Adventures in Knowledge

Facilitating Knowledge Transfer and Retention in the Modern Workplace

I have just returned from making two presentations and participating in the Ark Group conference - "Facilitating Knowledge Transfer and Retention in the Modern Workplace". I made two presentations that are available on Slideshare:

Shift happens: how to share knowledge in a network centric world

Knowledge transitions: using narrative to understand the issues of attracting and retaining volunteers

This certainly was an enjoyable conference with active discussion and participation from attendees. What was encouraging was the discussion being based around people and connection. It seems that as knowledge professionals we have an important role to play in talent attraction and retention - in fact the alignment between HR and knowledge sharing is becoming even more important and valuable to the business. It was encouraging to see communities and collaboration being a key theme of the conference.

What is your conversation strategy?

This is a question that I typically pose to people when discussing what is a relevant frame for Knowledge Management. What I am trying to do is to take out all the complexity and jargon that is sewn into "KM speak" today. The essence I am trying to get to is that we are looking for the context around information that exists in our many "knowledge repositories" in order to distil the knowledge that exists. To do that means that we must connect, and the easiest way to do so is through conversation, be it face to face, phone, teleconference, blog, wiki or any other medium.

I have just finished participating in a three day KM conference for my organisation. It was interesting to see the tension building between a content versus a context focus. Yes it was acknowledged that both were necessary, but the willingness to step up and shift the focus towards connecting our people was fraught with inertia. Comments such as my day job is 100% commited to content - how do you expect me to do more, the organisation politics will not allow us to make a difference in connecting people any day soon, we are like an oil tanker, it will take years not months to shift our focus were not uncommon. I must also admit to being very open and forthright about my views on this which was an attempt to at least polarise the debate. Over a few drinks in the bar I was told that I was on one extreme end of the spectrum i.e. connecting people and others were at the other end with a myopic focus on content and that we needed to end up somewhere in the middle. Whilst I don't disagree, the issue from my perspective is that change is happening so rapidly, that the window of opportunity to get up the learning curve and be innovative is rapidly closing. We need to develop a "safe-fail" not "fail-safe" environment in which we can conduct experiments with our people and see what works in our culture i.e. use of wikis, blogs, social networks etc. What did encourage me though, was the number of people who saw the opportunities to discuss these types of issues as extremely valuable. Feedback was that more informal time for connecting would be useful in future meetings. A number of conversations focusing on this tension between content and context have commenced and I sincerely hope that they will continue now that everyone has gone back to their day jobs.

Well I have now moved onto India for some local KM meetings. I only just got used to the Philadelphia time zone and now I am having to readjust again as I am blogging at 4.30am....

100 Websites you should know and use

Courtesy of TED, here is a link to a list of 100 websites you should know and use. This list has some great sites! If you have not heard of TED, I suggest you take a look. It has an impressive range of presentations on a variety of topics providing much "food for thought". All are engaging and are able to be downloaded onto your Video iPod.

On the Road.....

It's been a little while since my last decent post - life's been rather hectic since KM Australia! I just have been on a whirlwind visit to Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur which has put me out of contact more often than not.

I previously mentioned an ONA project that I was doing for an organisation in China. Since then I have been invited to talk about ONA and how Enterprise 2.0 can be used for collaboration, at their annual conference in September where all senior execs from across the country attend. This certainly continues to validate my belief in organisations becoming more network centric. I will post the presentation on slideshare if I can get permission.

On anther note, I have recently been involved in a Cognitive-Edge project called "The Future of Volunteering" where we are looking to uncover the drivers of people volunteering, the policy implications of such and provide recommendations to government. This is a milestone project in that it will be the first time that the Cognitive Edge tools and processes have been applied to explore an issue of critical public policy. We will be using the Cognitive Edge Sensemaker suite as part of the process. I intend to blog more on this as we get further into the programme of activities. This is a really exciting project to be involved in!

Finally :) I will be speaking at a conference Public Relations Summit 2007 in Melbourne (21/22 August) with the MD of Dow Jones Asia - Bruce Macfarlane. The topic we are talking on is The rise of "Turbo Capitalism" and the impact on decision making. This should be an interesting presentation as it really is focussing on the implications for decison making by changes in the way information and knowledge transfer is occuring today. We are intending to make this more of a discussion between us, and try to involve the audience in the discussion.

Shifts Happen - How Knowledge is Created in the Information Era (repost - links fixed)

Here is a link to a blog entry on my presentation at KM Australia, posted by Ralph Kerle at the Creative Leadership Forum titled Shifts Happen - How Knowledge is created in the Information Era.

Thanks for the feedback Ralph!

A shift to new ways of thinking in Knowledge Management

Ross Dawson has a recent blog entry Knowledge Management shifts to new ways of thinking where he makes the case that:

“Organisations have been trying to find ways to make knowledge management more productive, but a lot of problems have stood in the way,” says Ross Dawson, chairman of Future Exploration Network. “But we have now moved into a new phase of emerging technologies.”

Dawson likes to refer to this organisational shift as Enterprise 2.0, where the tools and approaches of Web 2.0 are now captured inside the enterprise. “It’s about getting group input to create an emergent response, getting many people to create input,” says Dawson. “You can click input, tag input and rate input and as you get more input on creating outcomes, emergent results occur. Things get better the more people that use them.”

I think the point Ross makes about emergent outcomes cannot be underestimated, as this is really a fundamental aspect of the network centric world we are moving into. However, it does require the mindset shift to thinking about Enterprise 2.0 application in the business. I have seen examples of organisations who don't "get it" trying to retrospectively fit  / build Web 2.0 applications into content portals with the aim of generating more content in a very structured environment. This kind of effort will burn lots of cash and effort, with little return - return being uptake / participation from employees. Indeed, why would one spend time / effort  in connecting with others if they cannot determine the reasons why they want to do so, and customise their network to reflect their identity. Part of this comes down to a reluctance to losen the "command and control" ties and acknowledge that networks are inherently messy. A better approach would be to provide the tools that allow people to connect, and then get out of the way! If content is the ultimate objective, then this will follow as people network and collaborate.

KM Australia

I have been at KM Australia for the last couple of days, where I presented -  Coming to the Edge: A practitioners perspective on the future of knowledge in a networked world. Overall, the feedback on this was good with a number of people coming up to talk at the coffee break. It was nice to hear others echoing the theme of a networked world, and there does seem to be a convergence of opinion on the importance of people in knowledge sharing. A lot of the presentations had this as one of their key messages. The event was attended by 200+ people with a great idea called the "KM Arena" which was a meeting place where people could network and talk to presenters and keynote speakers. An interesting trend some people not attending presentations by vendors - a common complaint being that they were keen to sell their wares more than engaging in an active conversation on knowledge sharing - this is a generalisation I know, but a theme which I did observe and hear.

Coming to the Edge: The future of knowledge in a network centric world (part 2)

This is a continuation of Part 1 (Warning - LONG post).

So what has all of this got to do with knowledge? Well we are seeing a change in perspective around knowledge from one of a content centric focus on Intellectual Capital, to one where social capital will be the currency. It will be about who we know and what we will do for each other. In essence, we are seeing shift to people being central to how knowledge moves through the organisation.

To define social capital, I refer to a recent thought leadership publication by Deloitte called Its 2008: Do you know where your Talent is? Connecting People to What Matters Here the author Robin Athey provides a very apt definition of social capital. In my mind it has some clear reference points:

- value people produce when working together
- people building trust
- a shared understanding
- willingness to co-operate
- producing something greater than the sum of their parts

To me this personifies what we should strive for in the sharing of knowledge. However, one cannot underestimate what this means for an organisation - implicit in social capital is the culture which is willing to work in this way, or the the change programme required to shift an organisation's way of thinking.

When I started to think about what this shift in knowledge away from a content based approach to a strong focus on people driving knowledge sharing, I put together a framework to help me make sense of where this is going.

Framework built on two axis:

•- Type of Knowledge: Explicit to Tacit (Vertical Axis)

•- Ways of working: Transaction based to Relationship based (Horizontal axis)

This framework can be divided into four quadrants, with each quadrant describing a categorisation based upon the relationship between knowledge type and the ways people would create/use that knowledge. There is no right or wrong as to where specific groups are located on the matrix, but it does allow one to see the current positioning of organisations today, and where they directionally would like to get to. By understanding where the focus is today, one is able to define how much effort and an approach to move up the value curve and change quadrants.

Four quadrants:

- Explicit knowledge and process based work = commoditisation – dealing with information and relatively low value in return to the business

- Explicit knowledge and relationship based = standardisation – still dealing with information, but packaging it in ways that have value to staff

These quadrants are knowledge foundations and are the space where a significant number of portal systems operate in. The cost of operating in these quadrants is relatively high and the value to the business incremental in return

- Tacit knowledge and process based = collaboration – dealing with experience and insight not codified and often not shared in a portal setting, however a structured approach to conversation and connection exists i.e. discussion boards, eRooms, Wikis etc

- Tacit knowledge and relationship based = innovation – connecting people and developing a network approach to business where conversation and communities are the norm. Social networks are leveraged to connect and collaborate in real time

To differentiate the business and have competitive advantage, it is important to look at how the organisation can move up the value curve to collaborate & innovate in knowledge. This is the space which will have increasing importance due changing business dynamics with exposure to Enterprise 2.0

Above all, collaboration and innovation are about knowledge developed by providing a true context to information through connecting people and building networks. Our challenge is to define the roadmap for our organisations that will get us up the value curve in ways which work within the boundaries of our corporate cultures or encompass strategies to shift the culture.

So in effect, there is a shift in focus from:

Content & Collection: The acquisition, organisation and aggregation, storage and dissemination of content under organisation wide taxonomies using cutomised tools and repositories, just in case it might be reuseable

to:
Context & Connection:  Connecting the right people just in-time, canvassing them to gain their knowledge and advice in the context of a specific business problem or pursuit, synthesizing that knowledge and applying it to the issues at hand

We are seeing the use of new Web 2.0 tools facilitating some of this move. Individuals and organisations are now starting to use wikis as a way of collaborating, using blogs as a way of sharing their views on specific topics - passionately! by extensive use of linking, people are connecting to others who share their interests and passion - both inside and outside of the organisation. Social networks applications are being considered by companies as a way of getting staff to develop and build their networks within the organisation.

Once again the biggest challenge is for companies to acknowledge and embrace these changes. If they don't, human nature is to seek out opportunities to connect - if this is not facilitated internally, people will go outside of the organisation to do so. In Facebook for example, there is the ability for anyone to setup their own group - I would not hesitate to wager that there are a lot of groups in place dealing with company issues that should be behind the firewall, but are being dealt with in this social network setting as these types of networks are not being facilitated internally. When I tell partners' in Deloitte where I work that there is a Facebook community of over 13,000 practitioners, they are stunned.

In a nutshell, connection is about people - both virtually and face to face. The role of knowledge becomes one of facilitation, to find the opportunities for people to connect - to seek out the "watercoolers" around which people can connect and hold conversations. Collaboration in a networked world is not one of forcing people into artificially contructed communities or work groups but seeding connections that allow people to gather around an issue or idea that is going to benefit them in getting their job done.

From my experience, getting leadership to see the business from the perspective of a network is challenging, as it does challenge the concept of command and control so well entrenched in business today. However, when they do see their business from the view of a network the mindset shifts and the need / want to support collaboration becomes that much stronger. There are tools that can be used to assist this process such as Organisational Network Analysis.

A case in point is a recent ONA I conducted for a business in China. They were moving into a growth phase and wanted to ensure that the business was structured in a way to cater for accelerated growth. To cut a long story short, the network analysis revealed structural problems in the business between offices, divisions and levels of staff that would act as an inhibitor to growth. The leadership said that they had a gut feel that these issues existed , but now that they were in "black and white", they had to acknowledge them and do something to change. In fact, the network analysis was a catalyst to reevaluate their strategy, and bulding a framework around collaboration has become one of the primary planks of their strategy moving forward.

So, I titled this presentation coming to the edge - not with the belief that we are going to fall over it, but rather on the basis that we are on a journey of change. These are exciting times to be involved in knowledge, but also the most challenging! The complexity of our world and the businesses within which we work are only going to increase and the problems thrown up only going to become more intractible. No longer can we view the world as a linear construct where A will lead to B etc. We need to understand that we are operating within a complex system or network if you like, that is in constant motion. We can only attempt to make sense of this today and probe, sense and respond to influence direction rather than ultimate outcomes. It is incumbent upon us to ensure our organisations "get it" so as not to become the dinosaurs of the 21st Century.

In wrapping up, I would like to leave you with the following quote which I believe sums upon knowledge in a networked world.

Coming to the Edge: The future of knowledge in a network centric world

I am presenting at KM Australia in three weeks time, and am in the process of putting my presentation together. I thought that over several posts, I would share my thinking and if anyone wants to provide feedback - Awesome! Just a warning - this is a LONG post!!

I have named my presentation "Coming to the Edge: A practitioners perspective on the future of knowledge in a network centric world"

Why coming to the edge? Because as I have posted previously, I believe that there are fundamental changes happening today in the way we interact that are flying below the radar, but will in the coming years manifest themselves in fundamental changes to the way we do business. These changes are all occuring at once - business, communications, culture, demography, economics, education etc and are leading to a networked world, where business sustainability will be based upon different fundamentals than exist today, and you guessed it - knowledge has a key role to play!

Did you Know?

In order to get people thinking outside the square, I will play a clip called "Did you know?" by Karl Fisch which will set the scene for fundamental change. On the back of this I will lead into explaining this change and how knowledge has a role to play.

The World is Flat

The first perspective is the global shift that has happened as per what Thomas Friedman in the World is Flat  - A Short History of the 21st Century terms Globalisation 1.0, 2.0, 3.0. The key to this is that we are in the era of People being empowered and competitive - not organisations 

Drivers of a Networked World

 

We are living in a time when the basic forces of human endeavour – business, communications, culture, demography, economics, education, law, politics, science, technology and others, are all recalibrating at once, shaping a different world before our eyes. It doesn‘t look that different yet, but give it a few more years and we won‘t recognise it.

We also must look at the networked world as a sustainable system – business is evolutionary and dynamic. Examining the notion of sustainablilty in business requires new ways of thinking about systems and communities. Improving sustainability in business must take into account the interconnections and interdependencies of the economic, social, environmental, and technology systems that exist today.  Sustainability in a networked world is not about maintaining the status quo or pushing specific agendas. It is a process of understanding change, influencing its direction and knowing when and how to respond. Being sustainable in business is about being prepared for the future and how to work within networks.

There are four main drivers of this change to a networked world, namely Web 2.0, the rise of the participation culture, changing economic models and shifts in society back towards community.

Evolving: Web 2.0

This slide will show the range of Web 2.0 tools that are now in the marketplace. These tools are able to facilitate conversation and connection. The key point is that they are facilitators of connection, and are not huge, structured technology implementations. The individual provides the context for their use and drive connecting and development of networks.

The key issue to be aware of with these tools, is that a large number of senior management have no understanding of what they are, their use and potential impact upon the business. There is a need for  education and awareness raising required to ensure that they can see the opportunity cost of not embracing these tools today. Indeed in my business this has been the case - often if there is awareness of these tools, the view has been that these are for kids and not relevant to the business. I have shown, that our people are actively using these tools - in Facebook, Deloitte has an active community of over 10,000 people - the same holds true of My Space. The challenge I have put forward, is do we embrace community building behind the firewall and stengthed networks and connections, or play a game of ostrich which can only lead to dilution of the value our people can provide clients.

The rise of the participation culture

The current generation of people coming into the workforce today – the net generation, are the first that do not remember a time when there was not an internet, or the ability to participate in online communities.

This generation is fundamentally different to Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y. This is the user generated content generation – or Gen C.

Some of the characteristics of Gen C are that they are very self centred – looking after themselves is a high priority. Most will on average stay with one employer for two years. They do not like working in a hierarchical environment, preferring a flat structure and a team based approach to management. This generation intuitively know how to network – they actively do this outside of work, spending more time surfing the net, interacting and building community through social network sites, sharing MP3’s through peer sharing, involving themselves in multiplayer online games whilst reading a magazine. This generation know what they want, and will use their network to get it.

The Net Generation are putting pressure on companies to change behaviours in the workplace - they are demanding answers to questions such as Corporate Social Responsibility, Plans for reducing carbon footprints, Policy on extended leave to travel, Work-Life balance to name but a few. With the war for talent in full swing, it is encumbent on organisations to listen to these wants and adapt or risk losing out on access to the top end of the talent pool. The impact this generation will have was recently brought home to me

The Economics of Change

With the advent of Web 2.0 and the rise of the participation culture, we are also seeing a shift in the business models that are beginning to permeat the marketplace. Companies which have understood that hierachy, silos and command and control strucutres are deficits to adding value have endeavoured to become transparent both to staff and clients, reaching outside of traditional walls to harness external knowledge, resources and capabilities. They are looking at ways of peering with other companies where there is a mutual benefit, engaging in conversation with their customers to co-develop products, the community to tap into ideas that lead to new and innovative solutions and acting globally.

Some examples

Proctor & Gamble - Innocentive

P&G realised that whilst it had 9,000 really great scientists, the speed to discover new formulations and molecules would not be sufficient maintain a lead in innnovation and demands for growth. Relying on internal resources would not be enough. P&G estimated that for everyone of their scientists in house, there would be approximately another 200 outside who were just as good. That meant that there could be a pool of over 1.8 million scientists who might be able to meet some of their R&D needs. To this end, P&G have tapped into Innocentive where cash rewards are offered to scientists who come up with solutions for some of their R&D needs. This has meant that P&G are able to stay ahead in innovation, be faster to market and engage a significantly larger pool of talent. Internally, R&D is no longer used as the terminology - instead C&D (Connect and Develop) is used.

Goldcorp Challenge

Goldcorp are a Toronto based gold mining company that was about to collapse under debt and inefficiencies of production. They were being unable to locate gold veins within their holdings. The CEO Rob McEwen decided that he needed to do soemthin differently as his geologists were unable to locate the gold veins. What he did was to publish all his data on the geology of his property on the web, with a challenge to people to come up with gold estimates, location and methods of extraction. On offer was a prize pool of $575,000. The challenge was a great success, with over 1,000 submissions from over 50 countries. The result was the locating of over $2billion worth of gold and a stratospheric rise in the share price - not a bad return on a $575,000 investment

The Long Tail

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-target goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

One example of this is the theory's prediction that demand for products not available in traditional bricks and mortar stores is potentially as big as for those that are. But the same is true for video not available on broadcast TV on any given day, and songs not played on radio. In other words, the potential aggregate size of the many small markets in goods that don't individually sell well enough for traditional retail and broadcast distribution may rival that of the existing large market in goods that do cross that economic bar.

Social Change

Whilst the evidence is anecdotal, we are seeing the pendulum shift back to an awareness of the importance of community and the impact of community based networks in influencing government, impact on the environment and social reform for those less privileged.

For example:

Increased awareness of climate change - we have seen in Australia the impact of drought and water shortage influencing community behaviours and approaches to environmental conservation. This has increasingly entered the political arena with the upcoming federal election in Australia and both the Liberal and Labour parties vying for the popular vote with policy on climate change.

Media focus on social issues such as the impact of workplace reform legistlation on family and community. The focus of media generated debate on social issues through programmes such as "Insight". The increase in debate on whether tax relief is more important than education, health and community projects such as indigenous health.

There are a growing number of community, not for profit groups endeavouring to catalyse individuals to lead social change initiatives such as Social Ventures Australia, Project Australia, GlobalMindShift to name but a few.

We are seeing corporate Australia begin to view corporate social responsibility as a strategy - not a cost. Moreover, CSR is not being seen as something to throw dollars at, but a way to involve their workforce in participating in the community

In essence, these are all indicators of the desire of people to renew/develop connections,start conversations and build community networks

These four drivers are fundamentally driving the shift towards a networked world. This is not talking about a world lead by technology, but by people connecting and collaborating to achieve their needs. It is about people finding the water coolers to interact, develop context and feel empowered to solve problems.

so I know that you are now asking, what does this have to do with knowledge.....

End of part one

Did you know?

You would have seen from some of my previous posts that I see some fundamental changes in the way knowledge is shared on the horizon, and there are a wide range of factors that are driving the paradigm shifts that are beginning to occur.

I came across this video on You Tube that really encapsulates some of the forces at work and makes one pause for thought. Take a look - it is called "Did you know"