Adventures in Knowledge

The real threat to the future.....

A lot of my recent thinking has been about the "freight train" heading our way, which is going to turn business on its head, and will shape a very different looking world as we watch. Those that start to look at implications for their businesses now will potentially thrive and those that don't will literally become dinosaurs. Pretty powerful assertions I know, but I am prepared to make them as I truly believe this is going to happen (feel free to refer back to this if they don't!).

I came across a post by Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation  titled: The Real Threat isn't social media who makes this point more eloquently than I could :

"The changes all of us are seeing and experiencing in our daily lives, our organizations and our society are not anything like the challenges of the last three decades, and all retrospective comparisons to that effect simply fall flat. We are living and working in a time when the basic forces of human endeavor–business, communications, culture, demography, economics, education, law, politics, science, technology–are all recalibrating at once and converging to shape an entirely new world right before our eyes. It doesn’t look that different to us just yet, but in a few more years, many of us won’t recognize it. This is neither theory nor unfounded speculation. Without question, this is where we are headed."

Yesterday a colleague and I were in a discussion on networking and collaboration - out of the blue he said  - "you know, business is not ready for the changes beginning to occur - they are not even in the ball park" a salient point given the frustration levels in trying to get the mindset to shift - to even open up to new ways of thinking! Part of this is education - a significant number of senior execs don't even understand social media and see it as a threat due to ignorance rather than through informed decision making. The other part is a reticence to open their business to new models where the outcomes are uncertain, a linear command and control construct probably will not work and they perceive the risks as being high.

In my view, the time is right for business to embrace uncertainty, understand that complexity is not going to go away and look at business through a difference lens such as sense making: "how do we make sense of the world so we can act in it".

Gen Y and beyond

It is interesting to observe the behaviours and attitudes on new grads as they start their working life. More is now being written on the differences between the baby boomers generation and Gen Y. Fortune has an interesting piece on this: Attracting the twenty something worker with some of their characteristics being:

• Young people question everything – their superiors, themselves, the media etc.
• Their loyalties lie with friends and families not with their employers or corporate brands
• They are very close with their baby boomer parents often moving back home after college
• They are ambitious and want to make a difference in their workplace, community and society
• They are impatient, expecting quick results
• They are very comfortable with technology often using it to multitask

What also is interesting is that the next generation coming into the workforce do not remember a time without the internet. I know I remember not only the rise of the internet, but also a time when we had telex and fax machines, when email started to become the "killer app",  when we had "portable" computers the size of sewing machines and having a computer with 1 Gig of space was a real status symbol (OK I am showing my age!!)

However, in all seriousness, being aware of this fact is important when looking at where we are going with sharing knowledge, developing networks, collaborating through social media etc. It is this "me" generation which is going to have a major impact on business - those companies which embrace the Enterprise 2.0 environment are likely to be more attractive to this generation in the war for talent, let alone in leveraging new business models that probably are not even thought of now.

What brought this home at a personal level happened recently. I was approached about a possible role in Qatar which looked like an interesting opportunity, but was not sure if the package being offered would suit i.e. kids schooling and the like. I currently have my 17 year old brother-in-law living with us who wanted to help in this decision making process. He brought his laptop into the kitchen, plonked himself down on the kitchen bench and proceeded to contact people in his My Space network. In 15 minutes he had tracked down three people living in Qatar and had invitations for me to call them to get an "on the ground" opinion. Anyway, this opportunity was not taken up, but did show that this generation intuitively use their network to get what they want. So we are seeing the "me" generation actively leveraging "us" (their peers) to get what they want - and this is perfectly normal for them. Put this in the business environment - they will probably turn it upside down!

Enterprise 2.0 - How do people get it?

I just came across this presentation introducing Enterprise 2.0 from the  Fastforward blog - brilliant in its simplicity - titled: Meet Charlie. I certainly was impressed, as I am often frustrated that people just don't "get it". This is a great conversation starter and goes a long way to opening people's minds as to the possibilities in business!

The missing link?

Further to my post yesterday on collaboration, I have been working with some colleagues on developing a strategy for a network centric business. Part of this will require technology that allows not only the sharing of content, but enabling people to build networks. It is interesting to note that a lot of vendors are still in the content space and really do not understand where knowledge is going. As case in point - what is wrong with this picture:

What struck me was the central focus on a "knowledge bank" implying this is where we "stuff" lots of content and call it knowledge! Where is the ability to provide a context to what is for all intents and purpose information. Where is the ability for members to engage in conversation, to share views and collaborate? It does seem that we still are seeing a very "old world" view of knowledge that does not really cater for people and connection. If we rely on vendors with this view, unfortunately we will reinforce older models, the significant investments made to purchase, develop and maintain them and of course the political interest that ensues to protect and justify decisions made. What further reinforces that they have not "got it" is the willingness to bolt on as an afterthought tools such as blogs, wikis, RSS, collaboration spaces to name a few without a context for their use.

Of course this is a generalisation - and I am sure there are vendors out there that do understand knowledge and Web 2.0 - but from my observations they are not front and centre for mainstream business.

Collaboration

In the last week I have been seeing, hearing and discussing a lot about collaboration. In my organisation we are currently looking at what collaboration means in a global organisation. The interesting thing is that our preconceptions and experiences are very strong influencers on what we think collaboration is. Indeed those who have been exposed to Lotus notes, Documentum eRoom, Discussion boards and the like, from my observations have a very set view that these are the key to any definition of collaboration and what it must be in the future of the organisation. So, a database view of the world tends to dominate. However, when you start to introduce "people" into the equation and the idea of connection, then the dynamic starts to change. The questions about collaboration no longer revolve around the "best" technology solution, but how to get people to connect. When you frame this as "how will our people collaboration in five years" the questions and discussion changes remarkably.

Two paragraphs in the recent paper Winning with Enterprise 2.0 by Don Tapscott stood out and really got me thinking about this:

"Collaboration is the new foundation of competitiveness. Normally the term collaboration conjures up images of office workers interacting effectively together. True, knowledge is the ability to take effective action. The exchange of knowledge amongst people allows them to communicate complex ideas and to collaborate in creating value.

But the concept is changing. By "collaboration" we mean the increasing richness of means by which objects (things, people and firms) can work together enhanced by the medium of the internet. We have described this as the fundamental transition of the internet from being a communications platform to a computation platform. We have investigated five cascading levels of collaboration sought by leading firms today (diagram below).

The lower levels cascade up to the higher levels which in turn inform and set the context for the lower levels"

When you look at collaboration through this lens, then the ways in which we collaborate need to be rethought. The competitive landscape is being altered today by those organisations which understand the fundamental shifts that are taking place and are able to harness new models / approaches to business. They are able to compete very differently to traditional organisations, driving change and rules of competition to differentiate themselves through greater value or lower cost in ways not previously perceived as possible.

For me the greatest challenge as I see it is to get our organisations to understand the changes taking place, how they will impact the business and how to break away from traditional views on collaboration that will allow success in the open networks that are evolving today.

Story telling at school

My eight year old son this term is studying the family tree at school. Last night when I arrived home from the office, he met me at the front door very excited - "Dad - the teacher has asked that we get our parents, and grand parents to write a story about what it was like when you were growing up - and it has to be done by tomorrow!" Initially I grumbled, having had a full day at the office, but then I realised that this was what it was all about! We talk about the power of story telling in business, but forget (at least I forgot) that this was an important element of learning at school. It was really amazing to see the gleam in my son's eye as he read the stories both me and my wife wrote for him - it brought to life a whole new world and I can guarantee that he will absorb and remember so much more, being able to see the world of growing up through our eyes.

The downside - one hundred and one questions in the car this morning - an older child's version of our four year old's standard question - "but why?"........

The disconnect in KM

I have just been reading a post by Luis Suarez titled: APQC KM & Innovation 1007 - The Disconnect between KM 1.0 and KM 2.0 where he laments the awareness of knowledge practitioners around social computing and the focus of this training course around KM as it was in the 1990's:

"Here is an example, of the 44 people who were attending the training session I was at as well, in between breaks and networking events, I tried to find out if there would be anyone out there from the list who would have been exposed to social computing, or KM 2.0, or not. And to my astonishment, I couldn't. At least, I haven't been able to find anyone thus far. In fact, when I checked the list of attendees I just couldn't find anyone coming from that strong social computing background I was hoping for. Yes, bringing the best of social networking on to the table as well, since it is also part of the equation. Well, it just didn't happen.

From all of that, I guess I got a strong confirmation that people doing work related to social computing are not very much interested in Knowledge Management, in general. In fact, I would venture to say that for them it is a dirty word still. And vice versa, people who still want to keep things very much like KM 1.0 are not interested in hearing some more about social software and the impact that is having within the corporate world empowering knowledge workers to share their knowledge and collaborate a lot easier and with a whole lot less hassle. Ouch! Yes, that is what I meant with a massive disconnect. And it is not a good thing."

I have seen this happening first hand, and it is a scary thought that knowledge practitioners who should be at the forefront of facilitating the sharing of knowledge, are so stuck in their ways and in their comfort zone. There is a real danger that they cannot see beyond a focus on content, processes and tools they will relegated to dinosaur status, and this will have a real detrimental impact in the value knowledge can provide their organisation. I agree with Luis that there is a challenge to bring both those comfortable with the "old ways" of knowledge in line with those supporting social computing and Web 2.0 - but unless people are willing to at least see what is happening with knowledge sharing today they will be bypassed in the organisation and become irrelevant as people break through in their desire to build networks, have conversations and collaborate in real time.

What really stuns me is that this is an exciting time to be in the knowledge space - yes it does require a change in perspective, but when you look at knowledge sharing through a different lens, the possibilities are endless. Where this will end up who knows - but boy the ride will be amazing!!

Focus on Networks

I recently came across this Forbes special report on Networks. It is interesting to see how much more prevalent the discussion on networks is these days (really positive!). Intuitively we all know the importance of networks - we actively build them in our social lives, but sometimes they get put on the back burner in a professional setting - being too busy, too time poor, family pressures etc. If there is one lesson I would impart to any new graduate starting their professional life, it would be to start building their network early, and do not forget to take the time to nurture and cultivate connections as they will pay you back many times over. Networking can be an effort at times - we all have have agreed to attend a function, event, product launch etc, but when the time came to go, have really not felt like attending. I make the effort and am always pleasantly suprised that I have either learnt something new, made a new contact or made plans to catch-up with someone in my existing network.

The other powerful expression of networks comes when showing people the results of a Social Network Analysis they have participated in. What is really powerful is showing them their own network of relationships (ego-net). Some have really well developed networks whilst others don't have much of a network at all. Listening in on conversations post providing individual networks is fascinating in itself - questions being asked - why is your network so much more connected than mine  - how do you find the time to meet all these people - what is is you do that you do that makes you better at networking than me....what this does start to do is get people to internalise how import building their network is and open the door for further conversations on how to build networks more effectively.

Anyway, have you recently done a health check on your network?