The Top Three Social Technologies for Developing Organizational Strategy

Ron Aspe, CEO

In a June 2016 article titled The Evolution of Social Technologies, McKinsey & Company reported that the use of social technologies has evolved to include their use as tools for developing Organizational Strategy. Knowledge management (KM) professionals and librarians need to recognize this represents an opportunity for them to contribute to organizational success at the highest level.

“Since the dawn of the social-technology era, executives have recognized the potential of blogs, wikis, and social networks to strengthen lines of company communication and collaboration, and to invigorate knowledge sharing. Many leaders have understood that by harnessing the creativity and capabilities of internal and external stakeholders, they can boost organizational effectiveness and potentially improve strategic direction setting.“

The Tools of Choice: Social Networks, Wikis and Video Sharing

About ten years ago, organizations experimented with using Facebook and YouTube to interact with target audiences for purposes such as attracting new customers, garnering votes, or influencing societal behavior. Five years later, organizations started adopting tools like Yammer to encourage collaboration, gather insights, or manage knowledge more effectively. McKinsey reports that today, many organizations have appropriated social networks, wikis and videos for developing strategy.

The Opportunity for Knowledge Professionals

By directly delivering content via these social technology platforms, knowledge managers can contribute to the strategic planning process. Admittedly, Yammer, wikis or videos are not true knowledge management platforms. Instead, consider these as destinations to which curated and updated content must be directed.

Take the Initiative

Don’t wait to be asked to join a conversation or provide content. Instead, find out what is trending in your organization and start doing what you do best: sourcing and delivering timely, relevant content to people who need it.

KM and Library professionals often make the mistake of thinking that what they do is either misunderstood or blatantly obvious. The truth is, most people don’t understand our profession. Historically, everyone understood libraries as destinations, as knowledge repositories - so they knew where to go when they needed help. These days, knowledge professionals need to go where end users are.

Save People the Effort of Searching

One of Lucidea’s clients makes a point of delivering, without being prompted, a portfolio of briefing documents to key meetings taking place within the organization. Now, with social technology, we can a) determine what people are interested in before the meeting is called, and b) deliver the information without being asked.

Most people don’t want to do research; they want the result. With social technology, KM professionals can monitor organizational information needs in “real time.” In addition, they’ll know who needs what.

Just-in-Time Knowledge Services

A key component of modern manufacturing processes is the sharing of information between suppliers. The leanest companies don’t place orders to their suppliers. They require their suppliers to anticipate their needs, and facilitate this by allowing them to monitor supply levels.

Using social technology, KM professionals can monitor knowledge demand - and deliver in advance. Senior management is using social networks, wikis and video sharing to develop organizational strategy. They’re doing this because it helps them engage with their employees, disseminate knowledge and communicate ideas. Shouldn’t you do the same? At the very least, the people you work with would begin to understand what you do.

Last But Not Least

Should you embark on a similar strategy, be sure to brand everything you contribute. For example, put your logo on every page and include the equivalent of a “Google Ad” link the reader can click to request more information. Consider using a watermark too, if you find your material is not being given the attribution it deserves. Great content and services deserve good visibility and marketing.

The (KM) Elephant in the Room, by Ron Aspe

KM encompasses such a broad range of meanings that everyone has a different definition. It’s rather like an elephant - one person holding onto the trunk says knowledge management is about enhanced document retrieval software; another holding the tail claims it’s a searchable repository for technical support calls. And there’s a lot to cover in between!

Too broad a definition of knowledge management can mean too many choices when it comes to selecting a KM system. You have to describe the elephant.

If you are trying to acquire KM technology, it is absolutely critical that you precisely define what your organization means by “KM.” Wikipedia’s definition is a good starting point as you try to develop the questions that need to be asked:
“KM is the process of capturing, developing, sharing and effectively using organizational knowledge.”

Capturing
In your organization, does capturing mean simply storing knowledge or does it require gathering it as well? Storage is pretty simple – similar to putting carrots into a fridge - and finding software for that is like shopping for a fridge. You’ll know what you want when you see it.

Gathering knowledge, however, is a complex process more akin to growing carrots. Seasoned KM practitioners will tell you that creating a “culture of contribution” in your garden of organizational knowledge is an extremely challenging mix of engineering, values, culture and reward systems. Great technology alone will not carry the day. You’ll need a partner who will help you build a knowledge sharing ecosystem.
Developing

Knowledge in most organizations is a by-product of work. People generally learn by doing. If there is a significant research aspect to your organization’s activities, it should be pretty straightforward to tap into it. It’s critical that people are motivated to contribute (and rewarded for doing so) if they must do it proactively. Alternatively, hook your KM application into the tools used daily by your co-workers, and it becomes possible to surface a lot of interesting knowledge and expertise. This latter approach is technically more difficult, but side-steps some of the challenges of getting people to contribute to the knowledge base.

Sharing
Technology makes it relatively easy to share information. Organizing your content by subject area, source, author and audience can make the experience of looking for it faster and more intuitive.

If you do run into a problem with sharing, it is probably not the technology, but is likely related to organizational culture, and a lack of incentives for individuals to contribute their knowledge. People will throw up millions of false objections, such as “it takes too long,” “the application doesn’t work,” “I can’t remember my log-in credentials,” etc. Nine times out of ten, though, it comes down to values.

Effective Use
If your KM system’s user interface is inviting and it is chock full of valuable content, your most important task will be to promote its existence. Too often, your intended audience simply doesn’t know what is available. So promote shamelessly. The more people use it, the more usage will increase.

If we don’t first describe and understand the elephant, it is easy to see how challenging it can be to feed it, make friends with it, choose the right tools to take care of it, and get people comfortable with the fact that it’s in the room. The benefit? It will never forget your most important institutional knowledge!

Source
http://blog.lucidea.com/the-km-elephant-in-the-room?utm_campaign=Blog%20posts&utm_content=Blog&utm_source=email&utm_source=Lucidea+News+and+Information&utm_campaign=7639883781-Blog_Post&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_37c4aa398c-7639883781-349329929