Knowledge Management as an ecosystem

How to make sense in the workplace by transforming the enterprise into a conversation

network

John Tropea – March 2008http://libraryclips.blogsome.com

Overview• Main Issues• The workers perspective• Why is this happening• Result• Solution• Why is this important anyway?• Even more issues…• The new KM• The nature of knowledge• KM 2.0 is social computing• Autonomy• Next• Appendix

Main Issues1. Collaboration and Communications

– Documents• Versions/Attachments/Track Changes

– Email• Conversations (closed/silo)• Communication (“Didn’t you get that email”)• Overload/Broadcast (push vs pull)

2. Hierarchy• Limited connections• Decision-making power

3. Finding Information and People (Experts)– Search– Silos

4. Getting Things Done– Rigid tools– Email is the workaround

• Ease of use/free-form (but not good enough or open enough)

The workers perspective“The way organizations adapt, survive and be productive is through the social interaction that happens outside the lines that we draw by hierarchy, process and organizational structure. The first form of social software to really take off to facilitate these discussions was email”

“Most employees don't spend their time executing business process. That's a myth. They spend most of their time handling exceptions to business process. That's what they're doing in their [e-mail] inbox for four hours a day. Email has become the great exception handler.”

“Unfortunately, what it means is all the learning disappears because it's hidden away in people's inbox. It's not searchable and discoverable “

“So at the edge of your organization, there are all kinds of exceptions that are happening. If you handle them appropriately, you can adapt to where the market is going. You can adapt to the problems you have in your existing structures“

“…the greatest source of sustainable innovation is how you're handling these exceptions to business process. “

Ross Mayfieldhttp://snipr.com/rssm_email_process

Why is this happening?• KM has not been fluid enough

– Findability/Info exchange

• Tacit - Codify & Store– Conscription/mandated– Rigid tools (Tech-centric)– Hard to incorporate in daily

work (low participation)– Findability issues

• Hierarchy (Command & Control)

– Not keeping all in touch (in the know)

– Relies on Vertical decision-making and micro-managing

• Rather than local specialists

• Rather than autonomy

• Sharing feels like a task– What’s in it for me?– I’m too busy– Not chargeable work– Power– Trust

Result• Loss in innovation/opportunity

• Loss in work morale (frustration)

• Loss in productivity

• Cost $

Solution – Enterprise Conversation Market

• Wisdom of Crowds BOOK - James Surowiecki

– None of Us Is Smarter than All of Us• Companies vs Market

– Expectations vs Autonomous flow (Collective Intelligence)• Companies pay people to perform on an expectations (target) model

– Hiding information may happen• Markets pay people on what they do

– Don’t make more money if you exceed expectations• Markets have “incentive” to seek valuable information (eg. Buyer behaviour)

– When acted upon, it becomes public knowledge• Companies need to work in this incentive model

– The more a worker contributes the more they are recognised and the more prosperous job (money)…information goes back up the value chain

– This is a new incentive model for what a worker does• Aggregation/Network Effects/Emergence

– The worker need only worry about personal benefit– Others can benefit from public aggregation of information– Social Capital is leveraged

Why is this important anyway?

• Knowledge Economy– The new competitive advantage

• Effectiveness, rather than Efficiency• Seek and act on information

– Big and Agile MOTOROLA – Toby Redshaw

• Everyone has: People, Assets, Cash• Knowledge (flow) is the differentiator

– World is Flat BOOK – Thomas Friedman

• Outsource/Offshore/Supply Chain• Innovation is the edge of difference

• Need to Decentralise– Local specialist decisions (rather than micro-manage)

• Better worker performance• Autonomy

– Horizontal value chain (rather than Vertical)• connect/converse/network/transparency

Even more issues…5. Baby boomers (and new people getting up to speed)

6. Millennial Generation– Expectations (Different perspective on work)

7. IT Rogues– Security vs. Productivity

8. Keeping up with the Jones’s– Enterprise 2.0 is in vogue

9. Working remotely (Flattening of the world)– Global virtual teams– Work from home lifestyle– Distant learning– Carbon footprint

10.Re-inventing the wheel

The new KM• Participation culture

– Flatten participation barriers• Social computing

– Participating– Networking– Initiated by the people (but they don’t call it KM)

• Knowledge Flow rather than manage– Publish/Subscribe model– Increase interactions (get knowledge moving)– Communities/Networks– Come to me web– Contextual in time of need (just in time)– Create “conditions” for knowledge rather than “manage”

• Connect and Context vs Content and Collect– Knowledge/Findability via people (Trusted social filter)– Emergence/Autonomy

The new KM• Distributed (bottom-up) vs Command and Control (top-down)

– Power of many vs a few (wisdom of crowds)– Visibility and Opportunity (everyone is a potential innovator)– Social Capital (a culture change in working)

• Unstructured free-form tools– Easier to collaborate– Easier to get things done

• “A way to work” rather than a task– Not trying to create a knowledge sharing culture, it just happens

• Sense-making– How do I make sense in the enterprise so I can act in it

• Aim Dave Snowden

– Improve decision making– Conditions for innovation

The nature of Knowledge

Need to understand the organics of knowledge• more naturally favourable to flow model rather than

a content management model

• Heuristics Dave Snowden

1. Knowledge can only be volunteered, it can never be conscripted• You can’t make someone use or share knowledge if they don’t

want to

2. We only know what we know when we need to know it• Knowledge is highly contextual and is recalled in context

3. We always know more then we can tell and we will always tell more than we can write down• Some things can only be known through experience

The nature of Knowledge• If people need knowledge in the “context” of a real

need it will always be shared• People don’t share knowledge in the anticipation

that you need it– Asking people to store away knowledge on the basis of

future needs• Types of tacit knowledge Shawn Callahan http://snipr.com/anec_cop

– Stuff people understand, but take for granted– Stuff nobody understands– Stuff that is hard to explain or articulate (even if you

understand it)

• Not outcomes based (more about learning)– elicit/nurture/hang-out/participate/cultivate

KM 2.0 is social computing• Wikis

– Collaboration• Relieve email

– Shared space• Work-arounds / side notes• Replaces the shared notebook in the top draw• Documentation• Meeting Agenda• Events• Intranet• Topic pages

– A gateway to gems in the DMS

– Sense of Place• Compared to a DMS

KM 2.0 is social computing• Blogs

– Sense of Place• Become known as an expert in topic area (speak to the author)• Notifications to gems in the DMS• More captivating than a folder with documents

– Easy to submit• Unstructured/free-form

– Comments• Discuss/Nurture/Evolve/Cultivate (in context of knowledge holder)

– Casual/spontaneous/editorial– Work in progress (rather then just a finished report)

• Gems/Fragments/Anecdotes/Thoughts/Ideas/Experience/News/Project status• Not a formal report

– Instead captures experience “as it happens”– Peripheral content (stuff you don’t read in a report)

– Subscribe model (pull model)• Trusted social filter (people, not objects)• We are each others daily news

– Educate/Learn via the social capital– No longer need to anticipate needs

– Centralised (archived)• Searchable database• Other disciplines may come across valuable content• New comers get up to speed

KM 2.0 is social computing

• Social Networks– Profile page– Add people (subscribe)– Private/public messages– Blog may live here– Communities– Expert locator (people tags)

• Ask questions

– Bookmarks are public (link blogging)– Presence/Status (micro-blogging)

• Increases bumping into someone in the coffee room by infinity– Serendipity– Recommendations– It’s not in the nodes, but in the network

KM 2.0 is social computing

• Informal networks (person-centric)– Enables to tune into a knowledge flow– People you trust– High abstraction (similar wavelength)– Everyone can be heard, have impact (transparency)– Strength of weak ties

• Cut across the hierarchy

– Network Effects (aggregation)– Emergence (patterns)

• Tag clouds

– There is no KM, we just work in a social way– Role of facilitator

Networks – strength of weak ties• “When an employee is faced with a complex, ambiguous, and uncertain

problem and she doesn’t have enough information or other resources to solve it on her own, how does she find and marshal what she needs? She may search through her network, either the hierarchy or her informal social network.Using the hierarchy, she might just ask her manager (moving up) or her colleagues (laterally) or subordinates (down). Then her manager or her subordinates or her colleagues might get involved, navigating their relationships on the hierarchy. This can become time and communications-intensive, because the person or people who can solve the problem might be far away if all you can use is the organizational hierarchy.

• An informal social network includes ties that cut across the formal hierarchy and thus offer shortcut information finding and problem solving. If the employee has a way of searching across these ties, she might be more successful in a shorter time.”

Anne Truitt Zelenka http://snipr.com/anne_ties

Autonomy

• “We need to make people less dependent upon email and sequential task processing and instead cultivate more autonomous behaviours, where individuals use their social networks to filter useful information and then carve out the time and the space in which to collaborate around actionable information and signals.”Lee Bryant http://snipr.com/lee_auto

Next• Web 2.0 tools are easier• But it’s about culture change

– leveraging on social capital/collaboration– Change management

• Vendors (low cost/open source)• Buy-in• Barriers/Concerns• Deploy • Adoption• Gardening• ROI

APPENDIX 1 - Statistics• Email SOURCE : Via OpenText [AIIM, Gartner, Forrester, Lyman]

– 60 billion emails per day in 2006– 75% of all digital knowledge in email– I day of email = 6 Googles per day (6 x 100 terabytes)

• Productivity SOURCE : Accenture Jan 2007 http://snipr.com/accenture_search

– Middle managers spend more than ¼ of their time searching for information, and when they do find it, it’s often wrong

• 2 hours a day searching• 50% of no value

– 60% say due to poor distribution, they miss valuable information that exists, but they can’t find

APPENDIX 2 - Statistics• Participation culture SOURCE – Reuters Oct 2007 http://snipr.com/reuters_ms_fb

– MySpace 110 Million users– Facebook 47 Million users

• USA teens SOURCE - Pew Internet & American Life Project Dec 2007 http://snipr.com/pew_teens

– 93% of teens use the Internet– 64% 12-17 year olds engaged in social media content creation

• Baby boomers SOURCE – Via The Business Case for Lotus Connections http://snipr.com/ibm_babyb

– 19% of executive, admin and managerial American's will retire in 5 years

– Next 7 years 26% of Japan will be over 65– 2016 people aged 60-64 in Australia will double

APPENDIX 3 - Statistics• Millennials SOURCE – Business Week Aug 2007 http://snipr.com/bweek_mill

– 81% 13-17 year olds have already thought about work/life balance– 55% expect to use IM in the enterprise– 87% are members of online communities– 1/3 have blogs

• Millennials SOURCE – Via Confused of Calcutta Dec 2007 http://snipr.com/calcutta_mill

– 28% teens use IM– 21% teens use Social Networks (42% of these blog)– 14% teens use email– Ranked ways to communicate

• Landline, Cell Phone, Face to Face, IM, SMS, Social Networks, Email

• IT Rogues SOURCE – IT Business Edge Aug 2007 http://snipr.com/itbuse_itrogues

– 86% of employees use consumer tools– 53% say they are more productive

APPENDIX 3 - Statistics

• Enterprise SOURCE – Via FastForward Mar 2007 [Economist Intelligence Unit] http://snipr.com/ff_eiu

– 80% executives view KM 2.0 as an opportunity to increase company revenue/margins

• Enterprise SOURCE – Via IBM Dec 2006 [Gartner] http://snipr.com/gart_adopt

– Thirty percent of enterprises will openly sponsor internal . . . social sharing spaces to help employees find others with similar interest, skills, backgrounds and experiences.

• Enterprise SOURCE – Roughtype Mar 2007 [Forrester] http://snipr.com/rough_adopt

– 89% of CIO’s have adopted social software

APPENDIX 4 - Statistics

• Prediction SOURCE – ZDnet Jan 2008 [Forrester] http://snipr.com/forr_adopt

– 42% not on agenda– 32% not a priority– Bit weird when they say “Web 2.0 will be a 2008 priority”

• Vendor survey SOURCE – Awareness Feb 2008 http://snipr.com/aware_adopt

– 74% of companies with under 500 people use web 2.0– 54% of companies with over 500 people use web 2.0

• IBM survey SOURCE – he Business Case for Lotus Connections Jun 2007 http://snipr.com/ibm_babyb

– 75% of CEO’s value collaboration as important for innovation

• Employee’s were considered a top source