Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Saturday, July 16, 2016
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.
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Building the next generation of Knowledge Management by Jose Carlos Tenorio Favero
This is a blog which appeared in October 2013
The time they spend online is greater than years before. For example, watching online video is a daily routine. In a recent investigation published by YuMe, 49% of respondents said that they watch online video daily, with 7 hours being the mean time spent per week. Short-form content is far more attractive and eligible for attention grasp. 70% of respondents said that they watch program clips that are shorter than 5 minutes in length. This means that we have to start thinking in terms of “knowledge nuggets” rather that packing large scale content in documents, pdf files, presentations and other type of materials. Gen Y is a natural information seeker and multi-task. They won´t spend too much time from one content to other so we have to provide them with information that is synthesized so they can spend more time looking for alternative options. Just think how this could affect lessons learned and other form of knowledge capture and dissemination.
Even the new gadgets like smartphones and tablets are creating new instances for knowledge generation, acquisition and transfer. The proliferation of the app market has allowed diverse publishers to design and produce apps that not only fulfill entertainment purposes. There are apps such as Notegraphy that facilitates text writing in order to share thoughts in a different and efficient manner. Each member has a personalized page called “room” where they can display and share their text with other members. There are even apps such as Lumosity that help stimulate overall brain performance so that we can grasp new information in a better way. Also we can find other apps that facilitate learning a new language, technique or even improving reading skills.
Ted Schadler stated in a recent Forrester report that 29% of the global workforce is characterized as “anytime, anywhere, information workers-those who use three or more devices, work from multiple locations, and use many apps”. Schadler also states that gadgets such as tablets will continue to invade our work and home space and by 2017 the number of tablets available will triple to 905 million.
Sometimes we tend to misjudge technology and tend to criticize it for slaving us to certain routines. For example, kids watching youtube, uploading pictures to instagram and facebook chatting during dinner is just one of them.
However, workspace collaboration is also being redefined by most of these elements.
Indeed social is embedded in almost everything we do. However, turning to social media might result in a dangerous grapevine unless we can turn conversations and tools into vital learning spaces. In order to be feasible the design must demonstrate the required business performance, and we must measure it in terms of function and behavior. First, we must consider if the tool matches actual learning styles and is not complicated to use. We must take a hard look at the functional and physical attributes of the tool. By physical I mean the layout, features etc. This is important as Gen Y is heavily influenced by many factors including design and colors. If it´s not attractive to them, then they probably won´t feel attached to it. For example, take a look at the following infography “psychology of color” which demonstrates how color may influence certain aspects of our lives.
From the functional side, we need to define performance metrics. It´s pointless to design a social platform unless we understand what needs to be achieved. For example, if we are looking to uncover best practices and lessons learned derived from product development, we need to work on a design that suits those requirements and steer collaboration towards reaching those goals. Previously you need to sit down with the product development department and identify trends, key knowledge that is applied in their process and other issues that may arise during the product life cycle. Once this is done, you can prepare the social platform to address diverse issues related to the critical knowledge previously identified.
A good example of social at work are the “jam sessions” organized by Ernst and Young. For them, Crowdsourcing has become a crucial way to develop new ideas and foster innovation. In 2012, Earnst and Young Transaction Services initiated the use of the IdeaJam platform in order to get workers to collaborate together and develop new design ideas. Basically any worker can suggest an idea and through crowsourcing they are enriched by the feedback and know how of other members.
In order to make it sustainable and promote collaboration they apply the following strategies:
However, the question still remains: are managers willing to go digital? As I stated in anearlier post, the challenge is that senior leaders refuse to go digital. Social isn’t frightening but the concept is still not embedded in their daily routines and they still feel that anything derived from social media is time wasting and a hazardous grapevine which will drive attention away from the business goals. However, I’m happy to read Forrester analyst Reiss-Davis statement on this: “8% of business decision-makers are Spectators (they read blogs, watch videos, or listen to podcasts), 79% are Joiners (they maintain a profile on social networking sites), and 75% are Critics (they comment on blogs and post ratings and reviews), all in the context of their business activities.” This means that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and turning digital might not be too hard.
The important thing is to concentrate on delivering value and in terms of KM, this means that we have to adapt to the new tendencies and learning behaviors imposed by Gen Y in order to strengthen organizational learning. Social will play a crucial role in this.
©Jose Carlos Tenorio Favero
http://kminaction.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/building-the-next-generation-of-knowledge-management/?goback=%2Egde_1539_member_5801822238084714500#%21
The time they spend online is greater than years before. For example, watching online video is a daily routine. In a recent investigation published by YuMe, 49% of respondents said that they watch online video daily, with 7 hours being the mean time spent per week. Short-form content is far more attractive and eligible for attention grasp. 70% of respondents said that they watch program clips that are shorter than 5 minutes in length. This means that we have to start thinking in terms of “knowledge nuggets” rather that packing large scale content in documents, pdf files, presentations and other type of materials. Gen Y is a natural information seeker and multi-task. They won´t spend too much time from one content to other so we have to provide them with information that is synthesized so they can spend more time looking for alternative options. Just think how this could affect lessons learned and other form of knowledge capture and dissemination.
Even the new gadgets like smartphones and tablets are creating new instances for knowledge generation, acquisition and transfer. The proliferation of the app market has allowed diverse publishers to design and produce apps that not only fulfill entertainment purposes. There are apps such as Notegraphy that facilitates text writing in order to share thoughts in a different and efficient manner. Each member has a personalized page called “room” where they can display and share their text with other members. There are even apps such as Lumosity that help stimulate overall brain performance so that we can grasp new information in a better way. Also we can find other apps that facilitate learning a new language, technique or even improving reading skills.
Ted Schadler stated in a recent Forrester report that 29% of the global workforce is characterized as “anytime, anywhere, information workers-those who use three or more devices, work from multiple locations, and use many apps”. Schadler also states that gadgets such as tablets will continue to invade our work and home space and by 2017 the number of tablets available will triple to 905 million.
Sometimes we tend to misjudge technology and tend to criticize it for slaving us to certain routines. For example, kids watching youtube, uploading pictures to instagram and facebook chatting during dinner is just one of them.
However, workspace collaboration is also being redefined by most of these elements.
Indeed social is embedded in almost everything we do. However, turning to social media might result in a dangerous grapevine unless we can turn conversations and tools into vital learning spaces. In order to be feasible the design must demonstrate the required business performance, and we must measure it in terms of function and behavior. First, we must consider if the tool matches actual learning styles and is not complicated to use. We must take a hard look at the functional and physical attributes of the tool. By physical I mean the layout, features etc. This is important as Gen Y is heavily influenced by many factors including design and colors. If it´s not attractive to them, then they probably won´t feel attached to it. For example, take a look at the following infography “psychology of color” which demonstrates how color may influence certain aspects of our lives.
From the functional side, we need to define performance metrics. It´s pointless to design a social platform unless we understand what needs to be achieved. For example, if we are looking to uncover best practices and lessons learned derived from product development, we need to work on a design that suits those requirements and steer collaboration towards reaching those goals. Previously you need to sit down with the product development department and identify trends, key knowledge that is applied in their process and other issues that may arise during the product life cycle. Once this is done, you can prepare the social platform to address diverse issues related to the critical knowledge previously identified.
A good example of social at work are the “jam sessions” organized by Ernst and Young. For them, Crowdsourcing has become a crucial way to develop new ideas and foster innovation. In 2012, Earnst and Young Transaction Services initiated the use of the IdeaJam platform in order to get workers to collaborate together and develop new design ideas. Basically any worker can suggest an idea and through crowsourcing they are enriched by the feedback and know how of other members.
In order to make it sustainable and promote collaboration they apply the following strategies:
- Daily monitoring and contributions by core innovation team (e.g posting new ideas, commenting on ideas)
- Select and announce cycle award recipients
- Mid-cycle communication (reminders)
- Communicate start of cycle; post new guiding questions.
- Select and announce full year award recipients (special recognitions for outstanding contributions)
- Not only can social media empower knowledge but it can help organizations to: Identify critical knowledge and capture across diverse business units; Develop new design ideas through crowdsourcing; Facilitate Lessons Learned capture; Identify Subject Matter
However, the question still remains: are managers willing to go digital? As I stated in anearlier post, the challenge is that senior leaders refuse to go digital. Social isn’t frightening but the concept is still not embedded in their daily routines and they still feel that anything derived from social media is time wasting and a hazardous grapevine which will drive attention away from the business goals. However, I’m happy to read Forrester analyst Reiss-Davis statement on this: “8% of business decision-makers are Spectators (they read blogs, watch videos, or listen to podcasts), 79% are Joiners (they maintain a profile on social networking sites), and 75% are Critics (they comment on blogs and post ratings and reviews), all in the context of their business activities.” This means that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and turning digital might not be too hard.
The important thing is to concentrate on delivering value and in terms of KM, this means that we have to adapt to the new tendencies and learning behaviors imposed by Gen Y in order to strengthen organizational learning. Social will play a crucial role in this.
©Jose Carlos Tenorio Favero
http://kminaction.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/building-the-next-generation-of-knowledge-management/?goback=%2Egde_1539_member_5801822238084714500#%21
KM already exists
Don't be pre-judgmental!
Just because there is no enterprise repository doesn't mean people haven't been creating templates.
Just because nobody has ever heard of an After Action Review doesn't mean people haven't been learning from experience.
Just because there are no communities of practice doesn't mean people haven't been collaborating.
Long story short, know this:Before KM, there was KM. Those that don't will have made the first critical mistake of their KM program --before it even started.
Do a proper analysis - try to find the gap and tailor make a system to meet your requirement. Any business should make sense, only then it is called business!
Just because there is no enterprise repository doesn't mean people haven't been creating templates.
Just because nobody has ever heard of an After Action Review doesn't mean people haven't been learning from experience.
Just because there are no communities of practice doesn't mean people haven't been collaborating.
Long story short, know this:Before KM, there was KM. Those that don't will have made the first critical mistake of their KM program --before it even started.
Do a proper analysis - try to find the gap and tailor make a system to meet your requirement. Any business should make sense, only then it is called business!
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
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Sunday, May 10, 2015
5 NEW CHALLENGES FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
As we embrace the digital
era, what new challenges does Knowledge management (KM) face? We can honestly argue that over the
past decades things have changed a lot. Just thinking about Millennials, I
believe it’s fair to say that old school KM does not consider shifts in the 3
Cs which govern social behavior (Connectivity, Collaboration and Co-creation)
in the digital age. Also, If we look
deeper at some of the problems companies are currently facing and the rise of new
business models introduced by startups, it becomes essential to revise KM in
order to carefully plan out its sustainability and evolution.
Challenge
#1: Retaining Critical Knowledge vs Talent Retention
It’s no surprise that
Millennials, in comparison to baby boomers, are not looking to stay a long time
in organizations. In fact the term “job-hopping” has become very popular in the
past year since Millennials are most likely to shift from one job to another in
shorter periods of time. For organizations this means that there is a larger
risk of not only losing talent, but more importantly, losing critical
knowledge. For KM this means that it
must act faster and provide the methods necessary in order to make sure that
critical knowledge stays within the organization. Of course a prior, and very
important step is to identify critical knowledge.
Challenge
#2: Startups also need KM
Small businesses and startups
are a common choice for young entrepreneurs. The first years of operation are
the most critical and where mistakes usually tend to happen. Due to budget
restrictions certain processes and technologies are pushed aside. KM definitely
takes the blow. However, KM is vital in order to achieve sustainability and
leveraging best practices. Also promoting a knowledge culture from the very
beginning of an organization´s life is essential in order to assure that it
becomes rooted in culture. Not many entrepreneurs are aware of this since KM
education is missing in most business schools and they believe that it exists
only for “big” organizations. Maybe they are right in the sense that we haven’t
thought of a simpler and less complex model for small business and startups.
Challenge
#3: Leveraging Technology without making KM tech driven
Last year was by all means
the “Sharepoint year” for KM. Not only did more KM software solutions come out
in the market (some of the most popular being Oracle, SAP, Sharepoint), but
google also registered an increase of KM related searches focused on IT
solutions. This isn’t a bad thing. It
turns bad only when we focus our entire efforts implementing portals or
software without taking into consideration essential elements such as critical
knowledge and culture.
Challenge
#4: Leveraging KM with Big Data
Millennials as opposed to
other generations are leaving a larger digital footprint since the amount of
interactions they generate increases on a daily basis. For organizations this
means that if we are able to develop sustainable KM portals which enhance
social collaboration there will be plenty of data left to explore and which can
lead us to take smarter decisions. For example, early this year I examined data
generated from our KM portal in 2014. From this, I was able to spot common
problems among various business unit, knowledge needs among various
professional groups and I was also able to identify various subject matter
expects based on the quality and amount of interactions they developed and the
number of positive reviews they received from the rest. Considering the growing
importance in developing this type of KM portals (in order to match Millennials
social behavior) larger organizations may need to consider incorporating a
Community Manager in order to collect data and supervise peer interaction.
Challenge
#5: Understanding business needs. I mean, really understanding them.
This could have easily been
challenge #1 on this list. However, it’s not a new challenge since it goes back
to old school KM (and it is still giving Knowledge Managers a terrible
headache!). In order for KM to be successful it needs to closely understand the
business needs and jargon. It needs to become an important ally and one easy
way of measuring success is by analyzing if KM teams are called up in order to
assist in important decisions. For example, when new project are developed and critical
knowledge needs to be identified, or when larger organizations are considering
mergers, knowledge teams are summoned to analyze the value of intellectual
capital.
Given the above challenges,
It´s important to note that Millellianals are currenty shifting the future
development of KM. In fact, we need to clearly understand the importance of the
3 C´s governing milleanial social behavior: Connectivity, collaboration and
co-creation. For me, this is clearly the new age of KM: the C-Generation.
The above blog, seemed to be interesting to me and thought people in my group also may like it... hence posted it. The original version is available at http://globalknowledgemanagement.org/2015/05/02/5-new-challenges-for-knowledge-management/?fb_ref=0d844452db914d24b9ddd85690e3c86a-Linkedin
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