I’m not telling you anything
Does this sound like knowledge management and collaboration at your organization? http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2011-08-08
Knoco May Newsletter
The Knoco May newsletter on business focused KM is out, http://lnkd.in/9rwyPS. Lots of practical information on implementing KM, there’s an archive of previous newsletters here http://www.knoco.com/knowledge-management-news.htm
Since returning from Abu Dhabi
I have been back for a week and am getting over the jet-lag, I have been working on finishing up deliverables for my client in Abu Dhabi and doing a bit of marketing for my Ark Group report that was published last week (they tell me it was selling well in the pre-publication period, so I am happy about that). I need to review and update my marketing/business development activities based on things I have learned and done over the last 18 months. The project in Abu Dhabi was good because I got to work with my Knoco (www.knoco.com) business partners and become more familiar with their KM model and get to know them better (thanks Nick Milton and Tom Young for the opportunity). I hope to work with them again soon. What I learned in Abu Dhabi: wear a hat if you’re going to be outside in the sun for very long; after a few days of 40-42 degrees Celcius, 30 feels cool; don’t walk unless you absolutely have to; LuLu Hypermarket is a great place to go for groceries; sand gets everywhere; ask for suggestions of things to go out and do, and then go and do them; … Continue reading
Aligning People, Process and Technology in KM, published
Ark Group has published my report, Aligning People, Process and Technology in KM. The Executive Summary and a sample chapter are on their website http://www.ikmagazine.com/xq/asp/pubid.5694CBB6-DAAF-4082-85BB-8F8D5AE6C6A5/qx/Publication.htm
Community of Practice: Metrics and Health Check
This is my piece that was included in the Knoco spring newsletter, which can be accessed here: http://www.knoco.com/Knoco%20newsletter%20spring%2011.pdf When a community program has been running for 1-2 years it is important to perform a health check on the individual communities and the program as a whole. Performing this type of review ensures that the individual communities and the program are both providing value to the participants and the organization. Examples of metrics that assess the health of individual communities include calculations for number of problems solved by the community and related income increases or expense decreases. There are also usefulness surveys where users evaluate how useful the community has been in helping them accomplish their objectives. These surveys can include anecdotes from users describing (in quantitative terms) how the community has contributed to organizational objectives. The metrics used may change over time and may be customized for the length of time a community has been in operation. Overall community metrics may take an aggregate of the individual community metrics, but there may also be calculations for the overall impact of the community program. Such things as decreases to learning curves, increases to customer satisfaction, reductions in rework, increases in innovation or … Continue reading
Strengths Chat Podcast
Thanks to Jim Seybert for allowing me the privilege to be part of his new podcast. You can listen to the interview here http://strengths.jimseybert.com/2011/02/strengthschat-3/
Upcoming Ark Group Report: Navigating the Knowledge Management Technology Maze
As those of you who have spoken to me in the last 6 months will know, I have been busy writing a report for Ark Group, it will be published later in the spring, here’s a sneak-peak of what I’ve been working on and why I haven’t posted anything on this blog for so many months. Navigating the Knowledge Management Technology Maze Knowledge Management may be a familiar term to many, but how many individuals actually understand the technology side of KM? What do all the platforms do, why one is better suited to particular business needs and objectives than another? The vendors aren’t going to tell you, they want you to buy their platform and customize it. What are the benefits that choosing the right KM technology platform can bring to a business? Many will think of the selection process as strictly technology focused, but there are a plethora of human, organisational, leadership and process elements that must also be taken into account. Selecting the right technology and implementing it successfully are key to realising the true benefits of KM. In a climate of severe competition, limited resources and pressure on performance and profitability, organisations would do well to … Continue reading
Some Thoughts about Knowledge Assets
The term Knowledge Asset always takes me back to my first career after my undergraduate graduation: accountant. In addition to defining knowledge asset, and discussing how to manage them, which are secondary thoughts in my accounting mind, I think about valuation, after-all if something is an asset, it has a value. How do we value knowledge assets? Is it the cost to acquire the knowledge? Things like the cost of courses and books, and experience gained over a period of time. Is it what someone else would pay to obtain the knowledge immediately instead of going through the learning curve? Is it the opportunity cost: the cost of lost business or productivity, the cost of a missed connection? Some of these are more easily determined than others. It is relatively easy to determine the cost of a course or a book, or to determine the cost of a degree or certificate. How is the cost of a missed connection or opportunity to leverage a previous project determined? How do you know what the cost is if you didn’t know that the opportunity existed? For example, if instead of creating a document management application for your organization, you find that your … Continue reading
Collaboration
What does collaboration mean to you? Does it mean doing what you’re told? How about finding someone else to do the work? Telling someone else what to do? I hope none of those are your definitions of collaboration, and I hope that your definition of collaboration looks nothing like any of those. Wikipedia defines collaboration the following way: “Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Most collaboration requires leadership, although the form of leadership can be social within a decentralized and egalitarian group.” or at least it did the day I wrote this, April 5, 2010 at 9:14am EDT. I like this definition of collaboration, but it does not always mirror my experience of collaboration. I like this definition because it talks about working together for common goals; sharing, which is a big part of Knowledge Management; building consensus; and that leadership comes through a decentralized and egalitarian group. I really, really, like this last part. Leadership can come from anywhere and when I am working on a team that … Continue reading
Succeeding at Change in a Knowledge Worker World
The only thing that is certain is death and taxes…and change. Many organizations spend thousands of dollars on knowledge management technology solutions, focusing on the technology, because the technology is easy to focus on, it’s visible: buying the servers, installing the software, testing it, releasing it, those are activities that are very visible. Involving stakeholders in the software selection process, understanding what helps versus what hinders them in their performance, providing training, communicating, these are invisible, “soft” activities. Soft-skills/activities are often ignored, or down-played in organizations, sometimes it’s because of cost, sometimes it’s a lack of understanding of their importance, sometimes because there’s “no time.” Projects fail because of this lack of attention to soft-skills, especially Knowledge Management projects. With Knowledge Management projects knowledge workers have already found a way to get their jobs done, it may not be the most efficient and effective way to get it done, but they get it done, that’s who they are. They may miss opportunities to share and leverage other people’s experience or create something new because they didn’t know there was a possibility to share/leverage/create, but they get their job done. In implementing a Knowledge Management project knowledge workers are being asked … Continue reading
