The "Big Picture" - And Our KM/Knowledge Services Targets

As managers pay more attention to organizational effectiveness, an important parallel development has to do with the way enterprise leaders are looking at KM/knowledge services.

In the not-too-distant past – back when we had to argue and cajole and use all our manipulative tools to get management to have some interest in KM/knowledge services – one trick we used was the old “low-hanging fruit” idea. We would find some high-visibility, catchy KM/knowledge services technique, go to management with some discussions about how the organization needed to be thinking about how we were dealing with strategic knowledge, and make a case for putting it in place. Usually on a sort of experimental basis, focusing on one department or functional unit – probably a fairly small operation – and we would work on it as a “pilot” project, just to be safe and just to be sure too many fingers weren’t burned if we failed.

That’s not so much the case anymore. What we’re seeing now is management coming to us, the KM/knowledge services professionals, and asking us to prepare a business case for figuring out how the organization can deal with strategic knowledge. And as often as not, management (at least up-to-date and well-educated senior managers who recognize the viability of KM/knowledge services in the organization) is not asking for pilot projects or some easy-to-fix situation that has little risk. Now management is looking for an enterprise-wide KM/knowledge services strategy, and the gauntlet has been thrown down. It’s up to us to rise to the challenge. 

So how do we do it? How do we tackle this “big picture” opportunity?

One scenario I’m seeing in my work has to do with taking advantages of the enterprise-wide approach: since you’re working with such a large group, you get to identify the different layers and operational functions in place throughout the company and you work with different people to understand what information, knowledge, and strategic learning is required for them, at their particular level. Meaning of course that the people working in production on the shop floor are experiencing one KM/knowledge services need, the people in middle management with another, the employees in the executive suite with even another (or several if you separate out what the executives themselves require as opposed to the office management staff, personal assistants, and others). 

You get the picture. We’re now at the point where it’s OK – even good – to identify that managing strategic knowledge is not going to be the same for everyone in the organization. Indeed, it will be this over-arching collaboration and knowledge-sharing experience that will enable the organization to break down those “silos” and “smokestacks” we hear so many managers lamenting about. If we – as the KM/knowledge services authorities – are able to get our arms around the enterprise-wide strategic knowledge challenge, our colleagues and co-workers will be able to do the same.

Is this a new direction? I think so, and it might be one of the future trends in KM/knowledge services people talk about from time to time.

And certainly the beginning of a new year (and of a new decade as my pal Cindy Hill has pointed out) is the ideal time to identify some of the new trends in KM/knowledge services that are coming down the pike. And talk about how we can adapt them in our own workplace.

And we’re going to do that, if you want to join us.

On Friday, 15 January, at 1:00 PM PT and 4:00 PM ET, SMR International is sponsoring another of its Spot-On Seminars, the webinars we put together from time to time so people can share ideas and thoughts about KM/knowledge services.

The topic this time is “Getting Ready: Future Trends in KM/Knowledge Services,” and we’re calling it a “conversation” with Cindy and Dale Stanley and myself. But it’s not really a conversation. Dale and Cindy and I will start, but we also want it to be a dialogue, so after we’ve had a few things to say, we’ll open the lines (as they say) and let you have your turn. We want to hear from others who work with strategic knowledge what they’re seeing – and doing – and we’re anxious to know what you are anticipating.

So join us. If you would like to sign up, get in touch with Cindy Hill at cindyvhill@HillInfoConsulting.com and let her know, and we’ll put you down.

See you  - electronically of course – on the 15^th.

Knowledge Work - We're Going to Win This War After All

There was a time, not so long ago, when one of my colleagues - a smart man who was a serious student of philosophy and was himself what I could only characterize as "deeply philosophical" - moved over into information management. He become a specialist librarian, had something of a career in that field, and was (by the time I knew him) teaching in a graduate LIS program.

On many occasions we had great discussions about the role of the knowledge professional in corporate and organizational effectiveness, and despite the strength of my argument or my passion about the knowledge professional as knowledge thought leader for the organization, my friend was always quick to make a point - almost any point - by saying, "Just give it up. The engineers have won."

He meant that the battle - as many described it in those days - between the people who build the pipelines and the people who manage the content was lost. The IT community was going to always be in control, according to the conventional wisdom, and nobody really cared about the opinions and leadership of the people who managed, advised about, and shared content.

He was wrong. My friend was dead wrong.

We now know that that time in the history of knowledge management, knowledge services, and the knowledge worker was just a skirmish, not even a battle. It was just a period of time that we had to wait out, to be patient about while the rest of the world caught up with us.

I always knew it, of course. Not that I could have predicted what the outcome would be. I'm not that smart, and there's no way I could have predicted things like SaaS, remote data centers, social networking media, and all the myriad other products and tools that enable such strong communication nowadays. I knew it because it was the way things worked. In every encounter I had, having to do with information management, knowledge management, or strategic learning - those three elements that merge together to make up what we refer to as "knowledge services" - it was always a collaborate effort. It was always the engineers and the content people working together (in the successful efforts, that is) and while some of us were perhaps anxious to "push" the process toward one end of the spectrum or the other, that's not what happened.

And look where we've come.

I'm impressed to see Dan Holtshouse's lead article in the current KMWorld. In "The Future of Knowledge Workers," Holtshouse writes about research into long-term trends that demonstrates how companies and organizations are preparing to leverage "the best of the knowledge workers of the future."

OK. Perhaps I'm a little bit pollyanny-ish here, but reading what Holtshouse writes sends me a very clear message. The battle between the "engineers" and the "content people" is long over. Now, according to the research he describes, companies are preparing proactively for the future, with managers giving serious attention to how to retain knowledge that would be lost during retirements. And they are recruiting aggressively for high-quality knowledge workers (or outsourcing knowledge management), and among those who are recruiting the best people to come into their own shop, their top recruiting strategy, according to Holtshouse, turns out to be "an emphasis on flex telework/telecommute programs that reflect the era of the mobile work force." Equally important in effective recruiting for knowledge workers (why are we not surprised?) is an "emphasis on opportunities for personal growth through mentoring/coaching programs, advanced degree support, and integrated life/work programs."

Well said, Dan Holtshouse. I think we can now put away our "fears" (if that's what they were) about IT "taking over" or KM functioning as a separate, stand-alone management methodology. We're all in this together, and now that organizational management recognizes that fact, organizational effectiveness and success are closer that we ever thought.

Measurement and Metrics for Knowledge Services

Registration is now open for Critical Success Factors: Measuring Knowledge Services. For knowledge workers, few subjects generate as much interest (and discussion) as measurement and metrics. In Critical Success Factors, we tackle the subject head-on, spending three weeks working together to identify methodologies, tools, and techniques that we can put to work in evaluating (and conveying the value of) information management, knowledge management, and strategic learning for colleagues in the parent organization.

The course is part of Click U’s Premium Programs series, sponsored by SLA (but membership in SLA is not required to take the course). Critical Success Factors: Measuring Knowledge Services is offered both as an individual course and as part of the certificate program, and although there are considerable financial advantages to signing on for the certificate program, all courses are offered à la carte and all knowledge workers are welcome to participate.

Critical Success Factors: Measuring Knowledge Services begins on September 14. There are five course meetings, all online: three Monday lectures (September 14, 21, and 28), a live discussion among participants on Wednesday, September 23, and a course wrap-up and thematic discussion on Thursday, October 1. All programs begin at 3:00 PM EDT, and recordings of all meetings are available for re-play immediately following each meeting.

Go here for more information and to register.

Connecting Drucker's "Meaningful Outside" to Knowledge Services

With management and service delivery responsibility for knowledge services, the organization's knowledge services director has a unique two-sided role to play. On the one hand, this person is the knowledge thought leader for the entire enterprise, with all the innovation-directed and future planning pressure that goes with that role. On the other hand, as the manager of the knowledge services business unit, however it is structured in the larger organization, this manager must ensure that information, knowledge, and strategic learning products and services are delivered as required. It's a challenging task, this business of being two things at once.

And part of the challenge is defining the "audience" (we might call it) for the knowledge services work. Who benefits?

Peter Drucker might have provided us with an answer. Or at least with a provocative way of thinking about the people we're trying to reach.

One of Drucker's concepts, discussed last night among the participants at a meeting of The Drucker Society of New York City, is the role of the CEO in linking between what Drucker referred to as the Inside - i.e., "the organization" - and the Outside, all those external infuences that drive our work. And why is it important to make that distinction? Drucker answered that in an article in The Wall Street Journal in 2004 ("Management Today: The American CEO" - December 30, 2004): "Inside, there are only costs. Results are only on the outside."

Well, of course. And it's the results we're after, isn't it, as we seek to use knowledge services to ensure that the company is functioning as a knowledge culture? So how do we arrive at that "meaningful Outside" Drucker wrote about and apply those principles to knowledge services?

For the knowledge services director, it is important to recognize that there are two "Outsides." Thinking in terms of the larger enterprise, that Outside can be described as Drucker described it: "society, the economy, technology, markets, customers, the media, pubic opinion." For the knowledge services business unit - whether it is a research department, a specialized library, a knowledge center, or any of a variety of other business units providing knowledge services - the Outside is everybody and everything affiliiated with the company for which knowledge services are provided.

There are many, many practical applications that can be used to demonstrate how these Outsides become "meaningful," and we can look at a couple. And they apply - going back to the conundrum posed in the first paragraph - whether I'm doing my job as enterprise-wide knowledge thought leader or as the manager of a single, specific, knowledge-focused business unit.

For example, we can identify at least one element of Drucker's "Outside" for providing "meaningful" results if we have built, say, an expertise database (for the company or for an individual business unit) and we are able to monitor how many people - outside the domain of the knowledge services business unit - are working with this tool without being directed to it or shown how to use it by the knowledge services staff. The users are "outside" my realm of responsibility but how they use the tool provided by my business unit is meaningful, telling me much about my success. And I'm doing the same thing Drucker's CEO is doing, I'm serving as the link between my unit's Outside (the larger enterprise) and the Inside (the knowledge services business unit and its staff).

Another example might be on a less specific level, to think about the effect or impact of some action I take without having a measurable result in hand. As the knowledge thought leader, one of my jobs is to give attention to how people act differently in the workplace after they have been exposed to or participated in some initiative from my unit. If it's the result we are looking for, what might be the result after several weeks (months? years?) of working with staff in team-building situations, working with them in programs and learning activities relating specifically to knowledge sharing or in activities having to do with a project focus that is not especially knowledge related? It all boils down to the same thing, doesn't it? The impact or the effect is an organizational ambiance in which team work is expected, trust is a given, and collegiality is built into the process. It might not be a result that can be measured in quite the same way as the number of hits in an expertise database but it is, nevertheless, a result to be desired and sought after.