Taking Knowledge for a walk

My shaggy-dog story.
In April we had a new addition to the family.
Alfie the Labradoodle came into our lives, and for 98% of the time, we haven’t looked back.

Charged with lawn-crime

You can put that 2% down to unscheduled early mornings, a chewed laptop power supply, a hole in the garden – and a very disturbing barefoot encounter on the lawn after dark.  I’ll leave that to your imagination.

The thing I find most remarkable about being a dog owner is that it’s as though you suddenly become visible to people.  I have had more conversations with complete strangers in the last three months than in all the 10 years we have lived here. For the first time in my life, random women approach me with a “hello gorgeous” (OK, not me exactly), parents stop me and ask if their toddlers can stroke him, car drivers stop and ask what breed he is and grown men share their innermost ideas about dog training tips and anti-pull harness choices.

It was a bit disconcerting at first, but it’s actually quite pleasant.  Perhaps this new social norm is what it was like in the 60’s?

So why so people feel OK to engage in conversation, share their experience and impart wisdom in ways that they never would have done before?

We’ll, it’s obvious I guess – because the dog is obvious. Everyone can see that I’m a dog owner, so my membership of the dog-lovers’-club is visible to all, at the end of a lead.  That gives permission for other club members to approach me and ask or share.

This reminds me of Etienne Wenger’s famous definition of Communities of Practice

A group of people who share a concern or passion for something they do, and they learn to do it better as they interact regularly.

You can see where this is going.
How much more effective and productive would our organizations be if we made our expertise, our experience, our concerns and our passion more visible to our colleagues?  Here are six to consider.

• I’ve written before about the poster culture in Syngenta and how they make their projects and programmes more visible.
• Expertise directories, personal profiles and smart social media which suggests connections generates a culture of greater disclosure are also helpful.
• Retreats where you have time, space and informality to get to know your colleagues better are a natural way to make new connections and deepen existing ones.
• Communities of practice can create a safe place for shrinking violets to flourish, and communities of interest (I’ve seen photography, cycling, food and wine societies, women’s networks etc. in organisations) can also generate the conditions to mix business with pleasure.
• Finally, Knowledge fairs and offers-and-requests marketplaces create a pause – a moment to browse and discover.

So much better than leaving your knowledge in its kennel…

 

Posters. Yes, posters. Surprisingly effective social media!

Sometimes I come across organisations which have a way of working which naturally encourages the sharing of knowledge – so naturally, in fact, that they don’t realise that the way they operate is different from most other companies.

Posters – perhaps the most effective (and overlooked) social media?

I spent most of last week with a knowledge-friendly Swiss company which has developed a “poster culture” over the past 5 years.  Corridors, office walls – pretty much every piece of available  wall-space has a poster describing a project, initiative, programme, summary of an event, description of a team and its responsibilities.  Every corner you walk around, you pause and think “hmmm, that’s interesting!”.  They prompt interaction and conversation.

It’s a surprisingly simple low-tech thing, but it goes a long way to helping people discover what’s going on. No surprises. No closed doors.  It puts clear labels on the silos. (see my earlier post – “in defence of silos”)

The same company ran a workshop/conference to update the group on progress on several projects. Rather than using PowerPoint, went to the trouble (and expense) of producing large posters so that people could be walked-through their story.  I joined the groups who were circulating between different poster sessions, found myself reflecting on the dynamics.

Yes, in many cases, the posters looked a lot like several PowerPoint slides arranged side-by-side.  But even where that was the case, as the reader, I was still in control of which ones I read.  Whilst the presenter was talking, I could still flick my eyes back to the material she had just covered, and get a sense of what was still to come.
If she’d showed me exactly the same slides, but in the more conventional linear sequence, projected on a screen, driven by the presenter – it would have been different – and I would probably have lost the plot.  In the poster environment, I had more control over my own journey through the story.  Pointing and asking “could you just clarify what you meant in that bit”, is much easier than interrupting the flow with “could you go back 4 slides – I think it was 4, perhaps 5 – no one more…”

In other cases, the poster-makers took full advantage of their canvas, and drew timelines, rollercoasters and journeys to illustrate their talks, and provided pockets of depth and detail in parts of the poster.  You just can’t do that with a conventional 4×3 slide.

Did it cost more?

Yes – $100 per poster – and large posters are unwieldy, require space and take time to put up.  Most companies don’t have 2A0 chart-plotters/printers in house – but don’t let that stop you.

Did it add more value?

Disproportionately yes, I would say.  Spend the money.  Plant some trees to offset the extra paper. Revel in the fact that you don’t have a projector in the room.

Did it make best use of the knowledge in the room and encourage dialogue?

I hardly need to answer that.

Yes.  After my poster renaissance moment last week in Switzerland, it’s a +1 from me for this form of social media.

 

Can you tell what it is yet?

I’ve always been a big fan of Rolf Harris.

A man of many talents – not only an artist, presenter, musician (if you count the didgeridoo, wobble-board and Stylophone), singer, songwriter and TV presenter, he was also a champion swimmer.

Wikipedia is a wonderful thing.

Image from SunriseOn7 via Flickr

Oh, and a writer too. His autobiography is, of course, entitled:  “Can you tell what it is yet”.

I sometimes find myself wanting to use that catchphrase in workshops when clients are struggling to agree upon a definition of knowledge management for their organisation.  It’s a real rarity to find a definition for KM with less than four commas which can be read aloud without at least one pause for breath.

“Can you tell what it is yet?”.  I’m not convinced that a definition is the best way to tell what it is.

Definitions explain, but don’t inspire.

Even vision statements can be a bit bullet-point-trite at times.

There was a helpful thread in the sikm-leaders forum last week when someone asked for ten responses to complete the statement “You know knowledge is being effectively managed when…”

I thought it was a really practical way to explore how it feels, and looks – how people behave, when KM is really working.   Here are my ten suggestions:

You know knowledge is being effectively managed when…

Leadership. Leaders in the organisation are role models, challenging people to ask for help, seek out, share and apply good practices this inspires curiosity and a commitment to improve.  The organisation is learning!

Learning. People instinctively seek to learn before doing.  Lessons from successes and failures are drawn out in an effective manner and shared openly with others who are genuinely eager to learn, apply and improve. Lessons lead to actions and improvement.

Networking. People are actively networking, seamlessly using formal communities and informal social networks to get help, share solutions, lessons and good practices. The boundaries between internal and external networks are blurred and all employees understand the benefits and take personal responsibility for managing the risks.

Navigation. There are no unnecessary barriers to information, which is shared by default and restricted only where necessary. Information management tools and protocols are intuitive, simple and well understood by everybody.  This results in a navigable, searchable, intelligently tagged and appropriately classified asset for the whole organisation, with secure access for trusted partners.

Collaboration. People have the desire and capability to use work collaboratively, using a variety of technology tools with confidence.  Collaboration is a natural act, whether spontaneous or scheduled.  People work with an awareness of their colleagues and use on-line tools as instinctively as the telephone to increase their productivity.

Consolidation. People know which knowledge is strategically important, and treat it as an asset.  Relevant lessons are drawn from the experience of many, and consolidated into guidelines. These are brought to life with stories and narrative, useful documents and templates and links to individuals with experience and expertise. These living “knowledge assets” are refreshed and updated regularly by a community of practitioners.

Social Media. Everybody understands how to get the best from the available tools and channels. Social media is just part of business as usual; people have stopped making a distinction. Serendipity, authenticity and customer intimacy are increasing.  People are no longer tentative and are encouraged to innovate and experiment. The old dogs are learning new tricks!  Policies are supportive and constantly evolving, keeping pace with innovation in the industry.

Storytelling. Stories are told, stories are listened to, stories are re-told and experience is shared. People know how to use the influencing power of storytelling.  Narrative is valued, captured, analysed and used to identify emergent patterns which inform future strategy.

Environment. The physical workplace reflects a culture of openness and collaboration.  Everyone feels part of what’s going on in the office.  Informal and formal meetings are easily arranged without space constraints and technology is always on hand to enhance productivity and involve participants who can be there in person.

Embedding. Knowledge management is fully embedded in people management and development, influencing recruitment and selection. Knowledge-sharing behaviours are built-into induction programmes and are evident in corporate values and individual competencies.  Knowledge transfer is part of the strategic agenda for HR. The risks of knowledge loss are addressed proactively. Knowledge salvage efforts during hurried exit interviews are a thing of the past!

Now your top ten will probably be different to mine (although you’re very welcome to borrow and adapt them).
This kind of approach encourages us to look well beyond the technology which often disproportionately demands our attention.

As Rolf might say – if two little boys have too many toys, there’s a risk that one of them will fall off the horse!

Taken from the Consulting Collison Column in an upcoming edition of Inside Knowledge

 

Babies, Social Media and Synaptic Exuberance

Came across this courtesy of npr via John Allan.

Nice post, interesting research. It got me thinking about social media, and the exuberance (now perhaps that’s a collective noun for social media?) of sources available stimulate us, if we choose to be stimulated.

See what you think.

He rocks. He rolls. He sucks. He kicks. He tongues. He handles. He flips. He touches. There’s not a single item in this living room that 9 month old Charles-Edward (aka Edward) doesn’t explore (for a while I thought he’d ignore the chair in the upper left corner, but no…).
Edward (son of Quebec City journalist/photographer Francis Vachon) is a rolling demonstration of what the neuroscientists call “synaptic exuberance.” You can’t see what’s happening in his brain, but he is forming ten, twenty thousand new connections every second. Watch him go.

Here’s the thing about babies. When we’re born, we get the brain cells we need, but the connections between cells haven’t formed yet. In those first few years as we explore the world, the cells begin to link up at a dizzying pace, forming tens of thousands, even millions of new links. When you watch Edward you can almost feel it happening.

Look inside a baby brain and you can see the brain cells getting bushier with more and more links to other cells.

But the strange thing is, we babies overdo it.

All of us, not just Edward, form more connections than we need. Then, later on, (different regions of the brain do this at different times, but it goes on into our teen years) there’s a strange reversal. Millions of connections start to die. Why does this happen? Why do babies have a sudden burst of synaptic exuberance around Edward’s age and then start losing the connections?

Why does a child’s brain demand twice the energy of an adult’s brain? Why do some areas in the brain mature before others? And what about one of the most fascinating aspects of brain development — the discovery that the brain produces “too much” of various neural elements and then eliminates the excess? In some ways, this is analogous to the sculptor who begins with more material than is required and then subtracts the excess material to obtain a desired form. Unlike the sculptor, however, who eventually achieves a final form, the brain is able to undergo some remodeling throughout life.

…This way, brain circuits are created and strengthened, in part, by whatever environment and experiences the baby encounters.

This allows for a fine-tuning of neuronal circuits, based on early exposure and environmental nurturing, that makes the neuronal architecture of each person unique.

What he’s saying is babies go wild making connections and then, as we grow into our preferences, our personalities, life is like a scalpel. We slowly shed what we don’t need or use or want. Having watched Edward for those time lapsed four hours, it’s hard to imagine what he’s going to give up later in life but he’s got to give up something. We all do.

So, for example, a spell in Twitter can feel very much like young Edward’s 4 hours – rolling around between information sources, picking some up, putting some down, clicking-through, retweeting, favouriting…

I’m most struck by the idea that we “go wild making connections, then as we grow in our preferences, we shed what we don’t need or want”.

So even though we’re all significantly older than Edward (although he shares my hairline), does it still work for us when we roll, crawl or toddle around the information playroom?

Does the same principle of “shedding what we don’t need or want” help us to develop a new set of preferences and personalities which can handle an explosion of information sources and stimuli without suffering overload?
Or does social media do the scalpel work on our behalf, so that our synapses don’t need to re-live their childhood?

I’d like to think so. That floor looked hard!

 

Christmas 2.0

I love this!  The media changes, but the story is timeless.

Happy Christmas to all my readers, RSSers, followers, friends, linked-in connections…

With thanks to Jane McKenzie at Henley Business School for pointing me in the right direction…

 

So, what is Knowledge Management?

Having been working in this field for over 15 years now, I’ve finally got around to recording a short video which describes what’s “under the umbrella” of  knowledge management!  David Gurteen has been asking people this question for years and recording their responses, but never seems to have his camera when we meet….  (at least, that’s what he tells me!)
It’s harder than I thought – KM is such a “broad church” now, so I’ve done my best  to be reasonably succinct.  There are still bits which I missed, like the contribution it makes to ideas generation and innovation – but perhaps I’ll leave that for another video, another time!

Here’s the transcript:

Knowledge Management is a set of tools, techniques, methods, ways of working, even behaviours – that are all designed to help an organisation to be more effective.  Simple as that.

So how then does knowledge management differ from other toolkits or management movements like SixSigma or Lean?

To me the difference is that Knowledge Management focuses on the know-how and the know who – how do you put that to work more effectively in an organisation.
How do you share the key points, rules of thumb?
How do you ensure that the right contacts are made such that people have the conversations they need to have at the beginning of  a project, before everyone gets into action?
So for that reason Knowledge management is quite a broad church of techniques and approaches (for me, that’s what makes it so interesting!).

So you could  find yourself looking at tools which help you to identify and support the networks or communities of  practice in an organisation, ways of mapping how people are connected, ways of improving  those connections – looking at who talks to whom, who trusts whom, and how you can optimise that.

You could equally look at how good an organisation is at learning – learning before activities, learning after activities.  How do you ensure that the lessons you capture after a project are meaningful and full of recommendations and useful actions points for somebody.

It could be about how you encourage a team to learn continuously, rather than waiting until the end of major project before they take the time to pause and reflect.

It could equally well be about how we capture knowledge such that the value can be multiplied.   How do you take a nugget or insight and capture it in such a way that people are intrigued, interested, want to read more and want to get in touch with the person who wrote it.
How do you package that up in a way which doesn’t destroy all of the emotion, the context, but seems to carry it with it . Much more use of multimedia, much more use of connections to some of the social media tools, so that you’re only ever one click away from a conversation.  Finally it has a lot to do with the way we behave, the way in which we work, the culture which we establish and support or nurture, or come against as leaders in organisations.
How do you come against a “Not-invented-here” culture?
How do you support and make it safe for people to share their experiences and learn from those, to share their failures as well as successes?

Knowledge management encompasses all of these things, behaviours, technologies, processes. learning, networks – and for me, that’s what makes it such an exciting discipline.

 

Knowledge Management, Scientology and Top Trumps…

A sneak preview of my up-coming column in the next edition of Inside Knowledge…

During my childhood, I wiled away many an hour with school friends and a pack of Top Trumps cards. For the initiated amongst you, Top Trumps consists of a set of cards based around a particular topic.  (In my day, it was ships, racing cars, Olympic medallists or dinosaurs. Today, it’s more likely to be X-Factor contestants or Harry Potter characters).  Each card contained statistics about the car or dinosaur in question, which enabled you to compare scores with your friends and – if you chose the right category – to win their favourites until you possessed all of the cards.
One of the side effects of overdosing on Top Trumps would be the ability to recall facts and figures about any card.  To my slight embarrassment, I can tell you without pausing that the 0-60mph acceleration of a 1978 Lamborghini Countach is 5.6 seconds.  Too bad my short-term memory is  unable to recall  where my own car keys are right now!

Last month I had the opportunity to work with a network of business improvement professionals (the I&I Network) who wanted to understand where knowledge management tools and techniques could complement their world of LEAN, Six Sigma and Kaizen.  Sensing an audience of potential Top Trumps sympathizers, I made up packs of “KM Trumps” for them to play with in pairs for ten minutes.   For my categories, I chose:  Cost, Return on investment, Learning curve, Geek Factor and Engagement Effect.  I had difficulty stopping their game to continue the workshop with them! I found that even in those few minutes, everyone picked up on the breadth and variety of tools which we place under the KM banner.  When all 36 cards were laid out, with their categories visible it was easy for my group of improvement specialists to make an informed selection about the tools and techniques which might best fit their own organisations.  They could tailor their own custom toolkit with just the right amount of “Geek Factor” and not too much learning curve.

One of my bugbears in KM circles is the way in which the labels KM 1.0, KM 2.0 and even KM 3.0 are used – as though knowledge management is only allowed to exist in a number of quantum states; or it’s a branch of scientology…
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan and big user of social media, and I think it has brought energy, connectivity, serendipity and a real-time edge to the field of knowledge management.  What it hasn’t done is to supersede the fundamentals of KM – the value of conversation, the importance of learning and reflection, the power of communities of practice, the need to both summarise and provide stories to preserve context.  Superceded?  No.  Provided a welcome shot of adrenaline?  Absolutely.

I believe that as KM professionals, we have a duty to remain aware of, and open to, the new tools and techniques which come our way.  Where we add value is in explaining how and when an approach or combination of approaches can have the biggest impact.   That might mean that this year, your organisation is KM 1.6, and next year it’s KM 2.17.  It’s our job to find out what number our organisations need. 

Sometimes we might be surprised that a simple, established KM tool has the biggest impact, just like I was surprised when my school friend trumped my prized Lamborghini card with his Isetta Bubble Car.  All because he was smart enough to choose fuel consumption as his category, rather than acceleration!

 

Overlapping Social Circles

I came across this image by Joe Pemberton in Flickr the other day.  It (and the discussion attached to it) sums up my predicament of the blurring of boundaries between public and private social networks.

 

This is some thinking I’ve been doing lately about the ecosystem of social networks and the problem of managing it all and of keeping the personal separate from the professional.

Some overlap will happen in social networks but maintaining boundaries helps you keep professional contacts eyes off of your private matters, your personal goings on, your family status, your childrens’ accomplishments, etc.

[DOTTED AREA]
Public. Your personal brand awareness happens here. Create digital acquaintances. Network. Be a person, but be sure to balance out your travelogue with your sharing of insights.

[CYAN]
Professional. Limited to people you‘ve worked with. Don’t dilute this network with digital acquaintances.

[ORANGE]
Keep these limited to friends and family. These are not professional networking tools. Avoid the urge to accept every friend request. Do you really want to connect with old high school acquaintances?

[MAGENTA]
Keep these close; limited to people you hang with. Old high school buddies and people you met at conferences don’t need this layer of your digital life.

This is not a prescription for others but is pretty much a diagram of my own social network. And yes, as lame as it sounds, that’s how I have to view it, as a brand exercise. After all, careers have become brand management of your personal expertise, experience, insights and beliefs.

 As one of Joe’s Flickr respondents said,   “I have a real concern with recent professional contacts having access to some of my oldest goofiest friends”.  

But the prospect of “de-friending” a number of professional contacts out of Facebook seems pretty tough too. 

And then there are the true boundary people – the professional contacts who have become friends.  What have I got myself into!?

It’s probably far too late. 

 Perhaps it’s just a fact of life 2.0 that we have to live with?   Transparency. Trust. Thinking our loud.  

And getting comfortable that that the rest of my social-media life will feel like my big four-o birthday party would have done last year, had I had the bottle to have one that is…  and  mix family, friends, colleagues, schoolmates and clients in with alcohol for several hours! 

Perhaps I’ll save that for my 50th.  By then someone will have figured out the social media boundaries of politesse…

 

Social Network Mapping!

Came across this creative view of social networking on Flickr today.

I wonder how the plate tectonics of social networking have changed the landscape since this was drawn a year ago?

 

Social Letterboxing

We’re enjoying a few weeks break on Dartmoor, and I’d planned to give the blog a rest too but I was struck by some parallels between social media and a local activity that my children have enjoyed here in the moors – “letterboxing”.  Geoff joined us for the day, and encouraged me to blog some of our observations

Dartmoor covers nearly 400 square miles, and has a large number of tors (high spots with heavily jointed granite outcrops).  Over the years, enthusiastic “letterboxers” have hidden a number of weatherproof boxes around Dartmoor, in which a notebook and an ink stamp are stored. (It’s a kind of low-tech geocaching)  The idea is that you seek out these boxes – there are estimated to be 1000+ on Dartmoor (some better than others – much like the Blogosphere!).  On finding one, you write a note in the book, and leave your own personalised “stamp” in their notebook.  You then stamp your own notebook with their stamp, and hide the box for the next person to find.

Kind of like writing on someone’s wall in FaceBook, and exchanging invitations in LinkedIn?

   

 

If you are the owner of a letterbox, you return periodically to see who has discovered your box, read the messages, and (I guess!) bask in an inner glow that can only come from knowing that a number of complete strangers have written encouraging messages to you.    Sounds a bit like MySpace?

The official “rules” for letterboxing preclude just anyone leaving their own box – no, you have to prove that you are a responsible and dedicated letterboxer by first collecting 100 stamps in your notebook and having these validated. Then, you can hide your box, and have clues to its location officially added to the official list of official letterboxes.   In practice of course, people are far too impetuous to collect all 100 before hiding their own boxes, so a two-tier system of “official” and “unofficial” boxes has emerged, with official boxes clearly marked with their “authority”.  Letterbox Technorati and Social bookmarking?

It’s interesting to see the balance between regulation and emergence, rulemaking and rulebreaking.  I wonder what the future will hold for Dartmoor’s letterboxers – and whether we’ll manage to find our 100 and leave our own box (see what a compliant soul I am?) before the holiday is over…