after imagining it, they want it. It also means getting the employees engaged in working out how it's going to work and then getting people to volunteer to work on it. It will also involve a recognition that most KM initiatives are affected by culture (actually, what isn't) and culture is never completed, done, ticked off the list of things to do. Consequently, a continuous improvement approach is needed.

Posted by jamesr at 09:12 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Creative thinking rules

Scott Berkun has posted an article on creative thinking rules, as written by Sister Corita Kent. To quote:

1. Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while.

2. General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher, pull everything out of your fellow students.

Posted by jamesr at 07:00 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Trend map for 2008 and beyond

Nowandnext.com and Future Exploration Network have created a trend map for 2008 and beyond, covering key aspects of the online and physical worlds. To quote:

While last year’s map was based on the London tube map, the 2008 map is derived from Shanghai’s underground routes. Limited to just five lines, the map uncovers key trends across Society, Politics, Demographics, Economy, and Technology.

Posted by jamesr at 09:00 AM | Permalink
Categories: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge management

Perkins Eastman: Practice Area Communities

This is the last of the video interviews with the inaugural Intranet Innovation Award winners.

This interview is with the Gold Award winning Perkins Eastman (USA), introducing their use of "practice area communities". Covered in this video:

• Why were the PACs established?
• The role of gatekeepers
• Benefits delivered
• Lessons learned
• Advice for other firms?

(Yes, that's New York traffic noise in the background.)

Posted by jamesr at 07:46 AM | Permalink
Categories: Collaboration, Intranets, Knowledge management

Starting a community of practice - fostering relationships

Shawn Callahan has written an entry on starting a community of practice. To quote:

In starting any community of practice, the first objective is to help the members recognise the value they will get from being and working together. Often we will help organisations kick their communities off with a work shop that has a number of objectives but perhaps the most important is to foster deeper connections among the potential members. Here are some of the activities I've used to do that. Would love to hear about activities you have found useful.

Posted by jamesr at 07:45 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

The elements in the social software stack

Thomas Vander Wal has presented a model of the elements in the social software stack. To quote:

When thinking through social software (also known as social computing, social media, and social web) I have been influenced by many ideas, but at the core there are two things that stick in my head: 1) Good visualization; and 2) Object-centered sociality. Getting the two to mesh, while accounting for most of the important components of social software has been really difficult for me to square for quite some time.

Posted by jamesr at 06:00 AM | Permalink
Categories: Collaboration, Knowledge management

Doing KM one person at a time

Patrick Lambe writes about a fascinating approach of doing KM one person at a time. To quote:

Yesterday, for the first time in my KM consulting career I did something that I had not had the chance to do before. My colleague Paolina and I held a “clinic” at our client’s office; people were invited to come talk to us to figure out how they could apply knowledge sharing tools and techniques in their project or work area (this organisation has put some people through a programme which equips them with a suite of knowledge sharing techniques). This is not the usual high-level stuff that we do with clients, eg, KM strategy and roadmap development, but for some reason it felt very satisfying.

Posted by jamesr at 07:00 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

The life of a knowledge manager: nasty, brutish and short

Patrick Lambe has shared the results of a global survey into KM initiatives. To quote:

Last October we ran a global survey through iKMS to find out how much organisations invest in their KM initiatives – in terms of the senior management attention and support they get, whether they invest in building the qualifications and experience of their KM staff, and whether they consciously protect the KM experience they are building by providing career paths for their knowledge managers. The results overall are extremely depressing, and the “new kids” on the block in Asia apparently do far better than the supposedly more mature environments of North America, Europe and even Australasia. Here’s a table summarising the key findings (click on the image for a larger version). Green boxes indicate the better performers and pink boxes indicate the worse performers.

Posted by jamesr at 07:03 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Records management and KM

Julian Carver reports on a talk in New Zealand on records management and knowledge management. To quote:

Sarah Heal presented today for NZKM in Christchurch on Records Management as a part of KM Strategy. Over the last year she has detected some unexpected and at times inconvenient signals, a growing body of anecdotal evidence that something is not quite right in information management. There have been lots of failed IM/KM initiatives, and EDRMS is the “Emperor with no clothes”. There just aren’t any really good exemplars in NZ of very successful deployments. With project budgets often ranging from $0.5 million to $1 million, this is an expensive problem.

Posted by jamesr at 09:27 AM | Permalink
Categories: Document & records management, Knowledge management

Collaboration is about people

A number of articles have recently been published on collaboration. Focusing on collaboration tools, these articles have explored when they work, the challenges involved and how to avoid these problems in practice.

In many ways, these articles have taken for granted the central aspect of collaboration: the people involved. This article will explore the human face of collaboration, touching upon a range of enterprise considerations.

Collaboration can't be forced

It make no sense to roll out collaboration tools to the whole organisation. Collaboration takes place between people, and can't be forced or created through the use of technology.

While it is possible to create new opportunities for collaboration using online tools, this is slow and hard, and not the best approach when implementing collaboration tools for the first time.

Instead, collaboration tools work best when they support existing collaboration taking place between individuals or groups within the organisation.

For example, regular meetings may be held between line managers to discuss quality assurance problems. A collaboration space can be a valuable support for discussions that are held during these regular (face-to-face) meetings.

Pilot collaboration projects should therefore seek out areas where there is a demand for tools to support existing groups or communities.

[CM Briefing 2007-22, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 01:27 PM | Permalink
Categories: Collaboration, James' articles, Knowledge management

Social networks study released - MySpace & Facebook are different after all!

faberNovel Consulting has released a paper on social networks, reposted on Read/WriteWeb. To quote:

faberNovel Consulting has released a research paper on social networks. The paper is an excellent theoretical overview of social networks and the trends in this important market. I particularly liked the following two slides, showing the types of social networks and how they're positioned. Interesting that in terms of identity, Facebook and MySpace are at opposite ends of the spectrum - Facebook is viewed as "real identity", whereas MySpace is "fanntasized identity"! The whole set of slides is below, via Slideshare.

Posted by jamesr at 06:34 AM | Permalink
Categories: Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge management

Introduction to Communities of Practice

Patrick Lambe has shared a superb video which explains communities of practice. To quote:

This is the second in a series of three recent workshops on different approaches to getting knowledge transfer going in your organisation. This one is an introduction to Communities of Practice.

I think Patrick is incredibly generous in sharing this type of material, and I look forward to future videos. If only the rest of us managed to share this type of information...

Posted by jamesr at 08:02 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

The 8 challenges innovations face

Scott Berkun has written about the 8 challenges innovations face. To quote:

In chapter 3 of The Myths of Innovation, I explore why innovation methedologies are prone to fail. It’s not their fault - there are many factors involved that are out of the control of any individual. You can do many things right and still fail.

Posted by jamesr at 10:24 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Measuring innovation: the idea approval index

Scott Berkun has posted on an idea approval index for measuring innovation. To quote:

I hate most systems of innovation I see or read about, as they fail to directly attack most of core challenges innovators face. But one idea I’m found of is the idea approval index. Here’s how it works.

Posted by jamesr at 10:15 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Planning & sustaining wiki-based collaboration projects

Maish Nichani has written an article on planning wiki-based collaboration. To quote:

Many organizations are experimenting with wiki-based collaboration projects. But only a small percentage of these projects make it past the initial excitement or pilot phase. One of the reasons for the drop-off is that there's not enough thought given to them other than deciding which wiki product to install. This article presents a framework that can help groups wanting to use wikis for internal projects better plan and sustain their collaboration efforts.

Posted by jamesr at 04:10 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Intranets, Knowledge management

Sharpening your skills: managing innovation

HBS Working Knowledge have published a collection of articles on managing innovation. To quote:

Sharpening Your Skills dives into the HBS Working Knowledge archives to bring together articles on ways to improve your business skills. Questions to be answered:

• Can innovation and creativity be managed?
• Where do creative ideas come from?
• Can I take advantage of disruption?
• Where can I find innovative solutions?

Posted by jamesr at 11:27 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Factors affecting your knowledge environment

Shawn Callahan has written a post on factors impact on knowledge management. To quote:

One of the aims of a knowledge strategy is to design a set of activities to enhance an organisation's knowledge environment. The knowledge environment includes all the factors, both within and outside an organisation, which might affect the creation, sharing and use of knowledge. The list of factors is potentially limitless but experience has shown that many of the important factors can be clumped together under 7 headings.

Posted by jamesr at 01:36 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Collaboration tools are anti knowledge sharing?

There is a clear need for collaboration within organisations, and the rollout of collaboration tools will bring many benefits. What is not widely recognised, however, is that the unmanaged spread of collaboration tools can work against knowledge sharing.

While collaboration tools work extremely well for the staff using them, they can lead to hundreds (or thousands) of information 'silos', making it harder for other staff to find required information.

This briefing will explore this issue, drawing on experiences gained across many different organisations.

Collaboration works well

Collaboration spaces work very well for the staff using them. Team and project spaces are a particularly good example of this, providing an effective space for team members to communicate and collaborate in.

The ability to 'work in' these spaces is one of their greatest strengths, allowing easy sharing of content, documents, discussions, diaries and more. Far richer than file shares, intranets or document management systems, the current generation of collaboration tools have the potential to deliver considerable productivity benefits.

What also makes these spaces successful is the 'shared context' amongst users. Because they are actively engaged in the ongoing use of these spaces, everyone knows what's happening, and where to find key information.

In practice, collaboration areas naturally evolve to fit the needs of the staff who are using them, with the spaces matching the idiosyncrasies of the groups they serve.

[CM Briefing 2007-17, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 09:59 PM | Permalink
Categories: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Information management, James' articles, Knowledge management

How to plan a KM communications strategy

Patrick Lambe has published a plan for a KM communications strategy. To quote:

This concept map catalogues all the elements of a KM communications strategy that we've found useful, with some ideas for messages, media and audiences. Download the pdf version formatted for A3 size printing for easier reading!

Posted by jamesr at 05:42 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

What a knowledge sharing policy might look like

Patrick Lambe has written an article outlining a possible knowledge sharing policy. To quote:

When you want to introduce new information or knowledge management practices and habits in an organisation, it's usually a good idea to make sure that your organisation's policies reflect the things you want to happen. This doesn't mean that the policies do the work of implementation and change management for you (ie you can't just issue a policy and then sit back and wait for magic to happen), but they support it by capturing (hopefully) in concise language what you'd like to happen, so that everybody is operating from the same point of view. With Marita Keenan last year, I co-authored a guide to knowledge and information management policy development.

Posted by jamesr at 01:30 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

How to use KPIs in knowledge management

Patrick Lambe has published a guide to using KPIs in KM. To quote:

The paper is in three sections: the first sets out some guidelines for how to use KPIs smartly. The second section gives ideas for sample sets of KPIs covering KM activities and tools as diverse as communities of practice, KM roles, and use of wikis and blogs. The third section is a template for drawing up your own sets of KPIs. The document is in Word format so you can cut and paste whatever takes your fancy (please acknowledge your source). A last word of caution: if you take the whole set of KPIs in this document, you’re taking too many! Leave some time and effort to actually do the work you’re trying to monitor.

Another superb piece of work from the ever-thoughtful leader of KM in Singapore...

Posted by jamesr at 12:23 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Internal blogs written so far

As I've mentioned before, we established our internal blogging in Step Two about 4 1/2 years ago. As the most prolific internal blogger, I've now posted 2,500 entries, all with the goal of "sharing awareness". As a knowledge management strategy, it's been very successful, with every team member consistently posting on a daily or weekly basis.

It's interesting to look at my top entry categories:

• Prospectives, proposals and tenders (401 posts)
• Gossip (154)
• Workshops (138)
• Project updates (119)
• Resources (105)
• Conferences and events (91)
• Product development (77)

It's been busy, very busy. No shortage of work, and lots of gossip... ;-)

Posted by jamesr at 09:53 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management, Weblogs

Keeping track of discussions at Hewlett Packard

Bill Ives reports on the measurement of collaboration at HP. To quote:

Stan Garfield, Worldwide Consulting & Integration Knowledge Management Leader, Hewlett-Packard, recently shared the metrics his firm uses to keep track of all threaded discussion forums:

New Threads
Replies
Total Posts
Total Subscriptions
Number of Forums
Consulting & Integration Participants
% of Participation

Posted by jamesr at 05:42 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Elements of collaboration

Lars Trieloff has published a periodic table of collaboration. To quote:

The aim of "Elements of Collaboration" is to give an overview about current collaboration techniques and technology and to show how better collaboration can lead to improved workflows and higher productivity.

[Thanks to Patrick Lambe.]

Posted by jamesr at 05:19 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information management, Knowledge management

Creative thinking hacks

Scott Berkun has written an article on creative thinking hacks. To quote:

All of us, except my idiot cousin who still eats glue, possess everything necessary to be more creative. The problem is we've been trained away from our creative instincts by schools, parents, movies and workplaces. The word creativity is frequently inflated by association, frequently appearing with overused, hype-laden words such as genius, brilliance, revolution and innovation. Hype mongers and creative intimidators throw those labels around like candy, scaring most people out of their own natural creative instincts. This essay, a high speed hack-centric interpretation of the creative thinking course I taught at the University of Washington, offers both concepts and tricks to help anyone be creative at any time.

Posted by jamesr at 01:18 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Apply IA techniques when creating taxonomies

Taxonomies define the structure that underpins document and records management systems, knowledge management projects and more. Considerable effort goes into developing these taxonomies, with the goal of creating a common structure that will benefit the whole organisation.

The challenge, however, is to ensure that these taxonomies work well for staff, beyond any organisational benefits that are sought. It is here that taxonomies often fail. If not designed well, taxonomies can become 'white elephants', too hard to understand and too complex to use. At their worst, poorly designed taxonomies are the direct causes of project and system failure.

The field of information architecture (IA) has much to offer those creating taxonomies, including a range of structured techniques for building and testing their effectiveness. This briefing outlines some of these approaches, and encourages creators of taxonomies to retain a clear focus on usability throughout the design process.

Building taxonomies

Taxonomies are typically drawn from a number of sources, including existing industry-wide classification schemes, business functions and structures already in place within sections of the organisation.

These are pulled together to create a larger or more complete taxonomy. Testing of this taxonomy usually relies on internal review, discussing the taxonomy with staff, and gaining input on areas of strength and weakness.

While effective for gaining broad user and stakeholder input, this kind of review is very shallow, and is not sufficient to ensure that the taxonomy can be used in practice. Instead, structured techniques must be used, getting beyond staff and expert opinions.

[CM Briefing 2007-13, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 10:45 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, James' articles, Knowledge management

Chatting bolsters business

No longer the antithesis of working hard, online chat has become an integral part of core business processes in some organisations.

Across both the public and private sectors there is a trend toward online chat as a valid business tool, particularly in call centre environments. By using online chat to supplement traditional information sources such as intranets and training folders, staff are provided with answers to specific problems and questions and access to specific staff in real-time.

Online chat can be used to:

• to leverage the collective knowledge resources and research capability of the team
• as a training and management tool
• to contact remote staff who are unable to respond to a phone call
• for staff socialisation.

This article explores the use of online chat in business and describes a case study of the use of instant messaging within a national enquiry centre for a government department that fields calls from the public across Australia.

What's all the chatter about?

Online chat is a text-based communication tool. Whereas email is to an electronic version of sending letters through the post, online chat is more like having a conversation with one or more people. Information is passed in real time and users can see whether others are available to chat. By setting their status as 'available', 'away', 'on a break' etc, users signal their availability to others. It is relatively unobtrusive and, unlike a telephone call, users are not forced to respond immediately.

Online chat supports both one-to-one and one-to-many relationships and communities. Users can have several chat sessions going at one time with different individuals and groups. Typically within the call centre environment there is one team chat session that is open all day running alongside one-to-one sessions.

[July KM Column by Cairo Walker, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 03:15 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information management, Intranets, Knowledge management

Book review: Organising Knowledge -- Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness

Organising Knowledge:
Taxonomies, Knowledge and Organisational Effectiveness
Patrick Lambe, 2007

Taxonomies are often surrounded by an air of reverence and mystique. Traditionally seen as the domain of librarians, recordkeepers and botanists, they are now hot property in business circles, but no better understood.

Patrick Lambe's book sets out to systematically address these issues, by introducing, explaining and exploring taxonomies. Coming from a background as a librarian, knowledge management expert and consultant, Patrick draws together many topics to provide a rich view of taxonomies in the real world.

This is not a how-to manual. While a strong overall methodology is outlined for creating and maintaining a taxonomy, there is not enough detail to allow the uninitiated to walk this path unaided. This book does, however, achieve two very important aims.

Firstly, it introduces taxonomies and their use to a business audience. Through many current and historical examples, often presented engagingly with great wit, Patrick lays the groundwork for understanding taxonomies. He then builds on this foundation to show how many different types of taxonomies can be put into practice in typical business situations. The mini case studies used throughout are particularly instructive.

Secondly, this book is a call to action for those typically associated with taxonomies (such as librarians and records managers) to take a broader view of the world. Encouraging these specialists to venture outside of their bounded domains, Patrick shows that taxonomies are not a theoretical exercise, but a practical approach that must be tempered by the pragmatic realities of organisations.

Still, I would've liked to see a few more concrete techniques introduced into the book, drawing more strongly on information architecture approaches such as card sorting, card-based classification evaluation and usability testing to support the creation of taxonomies. While I am wiser on the meaning and use of taxonomies, I still don't know that I could create one confidently myself.

By the time the last page is reached, however, this book has become much more than just an introduction to taxonomies. Instead, it has grown into an exploration of many interrelated topics around knowledge, and how to put it to work. For this, Patrick Lambe is to be commended.

Score: 7/10

Posted by jamesr at 07:25 PM | Permalink
Categories: Book & product reviews, Information architecture, Knowledge management

How to innovate on time

Scott Berkun has written an entry on how to innovate on time. To quote:

I've taught the tutorial How to innovate on time a few times now, and the big takeaway for most is the need to carve out time for failure. That's right, failure.

Posted by jamesr at 09:34 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Leading and creating collaboration in decentralised organisations

Heather M. Caruso, Todd Rogers and Max Bazerman have written a working paper on creating collaboration in decentralised organisations. To quote:

No matter how a multi-divisional organization is designed, it will need to find effective ways for its units to spontaneously and responsively cross boundaries. This paper discusses 3 key barriers to collaboration and information-sharing within an organization, and offers 3 strategies to overcome them.

Posted by jamesr at 04:59 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information management, Knowledge management

The best creative thinking books

Scott Berkun has written an entry on the best creative thinking books. To quote:

Between teaching a course on creative thinking at UW, and writing a book on innovation, I've read dozens of books on creative thinking, from handbooks, to games, to psychology literature. Here are the four books I'd recommend as a starter library: they range in focus from handbooks to theory to history.

Posted by jamesr at 03:02 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Staff induction - it's just learning

Shawn Callahan has written a piece on staff induction. To quote:

I have been asking people, "How long after starting here did you feel you really knew the organisation and job you were doing?" Most people said it took them 12-18 months in a large organisation to really feel on top on things. Staff induction, therefore, needs to be more gradual and unfold over time as we experience the organisation we've joined. We need a slower and longer-term approach, one that better balances intellectual and emotional learning.

Posted by jamesr at 09:29 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

How to make a living

Dave Pollard has written an entry about how to make a living running an innovative business. To quote:

Several readers have asked me for a five-minute summary of the iterative, lifelong process of learning what we're meant to do for a living, and making that living through Natural Enterprise. I thought this was a reasonable request, so I've illustrated it above. Here's the five-minute walk-through.

Posted by jamesr at 03:01 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Complicated

Patrick Lambe has written an article on KM strategies being seen as complicated. To quote:

Enterprise knowledge management brings its own challenges, and many of them come from the need to understand and address an organisation's infrastructure. I have written about this challenge at some length in an article called "Why KM is Hard To Do".

However, when we characterize the problem as a function of infrastructure it is still very tempting to see this as a technical problem -- ie that there is an approach or a method or a series of steps we can go through to solve it. I have been reminded very recently that techniques are not enough -- that human moral attributes also play a critical role.

Posted by jamesr at 01:38 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Where collaboration tools fit in (Canberra, 3 July 2007)

We've just organised the first in our new round of afternoon sessions, titled Where collaboration tools fit in. Scheduled for Canberra on July 3, this is what we'll be covering:

With the rapid spread of collaboration tools such as SharePoint, the opportunity for new approaches to intranets and information management are being explored.

More immediately, organisations are confronted with the fundamental question: where do collaboration tools fit in? Are they a replacement for intranets and document management systems, or do they sit alongside? Where should initial projects be focused?

This industry briefing presents an innovative and effective model that outlines:

• three levels of information management within organisations
• inwards and outwards focused information
• where collaboration tools should be focused
• taking a 'portfolio' approach to collaboration technologies
• managing the relationship between collaboration tools and other systems

This model is designed to provide a common understanding within organisations, helping to target collaboration efforts for greatest impact. Presented by Step Two Designs, the recognised thought-leader on intranets and information management, this briefing is entirely vendor-neutral.

Numbers are strictly limited, and this is a hot topic. So read the full event details, and book quickly!

Posted by jamesr at 10:58 AM | Permalink
Categories: Conferences & presentations, Content management, Information management, Intranets, Knowledge management

Why invest in social features for your web site?

Joshua Porter has written an article about using social features on websites. To quote:

The runaway successes of YouTube, MySpace, and Flickr have completely changed the landscape of design. One huge change is the rise in socially-enabled web applications, applications that connect users in new and more explicit ways. Witness the trend of "going social" on news sites, where they give their community the ability to comment on and even participate in the news. The design team behind the USAToday.com web site, for example, recently enhanced their site with new social features including comments, reviews, discussion forums, and the ability to make recommendations. Just this past week ABCNews did the same. So what are the core benefits of making this change? Why invest in social features?

Posted by jamesr at 09:32 AM | Permalink
Categories: Area Health Service project, Book & product reviews, Collaboration, Conferences & presentations, Content management, Design & usability guidelines, Document & records management, E-learning, Enterprise 2.0, Information architecture, Information architecture, Information management, Interface design, Intranet Leadership Forum, Intranets, James' articles, Knowledge management, Knowledge management, Metrics & ROI, Photos, Search tools, Usability & user-centered design, Web development, Web development, Weblogs, XML

Taxonomy and metadata strategies for effective content management (June, Australia)

Taxonomies are a hot topic at present, with many organisations exploring how these can be used to coordinate practices across organisations and to integrate business systems. While the word 'taxonomy' is often used, it is often less clear what this means in practice, and how to make it all work.

For this reason, Step Two Designs is bringing out Joseph Busch to Australia, as the recognised taxonomy expert from the United States. Uniquely, Joseph combines this with an in-depth knowledge of content management and how to implement taxonomies in real-world settings.

Taxonomy and metadata strategies for effective content management

• Melbourne (Crowne Plaza): 7 June 2007
• Sydney (Mercure Hotel): 12 June 2007
• Canberra (Hyatt Hotel): 15 June 2007

In these one day masterclasses, Joseph will provide practical answers to core taxonomy questions such as:

• What is a taxonomy?
• How do you get one and does it really make a difference?
• How do you organise user tests and use the results in a CMS implementation?
• How do you get content tagged up using a taxonomy?

Joseph will then go on to provide answers to the hard questions about enterprise content architecture strategies, including:

• What does every content manager need to know about taxonomies and metadata?
• How can a taxonomy and metadata model drive successful search, workflow, content re-use, and the automation of content production processes?
• What are the critical elements of a business case for a content architecture?
• What are the critical do's and don'ts of designing a metadata and taxonomy model?
• How do you test a taxonomy's effectiveness with users?

These are Joseph's first events in Australia, and they are relevant for every team tasked with designing or implementing a taxonomy.

Full event details

Posted by jamesr at 12:13 PM | Permalink
Categories: Conferences & presentations, Content management, Information architecture, Information management, Intranets, Knowledge management

Methodology for web 2.0 collaboration experiments (in reluctant organizations)

Dave Pollard has written an article providing a methodology for web 2.0 experiments in corporations. To quote:

... any methodology that hopes to help improve collaboration in an organization needs to be very adaptable, modest in resource demands, sponsored, and attuned to the complexity of collaboration challenges. I think I've come up with a methodology that meets these requirements, and it's illustrated above.

Posted by jamesr at 08:40 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information management, Intranets, Knowledge management

Knowledge strategy - three journeys

Shawn Callahan has written an entry on knowledge strategy, consisting of three separate journeys. To quote:

We've learned that top down strategies don't work. For one thing they typically rely on extrinsic motivations (rewards -- do this and you’ll get that) which I'm learning from Alfie Kohn is an intrinsic motivator killer (I've got to share some of the experiments Alfie talks about in a future post). So our approach to knowledge strategy is to first view the activity more as a verb than a noun. That is, it is better to strategize that the develop a strategy. The get things moving in an organisation we've developed what we call the three journeys approach.

Posted by jamesr at 08:33 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Blogging (internally) for three years

I've just realised that our internal blogs within Step Two were setup in April 2004, making it three years this month. Each team member has an internal blog, and we use them in a number of ways:

• summary of all the proposals that we send out, so everyone knows what's in the pipeline
• updates on projects as they are unfolding
• new ideas and interesting tidbits that we come across
• updates on business development activities, including monthly financial reports
• internal broadcast messages and requests for help

These have proved to be extremely successful, with the primary goal being to share awareness (rather than knowledge). As long as everyone has a vague recollection that they saw something on the blogs, they can search the blog archive, and then go and chat directly to the person in question.

The great thing is that any of us can be out of the office for a week or two, and still have some idea of what's happening. It's also more efficient for reaching all staff, rather than flooding everyone with emails.

So, three years on, the blogs are still going strong and they have a long life ahead of them...

Posted by jamesr at 06:51 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

There are no "KM systems"

With the rise of knowledge management as a discipline, vendors increasingly rebranded their products as 'knowledge management systems' (KMS). While this was a convenient label to cover a broad range of functionality, the use of 'KMS' as a term has caused considerable confusion.

For this reason, this briefing will argue that organisations should abandon the search for a 'KMS', and instead focus more closely on the specific capabilities required. Vendors are similarly encouraged to more clearly define their product capabilities, and to let go use of the catch-all 'KMS' label.

Technology and KM

As defined by the Australian Standard on knowledge management (AS 5037-2005), knowledge management can be considered to consist of:

• people
• process
• technology
• content

In this way, it can be seen that while KM is not a technology discipline, technology plays a key role in delivering and supporting KM services. Within any organisation, there will almost certainly be the need for some technology (new or existing) to support overall knowledge management initiatives.

Quite naturally, some organisations are therefore going to the marketplace in search of 'knowledge management systems', as part of the KM projects.

[CM Briefing 2007-03, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 11:43 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information management, James' articles, Knowledge management

Finding success stories

Shawn Callahan has written an article on finding success stories. To quote:

Have you ever been asked to find success stories and been unsure where to start? Done well success stories slide effortlessly from one teller to the next conveying company values, strategic directions and the good reasons why your company should invest in initiatives like communities of practice. Done badly the stories remain captive and moribund in content management jails.

Posted by jamesr at 06:51 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Ethnographic study of collaborative knowledge work

S. L. Kogan and M. J. Muller have written a journal article on an ethnographic study of collaborative knowledge work. To quote:

We present an ethnographic study in which we examine the ways collaborative knowledge work gets done in a process-oriented environment. The purpose of the study is to identify the kinds of support that knowledge workers could benefit from and to make recommendations for tools that might provide such support. The participants in this study, knowledge workers in various business domains, work in a collaborative environment; their skills are in their areas of expertise rather than computer science and programming. The data we collected are based on field interviews, on observation sessions, and on validation sessions using prototypes. We analyzed the field data using selected principles from grounded theory, and the results of each cycle were used to guide the research in subsequent cycles. In our findings we describe how knowledge workers develop their own strategies and techniques for getting their work done in complex, dynamic environments in which prescribed work processes serve only as reference models. By presenting instances of such environments from our study data, we illustrate how such individualized work processes are created and demonstrate the need for new supporting technologies and tools.

[Thanks to Martin White.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:08 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Beyond predictable workflows: enhancing productivity in artful business processes

C. Hill, R. Yates, C. Jones, and S. L. Kogan have written a journal article on managing 'artful' processes. To quote:

Aside from the issues of scale, lock-in, and dependency, certain types of work simply cannot be formalized well enough to safely entrust to an enterprise application. The goals and methods of some processes change too quickly over time; for example, the process of designing high-technology products. In some processes, it is primarily the content in each process instance -- rather than the process itself -- that determines the outcome; for example, a request for proposal (RFP) process. Most important, many highly specialized processes are developed or refined locally at the individual or small-team level such that the process cannot easily be separated from the specific people who perform it; for example, managing client relationships in professional services firms. While the framing process may be stable at an abstract level, the key details are not. They depend on the skills, experience, and judgment of the primary actors. We denote these kinds of processes artful in the sense that there is an art to their execution that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to codify in an enterprise application.

[Thanks to Martin White.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:00 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information management, Knowledge management

Getting management buy-in for KM

Patrick Lambe has written an article on getting management buy-in for KM, introducing a number of archetypes. To quote:

About 18 months ago we launched a narrative project to collect stories from KM practitioners about their experiences of success and failure in getting management buy-in and support for their KM initiatives. We collected 84 stories, which we took to a series of conferences in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore at the end of 2006, to derive archetypal characters that represent the range of typical attitudes and behaviours that knowledge managers encounter.

Posted by jamesr at 10:52 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

A brief history of information (part 2)

Ted Byfield continues his series of articles looking at the history of the word "information". To quote:

In the centuries of use before its modern redefinition, as we've seen in Part 1, "information" had already toted up a formidable list of ambiguities. For example, it's an action in some usages and a thing in others, it's both singular and plural, and it's both an informal assertion of fact as well as a procedure for making a formal statement.

These slippery qualities made "information" a very amenable candidate as cybernetics pioneer Claude Shannon (and others) sought to name their developing, doubly negative idea of the reduction of uncertainty. They also seem to have made the word resistant to efforts to fix it with a precise or stable new meaning. So, in addition to its long-standing contradictory substance, Shannon's efforts added still more paradoxical attributes: information became something abstract yet measurable, significant but not meaningful, and, last but not least, present wherever communication occurs but is nowhere to be found.

Posted by jamesr at 12:39 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information management, Knowledge management

Getting out into the real world

Perhaps the single greatest pleasure of the work that we do is the opportunity to conduct "needs analysis" that involves getting out into the front-line environment of organisations. Following an "ethnographic" approach, we're able to spend time with the staff who do the actual work, building an understanding of their real needs and issues.

While we use a range of techniques (such as one-on-one interviews, workplace observation, contextual inquiry), the basic approach is incredibly simple. At its heart, it just involves going out with eyes and ears open, asking naive questions, and getting amazing answers.

Front-line environments are endlessly fascinating, and conducting this needs analysis without preconceptions always generates some surprising findings and recommendations. And every organisation is different, meaning that there is always more to be learnt.

For example, we've spent a lot of time now in call centres, whether in the public or private sectors. We've seen everything from the reliance on paper to the use of post-it notes stuck to every flat surface, through to advanced uses of instant messaging.

We've spent time with nurses in wards, early childcare nurses in the field, as well as doctors and other medical professionals. We've talked with consultants in a major consulting firm, researchers in a leading research body, train drivers and station staff. We've explored the needs of town planners, engineers, front-desk staff, sales teams and parking inspectors.

We've spent time on major building sites, in oil refineries, as well in offices talking with HR staff, admins, accountants and many more. We've discussed strategy with senior management, internal communications staff and information managers.

Regardless of whether the project is about intranets, information management, ECM or cultural change, the same basic approach holds true. I love doing this work, and I'm glad that we get an opportunity to connect so directly with the real staff who make their organisations run.

(For more on this topic, see our earlier article Conducting intranet needs analysis.)

Posted by jamesr at 08:40 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Knowledge management

The real role of librarians?

I've been speaking at a number of library-related conferences, including the current (and huge) Online Information conference in London. Now, I'm not a librarian, but I don't have to be to spot some of the issues that come up again and again.

Across all of these conferences is the common (and often unstated) theme that librarians are "under threat", and that they may be a "thing of the past". The strange thing is that I don't think it needs to be this way...

Librarians have become associated with books (and these are certainly being eliminated in most organisations), or with taxonomies and cataloguing (which no-one really understands). I find this a strangely narrow definition for librarians (and libraries).

Certainly there is a greater need for librarians than ever before. Every statistic shows that the amount of information is growing at a disturbing rate, and the problem of the age is finding and managing the information that we need.

This is where librarians should be playing a role, by going back to their original definition, that of the information professional who helps people find what they need. While there isn't a front desk at the library to walk up to, librarians can still greatly assist organisations by:

• pre-filtering information
• conducting research on behalf of others
• communicating key information
• assisting and educating in search

What this isn't about is just owning a list of powerful but incredibly difficult to use information sources. Instead, it's about getting out into the organisation to find ways that they can add direct value, often for key groups of specialist users.

All of this was brought to a head by a presentation last night at the Knowledge Cafe by Dave Pollard, who talked about the principle of re-intermediation. Terrible word, but the concept (of putting back in the middleman) is a great one in reference to these issues.

Anyway, apologies for my presumption in preaching to a discipline that I'm not even a member of...

Posted by jamesr at 01:06 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Why innovation efforts fail

Scott Berkun has written an article on why innovation fails. To quote:

Established companies try to retrofit innovation into organizations by things like task forces, committees, portals and suggestion systems. Have you seen these efforts in action? I'd love to hear why you think they worked, or didn't. I'm cynical and here's why.

Posted by jamesr at 09:41 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Introducing collaboration technologies to the enterprise is a challenge

Dennis McDonald has written a piece on the challenge of introducing collaboration technologies in the enterprise. To quote:

Successful collaboration tool introduction is based less on the characteristics of the tool itself than on the motivation users have to use the tool, plus a heavy helping of Ease of Use. People who are already open to and involved in collaboration are more likely to adopt technological tools that support collaboration than people who aren't already open to or involved with collaboration.

Posted by jamesr at 01:26 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information management, Intranets, Knowledge management

Why people don't use collaboration tools

Shawn Callahan has posted an entry on why people don't use collaboration tools. To quote:

David Pollard offered for anyone on the net to join him is a joint collaboration project using Writely. The topic: Why are conversation and collaboration tools so underused? Dave lists 7 reasons and I jumped in with a number of other points answering a set of questions Dave posed. Interestingly only a few people got involved and the discussion hasn't progressed much over the last few weeks. Hmmm, perhaps collaboration requires a strong need to work together.

Posted by jamesr at 08:34 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Knowledge management

Innovation survey: results summary

Scott Berkun has posted the results of an innovation survey that he conducted. To quote:

Last month I ran an open survey on innovation to help with my book in progress. Nearly 100 people from scientists, to programers, to writers to researchers, volunteered their time and answered my questions. The results were amazing and I'm still filtering through the stories and data.

Posted by jamesr at 10:19 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Proposed definition for "expertise management systems"

Dennis D. McDonald has written an article providing a possible definition for expertise management systems. To quote:

Expertise Management Systems help people identify other people who can be contacted to "... answer a question or solve a problem." The system makes what "experts" know accessible to others so the "expert" can be contacted directly to provide information or support -- as well as access to information that is not yet recorded.

Posted by jamesr at 09:56 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Knowledge management

Enterprise expertise management systems and organizational reality

Dennis D. McDonald has written an article on enterprise expertise management systems. To quote:

In my research I'm trying to understand the characteristics of organizations that will impact their adoption of expertise management systems. The purpose of this article is to discuss how this situation might relate to automating some of the processes involved in expert location. The details suggested here are based on a review of systems that are currently being developed or marketed as well as a straightforward application of basic business process automation and workflow management techniques.

Posted by jamesr at 03:19 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Why do we share knowledge?

Patrick Lambe has written an entry exploring why we share knowledge, providing a simple but useful model. To quote:

There's another common assumption in the knowledge sharing literature that I think needs to be challenged, and that is that knowledge sharing is essentially an engineering problem somehow associated with motivation. It's an input/output problem. If you can understand the levers of motivation, you can design a system that will create the right input, and hey presto, out will come the desired knowledge sharing.

Now I'm sure it's perfectly true that motivation matters in many cases, but I can think of lots of instances where knowledge sharing is not obviously instrumental and cannot be said to have motives driving it.

Posted by jamesr at 09:12 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Expertise location without technology

Shawn Callahan has written an entry on expertise location without technology. To quote:

Some of my favourite bloggers are talking about expertise location recently. Jack Vinson provides a good summary. Luis Suarez riffs off Dennis McDonald, who has a couple of posts on the topic (here and here). All these posts make good points about expertise location and each is written from the perspective that an organisation can enhance its expertise locating capabilities with the use of technology. I agree with their ideas but just for a moment I would like to explore an alternative perspective: what if we put effort in helping individuals find relevant expertise when they need it and without the use of technology? What would people need to learn? Imagine the increased effectiveness of an organisation if the individuals could do this well.

Posted by jamesr at 05:55 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

How to avoid lame morale events

Scott Berkun has written an article on how to avoid lame morale events. To quote:

The basic rule, where managers get in trouble, is this: any event outside of work does not create morale - it only allows whatever morale exists to surface. Case in point: Take a miserable team out to an amazing meal, they return to misery. Take a happy team out to an horrible meal, they return to happiness. You can't fix a team, or raise morale, by morale events. Case in point #2: If you consistently gave people interesting projects, stayed out of their way and rewarded them for hard/smart work, you'll do more for morale than a $100k morale budget ever could.

Posted by jamesr at 01:25 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Why KM is hard to do

Patrick Lambe has written an article exploring why KM is hard to do. To quote:

We recently did a small information management/knowledge management internal initiative at Straits Knowledge. The relative ease with which we did it, compared to the problems faced by several of our clients (much larger organisations) has got me pondering on the way that existing infrastructure impacts an organisation's current effectiveness, both positively and negatively. In this article I use the case study of our internal initiative to analyse the way that infrastructure in large organisations imposes friction on the rate of change, and propose some project management and change management strategies to deal with that. If you're the kind of person who prefers to cut to the chase, I'm using this blog post to summarise the takeaways for KM project planning that I ended up with.

Posted by jamesr at 11:11 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

If we can't even describe knowledge sharing, how can we support it?

Patrick Lambe has written an impassioned plea for a greater understanding of knowledge sharing. To quote:

A combination of two very different incidents reminded me this week of just how incompetent we still are in KM at capturing the complexity, richness and sophistication of human knowledge behaviours. In the first incident I was asked to do a blind review of an academic paper on knowledge sharing for a KM conference. In the second, knowledge sharing was very much a matter of life and death. Although they shared a common theme, they might as well have represented alien universes.

Posted by jamesr at 08:16 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

KM review session

We've recently been doing some interesting knowledge management work with a large law firm, and I thought it would be interesting to share some of the process.

We were called in to conduct some needs analysis research with staff, to build up a clear picture of working practices, needs and issues. This evidence would then be used to guide the review (and then implementation) of an existing knowledge management strategy.

The process started with one of our team (Patrick Kennedy) conducting three days of interviews with staff from a range of areas and levels. These interviews focused on how staff worked, targeting specific areas that were known to be of interest to the KM team.

This initial round of interviews generated some useful findings. More importantly, they were used to tailor the set of questions to even better target specific issues. At this point, the existing knowledge managers (and other team members) were then brought into the process, to conduct a second (and wider) round of interviews based on the updated questions.

Staff from across Australia were involved in the second round, and over 60 interviews were conducted. Each of the KM team members took their own notes, to help them remember key details afterwards. The challenge was then to pull together this huge amount of research into a single set of coherent results...

This is when the fun really began.

A two-day facilitated workshop was organised with all those who conducted the second round of interviews, with the goal of drawing out the key findings and getting them documented.

Before the session, each of the participants had been given homework to identify the top ten:

• Key findings
• Most unexpected findings
• Greatest variations between offices/service lines
• KM issues to address

We then started the session by getting everyone to write down their findings and observations onto sticky notes. Each team member also got 20 minutes to talk through their overall findings. We ended up with plenty of notes, as can be seen here:

Affinity diagramming was then used to pull together these findings and issues into coherent groups. After an hour or two, we identified some clear patterns and groupings, as shown here (the groups were later labelled):

We also used the Microsoft Product Reaction Cards (Word document) to explore how staff in the firm currently viewed KM, and how we wanted them to view KM. This proved to be a good break in the proceedings, and it identified some important characteristics of a successful solution.

Once we had up the overall shape of the findings, it was then down to defining and documenting each specific finding. This took us another whole day (with a little left to do), generating a good thick pile of flip-chart paper.

Overall, the process has proven to be very enlightening, highlighting a number of key issues that are impacting on the success of knowledge management at the firm. It's also been amazing to see the degree to which the KM team is willing to explore the really challenging issues, even though they have the greatest invested in the current approaches.

There's much more to do yet, but this has proven to us that it's possible to get a broad team to conduct user research and still deliver a coherent set of results. It's also reaffirmed the value of "in the field" research, both in terms of identifying unexpected issues, but also its ability to shape the direction of overall KM strategy.

Posted by jamesr at 05:45 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Engaged employees deliver the money

Toby Ward has written a blog entry on online idea jars for employees. To quote:

If executed properly, empowering employees as change agents can deliver powerful benefits – both for the company and for individual employees. IBM has a similar program on their intranet called IDEAS -- a heritage program for collecting suggestions online to improve a process or tool or product. Employees are encouraged to submit innovative ideas. All submissions undergo a cost analysis for potential savings. Recommendations good enough to implement are rewarded with cash payouts to employees. IDEAS delivered $17.1M in value in 2001 alone.

Posted by jamesr at 04:06 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Knowledge management