On knowledge management and human resources

Some of you may already know that I am a great believer in the interplay between knowledge management (KM) and human resource management (HRM). I consider both KM and HRM as catalysts and facilitators for developing and enhancing an organisation’s intellectual and social capital. I believe KM is more than just managing databases and HRM is more than just payroll.

KM and HRM actually have a number of responsibilities in common: learning and development, enhancing staff performance, staff retention, team building and effectiveness, organisational development, and cultural change. The approaches may differ but I believe that the strategic and practical outcomes are the same – to equip individuals, groups, and the organisation to innovate, solve problems, establish effective workflow, and deliver quality services and outputs (both internally and externally).

I was therefore very pleased when I found out about a post-graduate course being run from Lancaster University Management School in England. The course is a Master (MA) in Human Resource & Knowledge Management. The course looks at “the conditions in which HRM and knowledge management have become the central links between people, work, and technology in contemporary organisations”. Excellent!

I wonder if there are any other examples of KM and HRM being featured within the same training or academic course.

On knowledge management measurement

It’s a fact of life that senior management nearly always love to see facts and figures. Facts and figures can be concise, are usually thought of as being objective, and provide decision makers with raw data from which to base decisions. Senior executives also claim they are time-poor and therefore only want to see just the facts, often in graphical or tabular form because they believe this information is easier to understand.

We therefore often have a problem conveying the full story of our work in knowledge management since we do not always have the facts and figures senior executives want. We often provide information that is easy to collect but does not provide real meaning.  The classic example is in using hit rates for intranet pages and web sites. High hit rates can often indicate confusion just as well as indicating purposeful traffic.

And, of course, facts and figures can be gamed. Work perfomance becomes artificially directed towards a narrow set of quantitative targets rather than the complete set of workplace activities and responsibilities. Narrow quantitative targets often stifle innovative thinking, limit team work, and inhibits building trust within organisations. Key performance indicators (KPI’s) are a classic case of turning targets into the target itself!

The other problem is that the outcome of a number of knowledge management processes and activities does not always show a direct linear relationship. The beneficial outcome might come out of a series of interconnected relationships and serendipitous exchanges that take time to yield a distinct outcome on which to report. Social network analysis and knowledge mapping are techniques helpful here but they themselves take considerable time and analysis.

One strategy that I have used in the past is to provide the “raw data” in graphical form with an explanatory paragraph under each graph or chart. It is important to place the graphical representation of the data in some form of explanatory context. Hit rates and traffic numbers on communities of practice are not sufficient on their own.

The other pieces of “data” I provide are stories – narratives of things that have happened as a consequence of an action. This action might be closing a business deal based on information gleaned from a community of practice. It might be that getting that particular report on time meant that the final prepared document for management was more informed and better reflective of the contextual environment.  Or it could mean that meeting the right person at the right time meant that the business plan had a greater chance of success. There are many outcomes that one can use.

The skill is in finding these examples and ensuring they represent the kinds of outcomes senior management want to hear and can understand.  While I think any form of conversation that enhances our understanding and capacity to work more effectively is a good thing, others do not. Choose outcomes that are meaningful to the person or people you are reporting to.

But don’t stop there.

I would also include a story (or narrative fragment) that might not be directly related to a business outcome, but demonstrates a more intangible element. If the narrative fragment is interesting enough, it is surprising how much this sparks some interest to hear more. These “tell me more” instances don’t always happen, but when they do, they can be even more powerful demonstrations of knowledge management work that just the data.

In this regard, it is vital that the knowledge manager establish and maintain personal and visible relationships with people throughout the organisation. Scaleability can be enhanced through communication channels like the intranet,  listservs, blogs, Twitter (if appropriate), and communities of practice. The knowledge manager must remain visible and be perceived to be an important gate keeper or lynch pin for people scattered throughout the organisation.

In reporting, I strongly recommend utilising both quantitative and qualitative information. If senior management have more meaning around the work of knowledge management, the better chance management will see the benefits.

On getting your website right

I have just moved house and have bundled the utilities and telecommunications through ACTEW. As part of the deal, I am entitled to a Privileges card.

I received the membership card and an introductory letter telling me that “I am minutes away from accessing discounts and special offers at over 500 participating businesses”. I need to activate the card from the Privileges web site.  I go to the specified web site to activate the card.

Note exactly what I am doing. I am going to the web site under instruction to perform a specific task – activate my membership card. I am NOT going to the web site out of any ineluctable desire or to admire the postcard-like pictures from the home page. I just want to activate the card. I am wanting to complete a task.

Now, do you think that the words “activate card” appear prominently on the home page, or even appear at all? Nope. No activate anything. Naturally, I scan the page and look for how I can activate the card. Nothing. There are a number of other options available to me via a horizontal navigation bar and some graphically rich content area in the middle of the home page. I will obviously need to explore further.

My first question to myself is whether or not I am actually a member yet or do I have to activate the card to become a member? I know that I am minutes away from all those benefits so perhaps I am still not a member. I look under the heading “Join Privileges” from the  navigation bar, semi-confident that at least I will get a prompt to go somewhere else to activate. No. I now check under the heading “Members”, perhaps optimistic in my status as an official member of the club.  Thankfully, the first option is to activate my card. I click on the link and now I have to fill out a form. I fill out the form and send it off. I get a screen telling  me my form has been successfully sent. But now what? Am I activated or not? Do I need to wait a certain period of time before activation takes place? There is no additional information so I am left hoping my card is activated and I can race out to do all that bargain hunting.

And yet, after all of this, I am still not sure if I only needed to activate the card to get a newsletter sent to me and whether I could have used the card straight away without all this activation business.

Clear communication on a web site and any introductory letter is of paramount importance – please get it right.

Virtual Participation Camp: Changing the Rules, June 27-28

Having just blogged about conference formats, I have just received the following email from Stephen Dohrn via the km4-dev list-serv. I hope Stephen doesn’t mind me reproducing most of that post here. The virtual participation camp sounds like it could be a very different conference experience.

Participation Camp, Change the Rules, in New York on June 27-28, will provide the spark for an explosion of sharing, experimentation and collaboration. Democracy is the game where we can change the rules together! How do we make this game more serious, more fair and more fun? Please let us know if you are interested in convening a virtual session at this event on a topic of your choice, or collaborating with us in some way!

Participants may attend a wide range of physical and virtual presentations (or deliver one themselves), compete in a conference wide web participation game called Nomic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic), or roll up their sleeves in a hands on workshop. For preliminary details see: http://participationcamp.org/.

If you might be interested in collaborating with us, please check out the wiki at: http://barcamp.pbworks.com/ParticipationCamp

What Makes Change The Rules Different?

Virtual/Physical Hybrid Structure: One particular feature of this event is that we will be bridging the physical and virtual worlds. We will be opening up virtual spaces in advance of the actual session so as to engage virtual participants in the project. We will also have a room where virtual presenters can connect with those at the conference.

Open Space/Defined Hybrid Structure: We will be using Open Space principles for the creation of some of the sessions, but will also be seeking out the involvement of those that would like to actively
engage participants on a specific topic. If there is an issue or a question that you would like to discuss at this event, please let us know!

Play Game: We will be playing the game, Nomic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic). This is a game that is designed to teach participants, by virtue of their experience, some of the interesting features of governance, democracy, rule making, rule following, collaboration etc.

Pre-Session Dialogue: We will open SkypeChat spaces that enable those that are interested in the PCamp theme(s) to connect with each other, exchange ideas, plan potential sessions etc.

Sustain Dialogue: Due to the fact that virtual environments are accessible from anywhere, it becomes possible for participants to continue their conversations with others after the conclusion of the
session. This makes it possible for them to continue to explore the ideas and projects that they are interested in, as well as to cultivate the relationships with those that they have connected with.
We hate the fact that what happens when events end is that there is little or no follow up!

Questions/Themes

Here are a few questions that we have been thinking about. Are there any such questions that are of interest to you, and around which you might be interested in organizing a virtual session?

What, generally speaking, is the role that technology can play in fostering citizen engagement?
What are the best tools for creating the right frameworks for fostering citizen engagement?
What are the particular challenges of using open, collaborative, platforms?
What sorts of business models are consistent with ‘open collaboration’? How can organizations that subscribe to these principles also generate revenue?
How do we utilize technology to mobilize the youth vote?
Process

On June 20th, we will create a chat space/conversation in Skype to which we will invite all those that are interested in participating in an open dialogue on issues relating to open governance. This chat
space will allow you the opportunity to:

Introduce yourself and your project to others that are like minded
Connect with others that might be interested in your project or might have interesting project ideas.
Learn, via participation, about how open, collaborative, patterns of interaction work
Learn, via participation, how groups self organize
Virtual Tools

We will be using free online tools that are easily accessible by any participant, such as:
Drop.io: We will utilize drop.io (www.drop.io) in order to organize and share files.
Google Documents: will be used for the joint authoring of documents.
SkypeChat: Will provide a open space where people can start the dialogue, network and keep the discussion going.
Etherpad: for notetaking during sessions.
Twitter: as a channel to the outside to integrate other interested parties.
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You can’t get more web 2.0 and participatory than this conference!

On conferences

Apart from just moving house (again) and waiting to get the utilities connected (again), I have been thinking about conferences.  My thinking was instigated by an approach I received from a conference organiser to present at an upcoming conference in September on collective intelligence. Almost at the same time, another conference organiser contacted me asking about case studies in government that could be used to demonstrate effective collaboration. And, of course, there is the plethora of conference invitations and conference pamphlets that come across my email and my desk each week advertising future conferences with discounted early bird rates. The message is clear:  Get in quick, folks!

As I thought about all these conferences I was conscious of the fact that essentially they were all the same. The conference organisers invite speakers to present under a particular conference theme. People attend the conference to listen to these presenters, network with professional peers, and hopefully find some useful information and learnings that will be of personal or workplace relevance. It is pretty standard conference fare.

Now that’s all very well and I am happy to participate in such events. But I am thinking there could be other ways to provide conferences with something different. I know there are un-conferences and the like but I am thinking of something else.

Firstly, I’d be interested in a conference where the theme was not so tightly regimented. I am thinking of a conference at which there are presenters speaking on different and unrelated topics but from which the audience could develop particular personal or collective themes themselves. The audience would therefore become an active participant by discussing these emergent themes rather than having the themes imposed upon them. I see strengths and weaknesses in this approach – my interdisciplinary preferences are also at work here. But at least there would be some active thinking, rather than what often happens at conferences is passive and sleepy acceptance.

Secondly, I’d like the keynote to be in the form of an interview. There would be an interviewer but I’d like the audience to be able to take part as well – perhaps providing some questions in advance from which the interviewer and conference organisers could put into some form of meaningful order (randomness would also work for me but I think effective interviewing relies on a logical progression). The interview lends itself more to a storytelling approach rather than a lecture. The Q&A format stimulates quetioning in the minds of the audience throughout the keynote – something that could be followed up after the conference as well.

Thirdly, I’d like conferences to have some follow-up. We go to a conference, hear some stuff, maybe feel pretty good about things, and then go home or back to the office. Why can’t we tap into the collective experience of people after the conference officially finishes? If the conference is interesting and participatory, then there is the opportunity to extend the discussion outside the formal conference environment.

And talking of follow-up, I’d really be interested in any game that could be developed to reinforce or stimulate further thought about the conference presentations. I am thinking simple card or board games, but more technical games on  a website would be equally useful (if a tad expensive!).  A “snakes and ladders” for effective knowledge management would be absolutely fantastic! Games are great information reinforcements and something worthy of considered thought.

And lastly, I’d like conference organisers to think more creatively about conference “notes”. A few Powerpoint slides from presenters in a drab folder doesn’t cut if for me these days, I’m afraid. It also makes it difficult for presenters since Powerpoint slides often become the presentation (the defacto content) rather than acting as a supporting element to the actual presentation. Powerpoint slides are not conference notes! I really like the idea of podcasts and I am a big fan of the podcasts that come out of the SXSW Conference each year. Great stuff!

Now if I can work out how to introduce African drumming into a conference I would be really satisfied…

On the telephone

I have just been speaking with Matt Moore on the telephone. It was good to chat since Matt and I used to spend a lot of time chatting in a coffee shop just off Pitt Street in Sydney. Now that I am in Canberra, that opportunity is no more.

Strange as it might seem, I have somehow managed to only think of communicating directly with Matt at that particular coffee shop off Pitt Street. So it was refreshing to get an email from Matt on Monday where we organised a time to have a chat by telephone (and telephone it was, not Skype) this evening.

When we were talking, I could almost smell the coffee!

And now I am thinking how easy it is to become trapped into a single behaviour without even thinking of all the other possibilities – possibilities that are actually easily available and at little or no cost.

Call me a knowledge manager, or what?

On the road to knowledge management

I regard myself as a knowledge worker and integrally involved within the information sector. Over the last ten years I have increasingly been involved more on the knowledge management side of things than on the library-side.

When I first entered the information sector in the 1980’s I was physically based in a library. I worked in public libraries and corporate libraries, Macquarie Bank being my first corporate library experience. I have worked at the Parliamentary Library in Canberra. In all those environments there were books and often files that formed the main body of the “collection”.

Throughout the second-half of the 1980’s, electronic and online databases helped broaden the reach of information access and increase the speed and scale at which information could be found and circulated to the people who needed it. But I was still sitting in “the library”. And this was not such a bad thing, especially in corporate environments, where the library and my position in it were viewed as “neutral”. I was able to play information broker between different people and sections of the business – keeping in mind governance and compliance issues.

From the second-half of the 1990’s until recently, except for my time at the Parliamentary Library in Canberra, my working library environment became much smaller. My management and use of information resources  became much more digitally based (and the internet was the obvious driving force). Bookshelves gave way to intranet portals and Google, and online databases became more sophisticated and carried significantly more content.

During much of the “noughties” (the year 2000 and beyond), the emphasis was less on a centralised one-to-one directed research and information service, but on establishing and managing networks of information and people within the organisation. In addition, more communication channels could be used to enhance reach and provide more specialised services while at the same time increasing the number of access points and search options. Communities of practice was one such manifestation.

Now I am working in a “library environment” that has no on-site physical collection and specialises in distributing information widely and in specific, tailored information products. We still have a book and journal collection, although most journals are now accessed electronically.  There is less emphasis on one-to-one research, although this service is still provided.

We still use an electronic library management system, although we also have a (rather mediocre) content management system using Sharepoint 2003. Information is much more dispersed within organisations and there is far greater user-generated content, both internally and externally.

We also have thematic networks that are gradually emerging as a facility to promote knowledge sharing and information distribution across a range of groups of various subject interests.

There are other disparite activities that are happening in learning and development, human resources, internal communications, and information technology. There is much information produced and knowledge generated in program areas and country desks.  They all have a part to play in how knowledge management takes shape within an organisation. Yet there is a need to give shape to knowledge management as a real and driving entity within organisations – all organisations.

The way forward is still to be mapped out in terms of an integrated strategic approach to knowledge management, although I hope to be part of it. After all, one of the strengths of the library and information profession is in “organising”, whether it is a subject search or an intranet page.

Giving life to knowledge management is therefore a real challenge and something a modern “library” can certainly play a vital part.

On what I’ve been doing

It has been about two months since my last post. In that time I have been busy at my new workplace (AusAID) understanding how things are done, going to meetings and internal courses, and managing a library and information service that is quite specific to the internal needs of the organisation. Certainly, working in a government department (having mostly worked in the private sector previously) is an interesting change.

My main role is to manage a small team of people providing a library and information service to internal stakeholders. The major services we provide are information alerts with detailed abstracts, responses to research requests, and a range of library functions.

We are keen to assist the thematic networks (subject-like groups dealing with specific areas of development assistance) within AusAID to enhance dissemination of information and to help the network co-ordinators improve individual networks.  In addition, we will look for opportunities in some niche areas that we can resource within our existing operational structure. And, I am also looking at how I can market and brand our services more effectively so that we can leverage our services more broadly.

I am keen to study the information seeking behaviours of my target groups, as well as identifying new target groups for the services we are already providing. By understanding the behaviours, it is much easier to tailor an information service to meet the information seeking needs of the client group.

Our intranet uses Sharepoint 2003. I am more familiar with Sharepoint 2007. As an intranet administrator, I hope to work on making improvements to our site pages and look for opportunities that might arise after the upgrade.  Sharepoint is not the greatest content management system but at least Sharepoint 2007 has a few more content options.

I still have quite a bit to learn about the internal operations of the department. Moreover, I have many more people to meet and speak with so that I can better understand the operational environment and where my team can provide the maximum value for the organisation. Understanding organisational culture and workplace behaviours takes time. However, they are necessary conditions to work through in any knowledge and information service environment.

Outside AusAID, I have been reconnecting with other Canberra-based library and knowledge management people – in particular at ACT-KM. I recently organised the ACT-KM meeting earlier this month with a presentation by Scott Lewis from Metanews looking at RSS and showing his RSS newsletter product called Xenos.

I have been to my first Canberra library (Horizon) user group meeting where library management systems were discussed. I will be attending the next APS-KM meeting in May.

And finally, I am working on my last subject for my Master of Knowledge Management at the University of Canberra. The subject, “Dimensions of the Information Sector”, is pretty broad but with scope to examine particular attributes of the sector. Moving house, getting all the administrative matters sorted, and starting a new job haven’t made studying easy. However, I am gradually getting back into some form of routine.

All in all though, I am very pleased to back in Canberra.

On my new job

Today I started my new job as Thematic Knowledge Services Manager at AusAID, Australia’s overseas development agency.

At the same time, I am still waiting on Optus to supply my ADSL modem so that I can access the internet from home. It took two weeks and one fault report before Optus got my telephone working so I am not greatly impressed with Optus’s level of customer service.

And don’t get me started on the move from Sydney to Canberra with a certain large removalist company – careless is one word to describe them!

But I don’t want to dwell on the shortcomings of moving locale and getting 21st century services connected in the nation’s capital…

For now, I am back on deck and looking forward to my new role.

On a new city and a new job

It has been a while since my last post. I have been finishing up my work at the Fred Hollows Foundation and preparing for my move to Canberra with a newjob at AusAID. AusAID is the Australian federal government’s overseas development agency.

I am in the midst of the move fom Sydney to Canberra, with limited internet opportunities. More news soon.

What I can report on is that the decision to start a new job in a new city was a lot more difficult to make than I would have thought, given my preference for Canberra over gridlocked Sydney any time!

Stay tuned and stay patient. I will be back on track in the coming week or so.

A new year

As I count down the last couple of hours until midnight and the beginning of a new year I am reminded of the opportunity to review, assess, and commit to new things (and maybe not so new) in the coming year.

And as I think about the past twelve months and contemplate the future, I am happily listening to this great Bob Evans track called, “Don’t you think it’s time” – a very appropriate song for this time of year.

Happy 2009 – and let’s keep what’s most important close to our heart and top of mind.

Merry Christmas

It has been a busy month for me and some changes are looming. More news in the New Year.

But for now, I would like to post a Merry Christmas to everyone and hope that the festive season is kind and safe to you all.

I will be back in the New Year, full of new resolutions and hopes for 2009.

On Information Online, London

Firstly, apologies for the late posting since mid-November. I am actually overseas (on holidays) at the moment for a few weeks and didn’t get around to updating the blog!

Nevertheless, I refocused some attention on information and knowledge management at the Information Online Conference in London today. The keynote speaker was Clay Shirky and he had some good things to say about the web 2.0 world. I have plenty of notes (as usual) that I will decipher for a future blog posting.

It was good to catch up with Euan Semple, David Wilcox and Ed Mitchell at the conference. I hope to catch up with David Gurteen tomorrow evening at a knowledge cafe hosted by Deloitte here in London.

One interesting thing I heard about today was a platform developed by Elsevier called 2Collab that provides user-generated profiles of individuals and links within the scientific community. I see a lot of potential in this system for organisational collaboration. It is interesting to hear how traditional publishers are responding to the internet and web 2.0 applications.

Hopefully, I will have a full report on the conference next week when I return to Australia. However, since I am flying Thai Airways there could still be problems with returning home given the problems at the airport in and around Bangkok. I will be speaking with Thai Airways tomorrow to hear how they will get me home!

Until next week then…

On why marketing and communication matters

Via my latest Working Knowldge newsletter from the Harvard Business School, I found my way to this blog post from John Quelch about how marketing won Barack Obama the recent Presidential election in the US. The key message for me was that marketing matters – big time.  And the news isn’t lost on me in terms of my professional work – information management and knowledge management.

The first observation I want to make is that even small actors can make a difference. The blog says that over half of the $639 million of campaign funds raised by the Obama camp came from people making donations of less than $300 each. Aggregation matters.

The second observation is that the Obama message used as many communication channels as possible. This is really important – just because the message goes out on one channel doesn’t mean that there is no need to send out the same message (in appropriate form) using other channels. Naturally, one must consider the overall costs and benefits, not all of us have the Obama fundraising power. However, what we can do is look at the different communication channels and seek to exploit as many relevant channels as possible within our defined limits. Remember, many web-based and digital networked communication channels are very inexpensive. Communication channels extend your communication reach.

Thirdly, while it may be comforting to appeal to your current or known audience, it pays to go that bit further and extend your target zone to people that could come on board. That means looking where the potential gains are with the message and the service you are delivering.

Finally, the marketing pitch from Obama was both emotional and functional. Establishing an emotional response to products and services was something I learned in Marketing 101, but the fact remains that we obtain a greater sense of personal value and satisfaction if we can look beyond just the function. After all, do Ford, Renault and Mercedes just make cars?

I was asked recently about how I would improve the standing of an information service within an organisation. There are three critical responses: deliver to the customer what the customer needs, make the information service visible through marketing and communication (after ensuring you can deliver a quality service AND have the capacity to support new business), and keep up the level of personal communication with your stakeholders AND potential stakeholders, thereby generating trust and emotional engagement. An information service is more than just a function.

The key is communication. And marketing is a form of communication. Marketing is a good thing – use it wisely and it can yield tremendous results.

And if you’re still not convinced, go to your local ABC shop and buy yourself the DVD of the Gruen Transfer – an essential look at advertising and marketing.

On communities of practice – an example

A workplace initiative at a former workplace that I am really proud of was the introduction of communities of practice (CoP’s) - I named them ”Pubs”. The pubs connected people with a common interest and a common workplace need across three key business units (and some others), and across geographic space in Australia and New Zealand. I have elaborated on this before so I won’t dwell on it here.

Whilst I am not currently working on establishing CoP’s where I work now, I am still interested in hearing about other people’s experiences with these type of knowledge management activities.

I was therefore pleased to read a recent article describing CoP’s within an engineering environment. Allow me to quote at length the relevant example of interest:

“Schlumberger Ltd, a company involved in the gas and energy exploration industry, provides a useful example. A knowledge management system called Eureka links technical experts in its Oilfield Services unit into communities of practice. It is through these communities of practice that relevant tips, tricks, and conceptual understanding are shared. Engineers, regardless of location, can access the collective knowledge of their peers within the company. Each technical expert within Schlumberger has two organizational “homes”—the formal, rational, hierarchically sanctioned home that corresponds to a position on a chart, and the Eureka technical community, the informal, natural, horizontally linked network of peers who share a common interest, goal, or passion regarding what they do to create wealth for the corporation.”

The notion of a formal and informal “system” of knowledge exchange and knowledge distribution is where significant potential exists for organisational knowledge sharing and knowledge rearticulation. I also like the notion of “home” – a safe place in which to have open and frank discussions. I hope that is the case at Schlumberger.

I believe that CoP’s still have a part to play in good knowledge management activities, despite the popularity of blogs and wikis. I am pleased to read that other organisations are finding value in CoP’s as well.

And, talking about value, Patrick Lambe recently blogged about CoP value as an extension of a discussion on the act-km listserv – a discussion in which I also participated. Ascribing value is always important - how the people at Schlumberger do it would be of interest. The challenge is in presenting CoP ”value” to management in a way that delivers meaningful and relevant quantitative AND qualitative information in a form that management is happy to accept and understand.

And the more CoP success stories I hear about, then all the better!