I heard a great talk by Jim Coogan this morning on the monthly SIKM call that is hosted by Stan Garfield of HP. Jim leads the Knowledge Process team in Boeing’s Integrated Defense Systems group. Jim described a rich tapestry of KM capabilities that support Boeing’s definition of knowledge management: ” a disciplined holistic approach to effectively utilize expertise for competitive advantage.”
Boeing’s KM community is mature in that knowledge management expertise is spread widely across the company; practitioners in different roles in different divisions work as a community of practice to provide tools, methods, and techniques that can be applied to specific business problems and opportunities. Jim’s current approach and attitude to the onslaught of Enterprise 2.0 is, I think, typical of that of mature KM folks, and so I’d like to highlight a few of the topics that came up on the call.
Despite the availability of new tools, many of the technical communities continue to use good old fashioned LISTSERVs, and Jim does not see that these will go away for a while. LISTSERVs are perhaps the original social tool. As I have seen, and as Jim suggested, they are a way to build a community, for people to get assistance and introductions into a specific knowledge space very quickly, and allow a great deal of freedom for conversation within a secure, behind-the-firewall environment. The challenge for companies who want to embrace Enterprise 2.0 is to integrate the LISTSERV content into the rich ecosystem of social tagging, linking, and expertise location.
Recall that leveraging expertise in their very definition of KM. I believe that for technology companies, and possibly for many others as well, it’s vital to be able to “connect the dots” as Jim says and bring experts together. Moreover, the big gap right now is having intelligent agents that anticipate what you need, bring it to you, and tell you how to connect with those others.
My previous blog on this topic touched on how important it is for search engines to return information about our connections with people who may have the expertise and experience we need to tap. We must also arrange for people to bump into each other (in physical and virtual spaces) who may not know that there is experience available for the tapping. Jim calls this the art of making “accidental collisions” — causing people to bump into each other so they can whatever sparks may be, will ignite.
[...] limited to just the people you know or your office location, or having to broadcast an email…accidental collision some [...]
[...] Patti Anklam refers to serendipity as “accidental collisions“: [...]
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Be sure to catch Bill Ives' ongoing review series in which he looks at online, sharable database apps. The focus of Bill's reviews: web-based business software that enables companies and individuals to better organize, track, and share information, as well as better manage projects, processes and workflows.
Among the Web-based tools he's reviewed: Zoho, QuickBase, and TrackVia.

Or, if you’d like to get all the tips now, click here to request a copy of the white paper – “7 Ways to Optimize Project Team Productivity: Using Customizable Web-based Software to Your Business Advantage.”.
The AppGap has hosted a series of discussions with leading thinkers and doers intended to illuminate how new apps and approaches are changing the way we work and help companies and individuals implement better collaboration, project management, and productivity practices and solutions. Access, via the links below, the recordings, each about an hour long, of the discussions.
- 5 Big Ideas for Getting All That Work Done
- Should Your Business be Friends with Facebook
- The Future of Work
Need help in getting organized? Want to keep things from falling through the cracks? Check out this free and simple to use online "To-Do List" called Intuit Task Manager, offered by our sponsor Intuit QuickBase. Sign-up is easy so you can get started with it right away.

Intuit's QuickBase, the sponsor of this blog, has just been named an Editor's Choice by PC Mag. Check out the review which calls QuickBase a "a surprisingly simple and elegant application."
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