Gov. 3.0 conference day 2

I missed the initial sessions this morning at the Gov. 3.0 conference but saw the rest of the days proceedings. Once again, rather than give a summary of the presentations, I want to feature a couple that particularly resonated with me. Not surprisingly, they were on the practical aspects of web 2.0.

The most interesting and relevant presentation for me today was from Amanda Eamich of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Amanda described some of the web 2.0 activities used by the USDA to convey particular messages and/or run engagement campaigns. These included such worthwhile initiatives as improving health and fighting obesity; linking chefs with a good food message to schools, and a food desert locator to show low access to healthy food. You can check out the following websites to see some of these initiatives in action:  Choose my Plate, Chefs move to schools and the Food Desert locator

Amanda emphasised the importance of defining the  mission when starting social media initiatives. This is akin to my mantra” what’s the purpose”? Amanda also recognises that it is important to properly resource initiatives (staff, etc.), have familiarity with the tools (i.e. don’t the tools be your master), have an awareness of your target audience, and have a commitment to the strategy to see it through over the long-term. This is good advice.

I really liked the Chefs move to schools program. The idea was promoted through social media in response to calls from schools for more information about healthy eating and by chefs wanting to deliver the healthy food message to students. The USDA acts as a matching service to link up chefs with a good food message to schools wanting to find out about healthy food and nutrition. It is akin to knowledge brokering which I blogged about recently.

Another top tip from Amanda was that despite the opportunities that arise through social media, “it is important to do things on the ground”. The matching service linking chefs to schools is a classic case of making things happen on the ground.

The USDA has a lot of data and this data can be brought alive through visualisation. Whilst the USDA (and similar government departments) may not have the technical in-house capability to do data visualisation; by making the data available publicly it allows those with such technical skills the opportunity to turn the data into really useful and engaging information. The food desert locator is a good example. Similarly, information of farmers markets used to be on the USDA website. It was later made available in MS Excel and this information was then used to create data visualisation of farmer markets across the USA by people taking the data to reformulate the information into a more appealing package.

I consider government data (as distinct from reports and publications) to represent the greatest value for the open government mission. By putting data that is publicly owned into the public domain, opportunities abound for the data to be used and mixed with a range of data sets to give really useful and engaging information in ways beyond the scope of government web teams.

Lastly, Amanda also championed the social and humanising nature of web 2.0. One example was the USDA blog featuring the people who worked at the USDA – personalising government “bureaucrats” and showing to outsiders a human dimension to the staff of the USDA. An added benefit was greater awareness of people and their interests among USDA staff throughout all the offices in the US.  One other anecdote was about a fun campaign on pumpkins. The USDA ran a campaign encouraging people to send in fun photos of carved pumpkins. Even the luxury car maker Audi got involved with a pumpkin shaped in the style of the logo – an unintended consequence that now reached a market (Audi customers) that might not otherwise have been touched by the USDA).

I intend to follow up with Amanda at a later stage some of these initiatives in more detail. Suffice to say, Amanda’s presentation was the highlight of today.

Even so, I also want to note the presentations from Robert Thomas at the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research who is making great strides in making nanotechnology and biotechnology more accessible and relevant for public consumption through social media: see the Technyou website.

And I thought the presentation from former puppeteer Paul Storey (now at the Department of Health in Canberra) was a fascinating insight into how the semantic web may, in the future, help improve preventative health care through examining the relationships between disparate but relevant data sets to hone health and medical diagnosis. The international harmonisation of health terminology was the first start in this quest: see what SNOMED CT is all about. What was really interesting from this presentation was in looking at the prescription of pharmaceuticals in network terms. Pharmaceuticals taken in combination can have very dangerous effects (the Heath Ledger death almost four years ago was an example). Having the technical capacity to better understand the effects of pharmaceutical use in combinations from the available data would provide real human benefits.

It was clear to me that much of what I heard from the presentations had applicability in my professional field of knowledge management. As a network administrator now and in the past, networks are an important part of my knowledge management arsenal. And it is still clear to me that information and knowledge exchange is critical, assisted by social media, if we are to solve problems or seek solutions to problems that we may not have the answer to right now.  Whilst I do have concerns over the slow pace at which government is embracing social media in Australia, I am encouraged by some of the experiences shared at the conference.

The panel discussion concludes the day and a very informative Gov. 3.0 conference is over for this year.

On podcasts, learning, and uni students

When I first went to university I wrote all my essays on a typewriter.  The desktop PC revolution and word processing programs were only just beginning.  In fact, the typewriter held fast in universities throughout much of the 1980s; some universities having specific rooms full of typewriters for students to tap away upon. I had my own typewriter; but even that posed certain problems.  One memorable comment from a lecturer on one of my essays was: “I think a new typewriter ribbon would have been helpful”! 

The change from typewriter to PC and word processing was a massive change for students – a change for the best.

Nowadays, university students have it pretty easy when it comes to doing their university work.  Students have laptops that can go anywhere and word processors that make writing and editing assignments relatively painless.  Thankfully, computers made “white ink” corrections redundant.  Students don’t have to queue for ages at photocopier machines to copy key journal articles anymore – almost all academic journals these days are available online via the university library.

University students today don’t even need to go to classes to listen to lectures since many lectures are now podcast, enabling students to listen to the material at a time most convenient for them.  Moreover, podcasts overcome the multitasking dilemma we “older” students had when trying to listen to lecturers and write down salient points at the same time! Podcasting, like laptop computers, give students greater freedom and flexibility for learning.

Therefore it comes as no surprise that university students are spending less time on campus and more time online, according to this article in the Sydney Morning Herald. “Three out of four students use podcasts of lectures and a third believe online lecture materials can be a replacement for attending classes, according to the nationwide survey of 2422 first-year students by the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne”.

While we can say that technology has created the capacity for increasing a student’s online experiences, the other reason is financial.  The cost of education is much greater these days then when I first went to university (in the days when university education was nominally “free”).  Over the past 10-15 years, university students have had to pay expensive fees or take a loan to pay for their studies. For undergraduate students in particular, paying for education means there is a greater need to take part-time jobs to earn money to pay for fees, as well as the usual costs associated with text books and transport.

The negative side to all of this is the lack of on-campus activity that comes with university life.  If students are learning by themselves via online services, podcasts, and even wikis, where is the social interaction that is also part of the educational experience? 

People in the workforce do not work in social vacuums.  The lecture, with all its ancient history behind it, acted as a focal point for students to meet before and afterwards.  The death of the lecture means new focal points will need to overcome the loss of social interaction.  And I don’t just mean the fun part of social interaction; I mean actually meeting with other students (both by design and serendipity) to discuss what they have learned and what needs to be thought through.

It is interesting to compare the university experiences of students today with what will be their work experiences.  For the most part, employers want staff to be at work in a specific physical location.  Despite all the hype, working from home is still relatively rare.  Working with people at the workplace is still the fundamental organisational architecture that university students today will move into.

In the knowledge management industry, we are very supportive of face-to-face contact to establish trust to enhance workplace (working) relationships.  Trust is integral to many of the knowledge management initiatives that we like to promote, especially in terms of leadership, communication, collaboration, people networks, and operational effectiveness.

Information technology gives us speed and scale that cannot easily be replicated in face-to-face environments.  For example, knowledge management professionals like to promote online communities of practice, wikis, and podcasts too.  We see that there are many different ways to communicate information and knowledge and we try not to rely on only one channel.  We like to consider context and how our KM work best fits within that context.  In many ways, we are like both the university students and university lecturers of today’s world.

Getting the balance right in the context in which we operate is the real challenge.

On network culture

One of the interesting things about humans is their interrelationships with other people.  There are historical reasons for this based on family, tribe, and community.  Such groupings were necessary to survive.  In most human societies today, the family unit is still the foundation of people’s relationships.  Friends and the people we socialise and work are also part of the human interrelationship matrix.  And interestingly, people have relationships with characters in books and on television, they have online relationships, and they have virtual relationships in digital spaces such as Second Life.

It should therefore be self-evident that people relationships are significant in nearly all that we do.  In fact, modern humans are truly part of the networked society as a consequence of the internet and World Wide Web.  We have in fact extended the possible reach of our relationships, widened the scale of intensity of relationships (between very weak to very strong); and increased the scalability of our relationships.  So shouldn’t we now recognise the importance and value of the network culture?

In many organisations, relationships are grounded in an “old style” corporate mentality dealing primarily with direct work-based relationships, often hierarchical in form.  In most cases, the network is based on physical proximity.  However, relying only on work-based physical contacts to get one’s work done is not enough these days.  In order to get the right person with the right information at the right time, we need more than just physical proximity.  We need access and immediacy.  We get access and immediacy through our networks, often facilitated through information technology channels.

In a recent blog post by Stefan Lindegaard, called How to create a networking culture, Stefan outlines some ideas for establishing and recognising a network culture within an organisation.  Not surprisingly, this recognition starts at the top. Stefan says: “Leaders [need to] show a genuine and highly visible commitment to networking. Leaders must walk the walk, not just talk the talk. … Leaders should also share examples of their networking experiences whenever possible”.

At the practical working level, Stefan has identified the following: “People [need to be] given time and means to network. Frequent opportunities are provided to help individuals polish their personal networking skills. Not everyone is a natural networker. But almost everyone can become good at it with proper training and encouragement.   Both virtual and face-to-face networking are encouraged and supported. Web 2.0 tools and facilitated networking events maximize the opportunities people have to initiative and build strong relationships”.

Now this all makes very good sense.  Why wouldn’t organisations want to leverage individual and groups’ people networks to get things done more quickly, more efficiently, and more effectively?  Such networks are at the heart of collective intelligence and knowledge management.

Why not use all the network facilitation services available in our modern world, from coffee shops to internet and Web 2.0?  And why should there be any doubt about the value of people networks when we can see how fundamental interrelationships between people have been over time?  Network culture should no longer be revolutionary – it should be accepted organisational practice.

On clarity

One of the forgotten aspects of knowledge management relates to clarity.  Wikipedia defines clarity as referring “to one’s ability to clearly visualize an object or concept, as in thought, (and) understanding”.  Without providing clarity, can we have successful knowledge management?

And when I speak of clarity, I am not saying that “we know in advance” or that clarity means that we have “the answer”.  What I am saying is that clarity provides for understanding.  Understanding, whether of the task or expectation, provides people with some sense of direction and confidence that might otherwise lead to confusion.  We will certainly not always know the future and therefore we cannot always be confident that we have prepared in advance.  However, providing clarity, often with explanation, is helpful in overcoming confusion and inertia.

I am looking at a number of issues in my current workplace where some of the knowledge management components would be improved if there was some clarity.  This relates to how the organisation uses explicit knowledge contained within project documentation as well as the ability to use tacit knowledge within thematic networks – networks that may become communities of practice (CoP’s) in the near future. Clarity is about guidance.

There is a lack of clarity about the correct work processes and final destination of project documentation (we don’t have a true electronic and document records management system), let alone what use could be made of them later on outside of reporting requirements.  This example is knowledge management 1.0 – KM as a process and a tool for information capture, analysis and re-use.

If we were to define this problem using the Cynefin framework, we could see that some of the business processes around project documentation are in the simple space and some of the later issues are in the complex space.  The simple space refers to the systematic way in which the project documentation should be originated and the steps to take to put these documents into a repository for retrieval and use.  A “rules and tools” approach could work here.  The complicated space refers to the area in which different needs and opportunities may be serviced by using these project reports for a range of activities if only there was some knowledgeable response to the problem.

Similarly, there is a lack of clarity about how our networks should operate and what the expectations are surrounding the networks.  There are differences in opinion depending on where one sits along the management pole, for example. Hopefully, the recent review may provide an answer – we will see.  A big success factor for what happens next will be in determining a clearer picture as to what the networks can contribute and what role members are to play.  This may take some time and we might need to explore different ideas – “probing the complex space” to use a favoured expression from Cognitive Edge.  But providing clarity will give people confidence and some assurance as to the role they can play within the networks and in the exchange of tacit knowledge within the agency.  Building confidence within CoP’s is a critical requirement for successful networks.

Providing clarity is something that we should not ignore.

On organisational network analysis

I arranged for Cai from Optimice to come into AusAID today to give a short presentation on organisational network analysis (ONA).  Some people may also refer to ONA as social network analysis (SNA).

I had previously talked with Cai and Laurie from Optimice at the recent KM Australia conference in Sydney.  Cai had offered then to do a presentation for me on his next trip to Canberra.  And today was the day.

The interesting thing for me about using ONA was in the visualisation of data and the direction and intensity of relationships. My interest is largely directed at the information relationships between people, as well as the relationship between people and knowledge objects.  At the same time, some consultants have just finished a draft report on the thematic networks and I was thinking that the report could have been improved with some good organisational network analysis using the Optimice product.

In addition, the online team in Communications were interested in the mapping possibilities tied to internet/intranet content management and the broader communication issues between head office and overseas posts.

Suffice to say, I am keen to try out some ONA with my own workplace responsibilities in information and  knowledge services.  ONA might not have all the answers, but the visualisation of the data and relationships would be a great starting point for deeper research and analysis.

On making patterns and links – meaning and illusion

One of the natural wonders of human life is the way in which we look for connections, patterns, and links. We try and make sense of potentially unrelated events and actions by looking for relationships between them. One of my high school teachers told me that I look for things that aren’t there, so I have a strong sense of looking for relationships and connections! But by the same token, I am acutely aware that imagined connections may appear to have some meaning but in fact have no real relationship at all.

My long-time  interest in psychology brought me to the attention of the work by Harold Kelley, and in particular,  attribution theory and causal attribution. The gist of it all is that people to seek to attribute a certain causal relationship between two (or more) events to themselves, often a self-rationalisation and often completely unrelated to the actual reality (causality) of the relationship being considered.

So I was therefore not surprised when I read this news story about a tree stump in Ireland that purported to show an image of the Catholic “Our Lady” in the wood grain. The news story reminded me of a similar event years ago when a spilt milk shake in a lift in the US yielded a similar iconic response.

We look for patterns and links to explain things to give us meaning. It is not just primitive societies seeking explanation for drought and flood from sun gods and rain gods; modern society also looks to find meaning and explanation for things that happen or are likely to occur.  Superstition is everywhere.

At the same time, we need to be wary of attributing causality and seeing relationships and linkages that are not really there. If we are not discriminating in our thinking or analysis, then we can come up with some rather ridiculous explanations for things that have no real relationship at all – and history is littered with them, and not just in Ireland.

Now, I am beginning to look at how to map some workplace relationships (the work-oriented ones rather than the social ones at present) and communication channels between groups in order to get a picture of how people share information within identified networks. I am interested in levels of intensity, direction of flow, and whether there are particular gatekeepers or knowledge hubs.

Yet I am conscious of using this information without looking for relationships and making conclusions that don’t really exist – attribution theory and causal attribution are certainly on my mind. Are the linkages showing real relationships and do those linkages and relationship really matter? Care will clearly need to be taken in drawing out meaningful observations and conclusions.

Let’s look at the following list and try and identify what they each have in common (I love playing this type of game with my daughter, so bear with me on this one). I know it’s not as sophisticated and meaningful as the oft-used Dave Snowden example – cow, chicken, grass – but this is more for fun to illustrate a point.

• Richie Blackmore
• Greenpeace
• Judy Garland
• Goorialla

So, does it matter?

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 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!

On innovative thought and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

During the week I listened to the first series of The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy on CD. I have listened to the series hundreds of times before, the first time being the original radio broadcast on 2JJ when I was at school in Sydney. The radio series never fails to make me laugh or wonder at the clever storyline and characterisation.

But this week I also listened to the CD that explained how the original BBC radio series came about. Having listened to the CD a couple of times now, I can see that there are several knowledge management and strategic organisational issues that come across.

The creator, the late Douglas Adams, first had a thought about a hitchhikers’ guide to the galaxy one drunken evening lying down in a field looking up at the stars in Innsbruck, Austria in 1970 or 1971. A few years later Adam’s creative, yet eccentric, writing talents and ideas were picked up by a radio show producer at the BBC who could see the innovative and creative talent of this chap Douglas Adams but wasn’t sure how it could be utilised for the best.

They met for lunch, discussed a few ideas, and the first formative writing of a series began. The initial plan was to have a series of single episodes with different stories but with the same ending. However, Adams looked to find a more satisfying and meaningful storyline that became a single series of episodes, continuing from one episode to the next.

Suffice to say, the first episodes were written (often on the fly, as Adams was renowned for his procrastination and late delivery of story content) and the first series completed. And of course, there was the whole production process working to complete a quality radio show – actor selection and voice recordings, taping and editing (using an eight-track tape machine – all pre-computer and digitisation) and the ingenious people from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop who created all the sound effects. The radio series and subsequent books were an enormous success.

The point of this summation is this. An idea was born but that circumstances for that idea to become something tangible did not come into play until a few years later. Conditions and circumstances matter. Secondly, an individual with innovative thoughts and imagination is not always recognised or appreciated within the organisation where such an individual works. There needs to be awareness, recognition and vision. Fostering innovative thought needs a supporting environment, and open and attuned decsion-makers so that an idea becomes realised into something more than just a thought. Thirdly, the production of the idea into a tangible product also relies on the existing social and professional networks to bring people into the project in order to deliver a finished output – a number of actors and production people for the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy came on board due to friendships, university contacts, and having worked together on previous projects. Professional and social networks are important in the workplace.

I wonder what would have happened if Douglas Adams’ talents had gone unnoticed and unappreciated at the BBC. Imagine if the BBC hierarchy had simply said that “we don’t do that kind of thinking around here”. Would Adams’ Innsbruck idea ever have become anything more than an idea? Thinking beyond what is considered the norm or the usual is something we need to encourage if we are to fully realise innovative thoughts within organisations.

And in putting the various members of the production team together, could it have worked out as well as it did if not for all the networked connections between people and past associations?

Listening to how the Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy came together has highlighted some key thinking that good knowledge management within organisations must take on board.

Knowledge management and the world financial crisis

Since my last blog post, the world financial market has really taken a battering as large finanical institutions in the US, Britain and in Europe collapse under the weight of poor lending practices and even poorer management and control structures. The financial impact alone is enormous.

What has this to do with knowledge management, I hear you ask?

Well, knowledge management is about enabling informed decision-making and taking action. Knowledge management facilitates the information and knowledge assets of a business to drive operational efficiencies, create opportunities for growth and innovation, and establish sound information management practices and systems for preparedness and risk mitigation.

Knowledge management is therefore about establishing the internal operational conditions for making effective and knowledgeable choices and decisions across the business domains of a firm – and those business domains are where profits and losses are created.

An organisation’s codified knowledge and information (explicit knowledge), capacity for research and analysis, and capabilitiy to locate and disseminate this information will inform a workplace and the people within it; for decision-makers and for taking action.

At the same time, knowledge management involves people - the information and knowledge exchanged, re-articulated and reformulated by humans within particular contexts. The knowledge and experiences of people are unique, co-evolving, and able to be shared to develop or create new knowledge. This is what is commonly referred to in the knowledge management literature as tacit knowledge.

Knowledge management facilitates this interplay between explicit and tacit knowledge out of which organisations make decsions and take action. Knowledge management is therefore ongoing, cumulative and regenerating.

Knowledge management also works to reduce costs through improving workflow, facilitating efficient and effective information capture, access, and dissemination, facilitates conversation and human networks, and enhances collaboration and connectivity between individuals for common purpose.

Knowledge management is therefore about providing the infrastructure and capability for organisations to make informed decisions. As knowledge managers, we like to think that the outcome of knowledge management is Innovation and competitive advantage – and sometimes it is. But just as importantly is the strategic importance of using knowledge and information assets wisely to improve operational effectiveness, decision-making and governance issues – profit making and risk mitigation.

On the cost side, knowledge management drives down the cost of doing business through more efficient and productive operations (saving time is one of the obvious manifestations). Being able to find the right information at the right time is critical, as is preparedness through awareness. Being aware and having quick access to information and the right people allows for organisational agility and responsiveness that impacts on how opportunities are found and change is managed.

A strategic knowledge management approach to organisational perfomance is an excellent way for companies to make improved decisions for profit generation and risk mitigation while also saving costs and speeding up interaction within people networks for collective thinking and collaborative advantage.

Knowledge management offers a foundation, many paths and a network. Yet it’s true that senior management and executives choose which way to jump – and the frying pan at 700 or 870 degrees is one route. Wall Street, if it’s not to late, take heed!

On RMAA Convention 2008 – report (3)

Who would have thought that I could make three  blog posts out of the first day of a conference? Well this is the third instalment. I will focus on three papers that dealt with electronic document and records management systems strategy and implementations.

The three presentations were delivered by Jo Stephenson (Victorian Department of Transport), Matt O’Mara (Wellington City Libraries), and Jo Golding (Eraring Energy).

Jo Stephenson detailed her experience in project managing the implementation of an EDRMS across a state government department. The focus was on the people in the strategy and this implementation. Key messages included understanding the diverse work practices and variety of information systems in use; use stories from the front line about the current unstructured information environment (and this is something I am currently collating myself in my current role to support the rest of the EDRMS strategy); listen, capture and reflect on what people are saying; understand the organisational drivers and business activities; involve people along the journey; agree on a start and an end point; communicate often and widely; and, simplify the message – save it, find it, secure it, and save it.

Jo also had some common sense advice about communicating the “what’s in it for me message?”. This is always good practice in my opinion, but too often these basic behavioural and attitudinal factors are left until the end of the implementation. If staff are only exposed to the EDRMS for the first time in training and then in a live operating environment, then people not only feel left out of the actual process but are also reluctant to embrace change based on a lack of understanding about “what’s in it for me?”. Usually, we offer compliance and governance as key drivers for user adoption. Jo recommends advocating other attributes of more direct relevance to people doing the work – for example, improve access and retrieval of documents, assist in decision-making, and saving time.

I recommend understanding the workplace behaviours and workplace needs of individuals within your particular organisation in order to give you a better understanding of where these “touchpoints” are most relevant and where there is likely to be the greatest impact.

I did ask Jo about critical success factors, especially one she mentioned on increased data storage requirements. Increasing data storage might not always indicate success in my opionion. Volume does not always equate to data quality.

Matt O’Mara spoke about implementing an information strategy. Matt only had four months in which to develop a strategy and he chose to concentrate on identifying business needs and business problems, and then looking at what solutions might be relevant and how the solutions would be enabled. I certainly agree that matching problems to solutions helps in getting senior executive interest rather than trying to win support based on records management principles alone. Matt also recommended doing a benefits analysis. In addition, Matt talked about information management maturity models (I have alluded to them in a previous post) and the use of an issues register.

I had to agree with Matt that building sound information management foundations was a critical dimension for organisational success, something that still rings true in the Web 2.0 world.

Jo Golding outlined how she approached the task of establishing an EDRMS within a major NSW energy utility. The corporate information strategy was based on three key objectives:

• protect our information
• decrease risk
• effective use of business information

There was wide consultation with the different Eraring Energy sites. Jo emphasised the importantce of utilising the knowledge of the people within the organisation to discover culture (at different power generation sites), staff-organisation relations, leaders and champions, and effective rewards. Rollout and training occurred together and Jo admitted being fortunate that Eraring had compulsory training days (T-days) that she could leverage for the necessary EDRMS training and skill updates (among other channels).

The common theme that struck me was the recognition that any strategy and implementation needs to find acceptance and support within the organisation. One of the ways I have approached this kind of thing in the past has been to use informal channels to build internal relationships from which more structured and formal communication initiatives can take place. In large organisations (like giant government departments) this approach may well be impractical.

Establishing an authentic personal profile and building relationships within and between organisations helps improve the effectiveness of raising awareness and garnering participation through more formal communication channels. Moreover, marketing a service or a new workplace activity is improved by harnessing real and personal connections.

My notes reveal one final thought for further consideration: we need to see beyond information management and knowledge management within our organisations. Sure, we have discrete activities and responsibilites that fall within particular designations (as do health professionals), but we need to improve our understanding of the relationship between those knowledge and information activities, increase the depth of our networks, and leverage our skills and capabilities more effectively. I believe we are all heading in the same direction so let’s work together to make the journey more valuable.

Finally, I must thank the presenters and the attendees of the RMAA Convention 2008 whom I managed to talk with on Monday (and Professor Julie McLeod this morning at the IIM breakfast) for some stimulating thinking and discussion – all good stuff!

On records, information and knowledge management strategy

Lately, I have been giving a great deal of thought with respect to information and knowledge management strategy. This is partly because I am working on an electronic document and records management business case and implementation plan at my current work, but also because I want to place the records management case within an organisational knowledge and information framework.

Traditionally, records management has been a stand alone discipline focused purely on documents and records. That was my early experience in that field! But of course, electronic document and records management systems have grown to significant levels of sophistication, as any of the major EDRMS vendors will tell you! At the same time, we also have digital library management systems and web-content management systems.

But the landscape is changing fast as the explosion in information, particularly user-generated content, gathers even greater volumes of information to capture, store and access across a range of different media and repositories. We have seen the physical information world become the digital information world and now the social digital world – Web 2.0.

The transformation is really very obvious in photography, for example. The modern evolution looks like this: a photographic print in physical storage, a digital image stored in a personal computer file, and a digital image stored on a shared global internet platform, like Flickr, for potentially unlimited distribution and comment.

As information has exploded exponentially, across a range of media and via a plethora of channels, organisations are looking at ways that provide a whole-of-enterprise approach to information and knowledge management. And I believe that records management is becoming less an independent arm in the information landscape, and more an integrated process and functional system within a whole-of- enterprise information and knowledge management environment.

I am less interested in discussing turf wars between records managers, librarians, and knowledge managers these days. It seems to me that there are significant benefits of information convergence by utilising a range of information tools and processes for enterprise advantage.

What I am really interested in is how whole-of-enterprise information and knowledge systems can work for organisations utilising specific records, information and knowledge management tools and processes. I can see that to achieve such a whole-of-enterprise solution will depend on a greater degree of co-operation and collaboration at the broad information management level than what often happens now, especially in large organisations. Ironically, as a knowledge manager myself, I can see that information professionals need to collaborate more and to lose the defensiveness that comes with our historical traditions. Moreover, I see human resource management playing a greater role in the discussion about human and social capital, all of which fits the domain of information and knowledge management very nicely.

I can say with a fair degree of confidence, based on my experience and observations, that whole-of-enterprise records management, information and knowledge solutions will become more the norm than the exception. Organisations will look to leverage the complete suite of operational knowledge and information practices and procedures in a completely integrated and almost seamless architecture. These systems and processes will support the organisation’s explicit knowledge needs.

In addition, these systems and processes can contribute to social capital by making information visible across a range of formats – creating network links between people as well as documents and artefacts, and facilitating collaboration spaces and communities within and across organisational boundaries.

In looking at a strategic approach for organisational information management, I believe that we now need to leverage an integrated (or even federated) suite of record, information and knowledge management practices and processes for operational excellence.

Our strategic thinking should therefore be focused on determining how best to utilise our records management, information management and knowledge management practices and processes for whole-of-enterprise advantage. And as I have noted before, we need to keep the dialogue happening with human resources to maximise the intellectual and social capital of the organisation’s people – a resource that needs operational integration as much as systems.

On digital games

In late 2006 I met up with Euan Semple over a few hot beverages at the hotel I was staying in for my London visit to Information Online. As part of our discussion, Euan recommended the book, The kids are alright, by John Beck and Mitchell Wade (actually somewhat dated now). I bought the book in Charing Cross Road and it stood on my bookshelf at home in Sydney for some time before I got around to reading it late last year.

But before I read that book, my interest in online games was stimulated by a couple of items I haphazardly found on the web and downloaded for interest. One was a 2006 article on games and learning, and the second was a podcast by Richard van Eck of the University of North Dakota (USA) on the thinking behind the effectiveness of games in teaching and learning (I listened to the podcast again this evening and it is still very relevant).

Since then, I have read quite a few more articles on the topic and I am gradually changing my previously sceptical viewpoint about digital games. Now this is quite a revelation to me since I have always had the opinion that play and games are vital for learning. When I was at primary school and in the early years of high school, I made games myself with cardboard, cards, tokens, and spin-wheels. I created characters, currencies, and problems that were developed for the board games and I did all of this for fun. Moreover, my research to make the game and the rules was also fun!

But somehow, as an adult, I have clung on to the notion that board games are good and digital games are bad (and this is despite the fact that I spent considerable time playing Galaxians during my early university years, and becoming quite proficient I might add). I have held the view that board games are “more than just fun” but digital games are just leisure, not something to take seriously.

But I am now reviewing my attitudes more and more about digital games and learning. I have become much more interested in the role of digital games within the educational domain. To a lesser extent, I am interested in understanding and using digital gaming as another form of entertainment. I’d say my lack of spare time prohibits my full exploration of digital games for fun but the prevalence and variety of such games is astounding.

Having said all this, I have some doubts as to the effectiveness of online training systems. I have completed a few workplace-based online training sessions (funnily enough, most often dealing with compliance issues) but always felt that the learning session was more interested in checking off tick-boxes rather than any meaningful learning. Essentially, the online training sessions relied on the ability to memorise a few bits of information, answer the multiple choice questions, and move on. But did I really learn anything??

When it comes to digital games I am more positive given their emphasis on problem-solving in particular. It was therefore interesting to read today that gaming can indeed be a positive learning and thinking medium, using alternate reality games (ARGs) such as World without oil. Not only does the game look at dealing with real world problems like global oil deficits, but the nature of the game is indeed very collaborative.

The article cites Andrea Phillips, an ARG writer and producer, who says that the key appeal of these games is in the art of crafting a collaborative narrative. “Collaboration in storytelling is an old tradition, even older than print,” she says. “So you could say we’re working to reclaim something we lost hundreds of years ago when we first started recording narratives with pen and paper, and later with film.”

[And interestingly, there's a conference next week on narrative and interactive learning to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland. Could be worth a look to anyone living in the British Isles. I have also been alerted to the 2nd European Conference on Games-Based Learning to be held in Barcelona, Spain, in October].

Digital games as a learning media are certainly gaining some traction. As the book, “The kids are alright” argued, our doubts and fears about the online digital space in which these games are conducted need to be re-examined in the light of the positive digital gaming taking place around the world. And like most things, the good and the bad are determined by the context, not the technology.

If we can use digital games for educational learning, and to generate new ideas by examining real world problems in a collaborative environment, then we should be supportive, shouldn’t we?

On Ning and things for educational resource development

In my current role at The Fred Hollows Foundation I am working with my community education co-ordinator to put together a teacher reference group to provide input and comment on development education materials aimed at school students.

I am exploring Ning at the moment to get a better understanding of its capabilities as a potential tool for use in establishing this educational reference group. One of the benefits of Ning is the ability to have an invitation-only member forum in which to communicate and discuss various educational issues with a reference group who may not otherwise meet together in person.

I’d be interested in hearing about any experiences with Ning, or other systems, that have been used to develop educational initiatives and teaching materials in a professional reference group setting. I would be especially interested in experiences from the international development and NGO educational areas.