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.

The earliest social network?

I am currently reading a book called Linked by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi. It is a fascinating look at an area in which I have an intense interest - the development of networks. One of the anecdotes Barabasi uses is his pointing arguably one of the earliest social networks:

Early Christians were a renegade Jewish sect that were persecuted by both Jewish and Roman authorities with a reach that should have by all intents and purposes been bound to the scope of Judaism. In a time where news and ideas traveled by foot, distances were long and society was very fragmented, Christianity would it seem doomed to oblivion. So how despite all the odds do approximately 2 billion people call themselves Christians today?

Many credit the rise of Christianity due to the message offered by Jesus of Nazareth - his message was "sticky" - resonating and passing down the generations whilst other religions faded away. However, it has been pointed out that the success of Christianity arguably could be credited to an orthodox and pious Jew who never met Jesus. His Hebrew name was Saul, but was more commonly known to us by his Roman name, Paul. Paul's life was to curb Christianity. He traveled from community to community persecuting Christians because they put Jesus condemned as a blasphemer on the same level as God. He used every means at his disposal to uphold the traditions and force these people to adhere to Jewish law. However, historical records have shown that Paul went through a sudden conversion in the year 34 and became a fierce supporter of the new faith, making it possible for a small Jewish sect to become the dominant religion in the Western world.

Paul's success was due to his understanding that the message had to spread, so using his firsthand knowledge of the social network of the first century's civilised world from Rome to Jerusalem, he set out to reach and convert as many people as he could. He walked nearly 10,000 miles in the next 12 years of his life. However, he did not walk randomly, he reached out to places which held the biggest communities of his era, to the places where faith could germinate and spread more effectively. He was the first and by far the most effective salesperson of Christianity, using theology and social networks equally effectively. In effect he was a bridge builder between Christian communities and a master of first century social and religious links - the only network at the beginning of the modern era that could carry and spread a faith.

One could start to ask if this was a small world network.

Face your fears

I just came across this article Facing your fear of Facebook which premises the argument that to really understand Facebook or Social Networking sites you need to actively participate in them. The one quote which stands out is:

"We are digital immigrants. Our kids and perhaps many of the people we're now hiring are digital natives. We need to get over the "them vs. us" mentality. Bottom line: Digital immigrants will never be as fluent as natives, but that doesn't mean, as immigrants, it's OK to pretend we don't live in a new world."

I have blogged about previously in the Rise of the Participation culture and how if we don't "get it" we will not be able to attract the best talent to our organisations. To "get it" means not only understanding new ways of connecting, but participating in them, giving blogs, wikis, RSS, Social Networks etc a go. The cost is only time - the reward is an enlightened view. You might not necessarily want to use these tools to connect, but at least you will have an informed viewpoint and a right to participate in the conversation. I know I am preaching to the converted here, but I am sure there are people in your organisation who have no idea - can I suggest that instead of explaining how this all fits together, take them on a real journey of experiencing connection through these tools. I can guarantee that they will start to "get it" in a more meaningful way.

Give staff Facebook or risk losing them

Ross Dawson in his blog "Trends in the Living Network" pointed out this article in the Daily Telegraph (Australia) titled Give Staff Facebook or risk losing them about construction company John Holland initially withdrawing Facebook access to its staff, but several weeks later reinstating it due to fears that it would lead to talent not wanting to work in the company.

I have been alluding to this for a while in my views on the Rise of the Participation Culture and my previous post Gen Y and Beyond. I would take this one step further and say that it is not only applicable to social network sites, but all Web 2.0 applications that this generation use to connect and network. The war for talent is such that this does become a business issue and not a "nice to have". It also raises the question - would you not prefer to have your people participating in Web 2.0 apps to connect in a supportive environment behind the firewall, or risk the fact that it is human nature to find ways of connecting anyway - these will be the apps which have been restricted inside the company being used outside the company for business purposes anyway.

Interesting who you meet - on a plane

I am always amazed by the interesting people you meet on planes. On the Sydney to Auckland leg of my current trip, I struck up a conversation with "Bob from Austin". Bob has retired and is spending his time seeing the world. A quiet spoken gentleman, but one with a wealth of knowledge and insight. We spent three hours talking about the world, how complex it is getting and about my view of a networked world. Bob certainly was well read and indeed versed in Web 2.0. What I found rewarding from this conversation was to see a gentleman who had seen major change in his lifetime able to provide perspectives I had not considered and indeed add new trains of thought to my thinking. One "gem" that I picked up was in our discussion about narrative and story telling. Bob is greatly concerned about the the use of narrative by the media as a thinly veiled way to project the opinion of certain interest groups. He rightly pointed out that narrative is only as good as the experiences being shared. Many people are more willing to provide their opinion rather than tell a story about an experience which will significantly skew interpretation.

Well three hours certainly flew by (pardon the pun). I am looking forward to seeing if there are any other interesting characters to be met in my travels - I will let you know!

Social Network for 8 year olds?

ON the weekend, my 8 year old, was telling me about the fun he was having on "Mathletics" - a website that kids can go on to improve their grasp of Maths in a fun way. They get points for winning competitions against the computer for different types of math exercises, which they can then use to buy different cloths and accessories for their character.

The first thing that struck me was the character Nathan had put together was intriguing to say the least - cool clothes, sunglasses, hair colour etc - it gave quite an insight into the mind of a modern day 8 year old! The second thing which amazed me was the way the site has been constructed to allow the kids to play against each other in live competitions. My 8 year old had a phone call from one of his friends asking if he wanted to play him live online. They both went onto the Mathletics site and competed in different types of math games against each other, and other kids as well. This live online competition apparently has taken off at his school - the latest question is  - are you are playing Mathletics Live? If you are, it is "cool".

So are we seeing the start of social networks at this age? and the use of avatars? The mind boggles as to what they will call this generation when they reach the workforce......

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.

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.