Three KMs

September 19, 2009 at 9:27 am · Filed under Communities, Intranets, KM

I’ve written a few presentations this past year to audiences who are not conversant with knowledge management. In those talks, I’ve started to distinguish what I call “Three KMs:”

• Big KM
• Little KM
• Personal KM

This distinction paves the way not only to understanding, but to choice. These presentations were given in the context of organizations trying to decide if they need KM and if so, to what extent. In today’s post, I’ll share the “Big KM” concept; subsequent posts will expand on the “Little” and “Personal KM”.

Big KM is enterprise-wide:

• There is a CKO, Director, or someone of similar stature and credibility in the organization who if not at the executive level, is at a minimum called upon to contribute to or be responsive to the corporate strategy
• This high-level person either manages or is responsible for the Intranet and related IT capabilities that support capture, storing and sharing information and provision of collaboration infrastructure for teams, communities of practice, or groups of any kind
• It is structured as a set of services provided by or through a central KM organization to business units
• It evolved from or remains an integral part or partner with the organizational functions of training, library/information services, or documentation. It may also advise or be partner to HR functions of talent management, knowledge mapping, or strategic HR planning

A recent dialogue in the SIKM group (Systems Integration KM Leaders Community) led by Stan Garfield (a fellow traveler from my KM days at Digital/Compaq)  began with a question about the “best practices on integrating KM, Training, and product documentation” that led to a set of responses about the “top 3 knowledge management services”  (“top” from the perspective of leadership support, acceptance by associates/employees, and success/metrics/business benefits).

The responses provide a rich picture of what is happening with Big KM these days:

• Content management (including KM portals, search strategies)
• Consulting (to business units) on knowledge container and sharing methodologies, embedding knowledge capture and sharing into business processes
• Providing thought leadership on the application of KM to IT and the implementation of the KM infrastructure
• Innovation and ideation services
• Social software advocacy
• Key community (centers of excellence and expertise) support to build and transfer vital corporate knowledge
• Project materials
• Stewarding a collaboration strategy in support of communities of practice
• Providing learning and knowledge transfer opportunities through best practices, stimulating conversations that matter, and experiential learning practices for teams

The organizational structure may be formal (staffed knowledge “champions” assigned by business unit or geography) or informal (using a voluntary staff of committed employees). The formal model is based on the pioneering knowledge management organizations in the large consulting companies, CSC, E&Y, Accenture, Deloitte, and so on, so it is no surprise that a community of people from these systems integration firms would derive the list above.

I have always defined KM as a “collection of disciplines, methods and tools embedded in an information infrastructure that supports creation and sharing of knowledge assets to achieve business goals.” The KM community within an organization is responsible for developing and constantly renewing a repertoire of KM tools and methods that are ready-to-hand to support emerging business needs. A small number of annual conferences (including the up-coming KMWorld) bring practitioners together to see and share experiences and practices and to keep raising the bar.

In a post today, Dave Snowden (who is one of those experts who continually raises that bar)  offers a part of a set of recommendations given to a client on the requirements for a knowledge management organization (Alternatives to a CKO). His primary caution to a company that is thinking about installing a Chief Knowledge Officer that it make the CKO position rotational and/or build in the structural assurances that a CKO be exposed to a wide range of ideas.

The continual flow of new methods, ideas, and perspectives is what keeps me involved in the KM community. It is a diverse network and offers, for those who are not entrained to a specific set of processes the chance to keep learning and making the learning count. This is true of all three KMs. I’ll talk about Little KM in my next post.

“Social Learning” Will Be a Core Design Element in the Knowledge Workplace

July 20, 2009 at 1:48 pm · Filed under Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, Learning, productivity, social tools

As many of you will know, there’s been a debate going on for some time now about the relative effectiveness and the ROI of formal and informal learning (formal learning being structured-and-scheduled courses and other measurable forms of content delivery, informal learning being the myriad ways people exchange information that becomes incorporated into one’s perspective or ways of doing things).

This debate has been intensified by the growing presence and uptake of collaborative platforms which seek to engage peoples’ social tendencies and mimic the ways they interact with information and each other to get things done.

The points made by these three executives from T Rowe Price, Sun Microsystems and Booz Allen Hamilton aren’t new to those of us who have been following and facilitating the uptake of this new generation of knowledge work tools and methods. 

They do, however, underscore how clear it is that the dynamics spawned by a half-decade’s experience with social computing and social networks will undergo a massive migration into the knowledge workplace of the near future.

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Learning Executives Discuss Social Learning at the ASTD 2009 International Conference

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Social architecture

April 9, 2009 at 8:08 am · Filed under Collaboration, Communities, Culture, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, Web 2.0, Work Design, social media, social networks

I’ve been working lately on two projects with companies building social networking platforms with a purpose. While some aspects are clearly around technology, features, and the like, there are also the subtle aspects that go into understanding how these sites will be used. In a meeting with one of the clients, we talked about this difficult area of how to ensure that the use of the site aligns with its purpose: will people interact on the topics that we want them to, will the site discourage irrelevant content or social tourists from joining?

The word “social architecture” came into my head (or all of our heads simultaneously, it’s always hard to tell, isn’t it, when an idea emerges from the collective consciousness in a conversation?).

Like a good web 2.0 doo-bie, I tweeted that I was interested in using the term but needed to understand it more. My friend and colleague, Andrew Gent, tweeted back a definition, but then went on to do much more: he researched it, thought about, and has written a wonderful blog post, Social Architecture, that offers the definition that he tweeted back to me:

Social architecture is the conscious design of an environment that encourages certain social behavior leading towards some goal or set of goals.

Andrew’s blog details the current use of the term with respect to social media as well as its history in the field of architecture. When I began my own superficial search, the thread I followed was biased toward the design of the interaction of various social media (Sam Huleatt: “To me, social architecture is best thought of as a cross between three elements: interface design, social media functionality and user engagement strategy.”) which didn’t reflect what I needed. Andrew has, I think, hit on the more sociological and social engineering (without the negative connotations of that term) disciplines needed to shape a user’s experience.

While Andrew’s context is the corporate intranet, where it is possibly simpler to design intent and purpose into the environment, my work is currently leading me to social networks in the world, a case where an individual company wants to draw people into a network to expand its field of vision and expertise.  No answers yet, but Andrew’s exposition is a terrific start and I thank him very much.

Web 2.0 & the Enterprise. A Symbiotic Relationship

February 3, 2009 at 9:57 pm · Filed under Collaboration, Communities, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, Web 2.0, social media, social networks, social tools

I spoke at the Social Networking Conference in Miami two weeks ago on “Web 2.0 and the Enterprise: A Symbiotic Relationship.” As someone who’s advised Fortune 1000 companies on Enterprise 2.0 strategies as well as their Social Marketing ones, I see those two worlds blurring very much.

Historically, they’ve been treated as two very different beasts but I believe with the consumerization of the enterprise and the portability of social graphs the walls that divide the two are breaking down. And not just that but to do one effectively, an organization will need to be practicing the other as well. View my deck from the conference.

Opinions on Nielsen’s 10 Best Intranets Alertbox

January 9, 2009 at 12:16 pm · Filed under Intranets

Jacob Nielsen has just published his thoughts on the 10 Best Intranets for 2009. Now I’ve been following Nielsen for a number of years and his intranet rankings too while leading teams that designed intranets for 30,000 employee plus companies and publishing best practice reports. Needless to say, I know the intranet space well and have an opinion on it.

I invariably feel that the Nielsen rankings are more a reflection of how he defines the intranet space than what denotes a best intranet. The reason is that his definitions of what an intranet is, how it should be measured and results are all left a tad bit vague for me. Don’t get me wrong, the intranets he chooses are stellar and his guidance is strong but there some opinions of his that I contest. So here’s a critical look at some of the points that he’s highlighted in the article where he introduces the top intranets.  

The biggest trend that he sees is in the growth in the number of employees supporting an intranet. That seems strange to me. I would have thought that with the move towards social applications and self organization, the core team supporting the intranet would have gotten smaller rather than larger. Is his opinion based on a statistically significant sample of all intranets or based on the composition of submissions?

Nielsen argues that intranets are getting more strategic by virtue of their team sizes, reporting lines and the functionality on them. I agree they’re getting more strategic but I think that’s largely because intranets are integrating with the other parts of an enterprise infrastructure. Also, the intranets are now knowledge management and social network driven tools more than ever capturing the tacit information that resides in people’s heads. That’s what’s making them strategic too. Its important to remember that its not just about team sizes, reporting lines and rich uses profiles. They matter but there’s more to the story.

I like the attention being given to the social network and collaboration features in the article. CEO blogging also gets a mention. That’s along the lines of what I’ve been seeing in the intranet space too. And quite frankly, these are obvious trends. What I do wonder about it is the participation from employees on the CEO blogs. Also, does the CEO blogging replace top down email communication? I was a little surprised to see no mention of wikis. Why was that? Are they not getting enough attention or are they badly implemented. I’d be interested in learning more about that.

The article also talks about personalization and customization taking hold. That makes sense but I must admit the type of personalization being discussed is still rather rudimentary. Customizing links, and creating customized reports are intranet elements that I’ve seen for years. Those are important but I’ve started to see a lot more from intranets – personalization driven by the composition of a person’s social network and usage patterns, customization based on the time period (end of quarter versus a normal day) etc. I’m surprised that some of those more advanced solutions don’t get mentioned.

And lastly, I found the extrapolation about Sharepoint intranets unusual. Don’t get me wrong, Sharepoint is a great platform for intranets but as with a lot of the other thoughts in the article by Nielsen, I think it is unfair to generalize about the state of all intranets without talking about sample sizes and being statistically significant with the data.

So here’s my plea – next year please share the total number of submissions for the awards, the countries from where the submissions came from and categorize the submissions by size (employees using the intranet). Without that data, it is hard to pay too much attention to this list of the 10 Best Intranets for 2009.

It is worth noting that my agency did not submit any intranets for the awards last year. We do buy the reports often because they’re still insightful.

Fighting Internal Spam that Hurts Productivity

November 20, 2008 at 8:21 pm · Filed under Change Management, Collaboration, Intranets, KM

Apparently, President Obama will not be allowed to have his blackberry with him. It is a security risk and he wouldn’t be in compliance with the Presidential Records Act if he carried it around. Imagine that. An efficient use of technology is a security risk. But then it got me thinking. Do organizations depend too much on email? Has email become a lazy way to communicate and collaborate? With all the copying and blind copying going on in emails, is it serving as more of a distraction than a productivity enhancer? 

A recent IDG report highlighted that there will be 40 trillion inbox clogging spam e-mail messages this year resulting in smart companies building separate email system – email systems that are detached from the Internet.On the surface, it may seem excessive to build a private email system to avoid spam. But the strategy does have merits. Its not that employees won’t be able to email the outside world (many of them need to just to do their jobs) but rather it’ll separate external email from internal communications.

Now lets see if we can take this thought process a little further. What if employees were limited to say a hundred emails a day. And if they went over that limit they were charged 25 cents per email sent. What would that do to the organization? Would it mean more meetings? More stopping by each other’s desks? Better and more efficient uses of the corporate intranet? A reduction in knowledge sharing? Increased productivity as employees would be spending less time cleaning up their inboxes? 

It is hard to know but it might be one way to fight what I’m going to call “internal spam” just as private email systems fight public spam. This doesn’t get much attention but I’m willing to bet it hampers productivity and fuels laziness. 

Intranets in a Profile. LinkedIn to shake up things?

November 2, 2008 at 10:54 am · Filed under Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets

Not surprisingly and in a very smart move, LinkedIn has expanded its platform to allow professionals to add specific applications to their profile. On the surface, this appears to be just a copy of the Facebook Application Platform strategy, but in reality its quite different. And it marks LinkedIn’s most major assault on the traditional intranet.

So first some facts about LinkedIn Apps. It launched with 10 applications from 8 big time developers. LinkedIn users (and there are 30 million of them) can now add SlideShare and Google presentations,  Amazon reading lists, Huddle Workspaces, Wordpress blog posts and Box.net applications among others. If you look at the list carefully, you’ll notice that many of these applications when stitched together form the core of an enterprise intranet. Especially when you add the fact that LinkedIn itself is a living people finder that’s more complete than anything behind the firewall. 

Why does this matter? It’s not going do very much for the largest of enterprises. They still need their secure intranets, with their dashboards and business applications. But for everyone else, this becomes a much easier way to collaborate and share information especially among small and medium sized businesses. Given that the smaller you are, the more you need to collaborate with people outside your company, LinkedIn Apps provides the perfect platform. Everybody already has a username and password and are familiar with the interface.

I’m willing to bet that within the next year if LinkedIn Apps plays its cards right, players like Zoho, Basecamp, Intranet Dashboard, WebExOffice and Intranets.com will find themselves losing customers. Now, the current version of LinkedIn Apps is quite light and unlike Facebook which allowed anyone to build an application on the platform, LinkedIn has been very selective in who they partner with. In its current incarnation, LinkedIn Apps can’t compete with any of those other hosted intranet solutions. But that can change quickly. And when it does, those competitors will be in trouble especially because everyone is already using LinkedIn for some purpose or the other and it allows its users to collaborate with people outside the firewall too. 

In a nutshell, this is a great move by LinkedIn and with their cautious approach similar to Apple’s first iPhone launch with its limited applications, they’re being sensible and strategic in how they play in this space. Now lets see how many of the 30 million LinkedIn users adopt these applications or should I say “Intranet in a Profile” offerings?