Information Africa Organization (IAO): Leadership for ICT and KM/Knowledge Services in Kenya

Strengthening Young People Through a Focus on KD/KS

The latest SMR International e-Profile takes a look at the Information Africa Organization (IAO), reflecting on the potential that this exciting new initiative has for KM/knowledge sharing in Eastern Africa, as well as for Kenya’s role in the global economy.

With this new organization, ICT and KM/knowledge services leaders in Kenya are seeking to – as stated in  the IAO constitution, “recognize and document the experience and resources of youth in order to facilitate knowledge management that would otherwise go underutilized….” Other specific objectives listed in the IAO constitution speak of such KM/knowledge services-related activities as the development of a resource center or databank, training and relevant skills and expertise, communication, awareness, advisory services, and facilitated KM, all of which are features of and connect to any well thought-out knowledge development/knowledge sharing (KD/KS) initiative.

Pictured here are the Hon. Rev. Moses Akaranga, former M.P. and Minister of State for Public Service and now IAO’s Vice-Chairman, and IAO Executive Director William Mibei. Working with other members of the IAO board and a group of young KM enthusiasts, they are building a framework for Kenya to strengthen its youth and provide employment through information, knowledge, strategic learning, and communications management.

The January, 2010 SMR e-Profile can be accessed directly. It is also available at SMRShare, SMR International’s knowledge capture site. The contact address for IAO is wkmibei@yahoo.com.

Getting Ready: Future Trends in KM/Knowledge Services

SMR International’s January 15, 2010 Spot-On Seminar

“Getting Ready: Future Trends in KM/Knowledge Services” was the theme for the January 15 SMR International Spot-On Seminar.

Billed as “A Conversation with Cindy Hill, Dale Stanley, and Guy St. Clair,” colleagues joined these KM/knowledge services leaders to talk about trends and exciting new concepts in KM/knowledge services.

A full report on the seminar and the slides displayed in the program are published at SMRShare, SMR International’s knowledge capture site.

Designed to bring colleagues together at the end of a busy week, SMR’s monthly Spot-On Seminars provide an opportunity to talk about work and share ideas. To be added to the mailing list for future Spot-On Seminars – which are free – go to info@smr-knowledge.com.

For more on subjects dealing with KM/Knowledge Services, check out the courses offered in  the Click U Certificate Program in KM/Knowledge Services, which begin again on February 8 with KMKS 11 Knowledge Management Project Management . Guy, Dale and Cindy are team-teaching the courses, with Cindy as the Lead. Come study at Click U and keep the conversation going.

 

Strategic Knowledge Repositories: An Informal Survey

What Do We Call Them?

Sara Douglas has been given a daunting challenge. She is in charge of research management at a company providing outsourced editorial services for magazine publishers (primarily working with free-lance editors and writers). The company is successful and continues to grow, but Sara finds herself almost overwhelmed with keeping up with the changes in handling information, knowledge, and strategic learning for the staff.

It’s a classic knowledge services scenario, and it isn’t limited to just dealing with records and information management (RIM) issues or corporate archives or HR compliance documents. It’s the whole strategic knowledge picture, and Sara knows she needs to be dealing with strategic knowledge management at its broadest, most wide-ranging level. She needs to use knowledge services implementation to build a knowledge culture for the entire company.

And she’s stuck. Sara has some language issues. She’s OK with ICT management, and she’s fine with strategic learning, simply because she’s come around to the fact that the knowledge she’s dealing with is absolutely strategic. It’s what the company must have and use if it is going to succeed.

But the KM picture is keeping her up at night, and based on her own observations and conversations with others in the company, she’s not alone.

And not just in Sara Douglas' office. Apparently there is a continuing struggle in conveying the concept of KM/knowledge services to people who are not particularly focused on knowledge and the value of knowledge in organizational effectiveness. Especially for executives with management responsibility who deal with research (people like Sara Douglas), there is in describing all the strategic knowledge that KM/knowledge services is supposed to fix. Sure, talking about bits and pieces of the strategic knowledge picture is pretty easy, but what terms do you use when you want to be inclusive, when you want to describe all the strategic knowledge that the organization must deal with?

How do we pull it all together?

Electronic Strategic Knowledge. The “naming” problem doesn't seem to affect what we call repositories for electronic information and knowledge capture. There are all sorts of definitions, most of them coming down to something along the lines of a computerized system that systematically captures, organizes and categorizes an organization's strategic knowledge, a repository that can be searched to ensure quick retrieval of the data.

Fine and dandy. But printed materials and other objects and artifacts can also “contain” knowledge to be accessed and shared, as do collaborative groups.

So what do we call these?

Here's what some of us have come up with:

Materials Knowledge Repository (printed materials and other objects/artifacts). We’ve lived with these for a long time, and we have no problem speaking about the hard-copy materials we collect. Some companies might refer to these materials as a “library,” or even have them captured in a functional unit referred to as a “specialized library” or “research library.” On the other hand, when that functional unit expands to include electronic strategic knowledge capture and advisory, synthesis, and interpretive services, it becomes more of an “information center” or “knowledge center” or “knowledge services center,” terms we hear pretty often.

And, yes, this category does include more than hard-copy books, periodicals, and the like. In today’s KM/knowledge services environment, no one is surprised to hear people refer to objects or artifacts like photographs, videos, artworks, historical objects and the like for their “content,” the knowledge that one takes from observing or using them. We could say they are contained in a Materials Knowledge Repository.

And then we come to the strategic knowledge captured and shared within networking or working groups – most often tacit knowledge, of course – and usually brought to the group in a knowledge transaction between or among people. Can we get away with referring to this as a:

Collaborative Knowledge Repository (communities of practice, working groups, social media networks, etc.). We know that is an incredible amount of information, knowledge, and strategic learning content captured by, shared, used by, and sometimes even retained by individuals working in such groups (perhaps we should refer to this knowledge store as a Personal Knowledge Repository). Indeed, whole new industries seem to have popped up in the KM/knowledge services field, just to help us figure out how to deal with, coordinate, manage, and make available for sharing knowledge that is not captured in any formal sort of repository. We know there is a huge quantity of knowledge people use all the time, carrying it around with them and pulling it up when it’s needed. But they don’t think about it in terms of knowledge or knowledge value. And when we are successful in collecting this knowledge, getting it to the point that we can engage in network value analysis and determining how to collected tacit knowledge so it can be shared, what do we call it?

How are you referring to the entire knowledge base of your organization or company? Do you have a single phrase or term? Is it used enterprise-wide?

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.

Managing Strategic Knowledge: Building Momentum

KM/Knowledge Services Success Depends on Staff Motivation

For every knowledge services director, there comes a time when enthusiasm turns to something akin to frustration. You know you have made progress in bringing the organization toward (if not yet to) recognition as a knowledge culture, and you have in place a number of initiatives that – while not making any particular headway – are understood to be “good for the company.”

But something’s missing, and you know what it is. The enthusiasm that you and some of your colleagues in the organization bring to the knowledge development and knowledge sharing (KD/KS) process seems not to be shared. Not always, and there are “pockets” where you might be making a little headway, you're happy to note. Yet you sometimes get the impression that while the people you work with are very willing to follow direction, to hear what you have to say, and, indeed, might sometimes come up with an idea or an objective or two, they are not especially excited about KM/knowledge services.

The spark isn’t there, and you need to figure out how to get people involved. You want them to be as committed to KD/KS as an organizational objective and you and a few other colleagues are, and they need to understand (or at least recognize) that strategic knowledge is something the organization cannot succeed without.

What should you do? How can you motivate people to get interested in what you and your staff are trying to accomplish with KM/knowledge services? How about a few tips from SMR International’s workbook?

1. WIIFM. Start with the basics. While the more idealistic of us might like to think about our workplace interactions from a “higher-level” perspective (e.g., everyone who works with us is as committed to the successful achievement of the organizational mission as we are), let’s get real here. Most people don’t come to work to “change the world.” They want to do their work – which they hope is interesting and rewarding (at least that’s what they tell the HR staff when they fill in those career-development forms) – but when they get right down to it, they’re not very interested in performing a task that they cannot connect to their own interests and their own advancement.

The answer is obvious: if “what’s-in-it-for-me?” is the driver for these employees, identify some low-hanging fruit (excuse the cliché) and find a KM/knowledge services solution that matches their success in their work with a problem that others have as well. Do you know a staff member who is continually forced to request information or forms from another department, but cannot get into the other department’s database to obtain the information? And is the problem such that people in both departments speak about how much time they waste going back and forth? Put them together, create a tiny working group to look at the problem and come up with a solution. When you’re finished, make sure all parties understand that what they’ve come up with is a KD/KS solution that – using the same types of activities – can be applied to other problems.

2. Convey the costs. Another useful step is to ensure that the KM/knowledge services commitment is part of the planning that takes place for any new endeavor, program, or product development scheme being considered. All of us have experienced the “catch-up” knowledge-sharing crisis that comes about when “what-we’ll-need-to-know” is left out of early discussions. The most well-known of these is the situation where program managers are surprised to learn that research costs for a proposed idea are going to knock a hole in the program budget, to say nothing of time and labor costs when the research team has to start paying to acquire essential information to pass on to the program team. Talk with staff early on to be sure they convey to their customers that research doesn’t come free. At the same time, work with program managers and others in positions of responsibility (and influence) to see if KM/knowledge services requirements cannot be incorporated into basic planning discussions. Talk about costs from the get-go. [And this technique, not so incidentally, sends a very strong message about the value of KM/knowledge services.]

3. MBWA to MBL. Managing-by-walking-about continues to be the knowledge services director’s most effective communications tool, and it comes in pretty handy for performance evaluation as well. But if we really want to get a handle on what people in the organization think about the KD/KS process, listen to what they are saying. In conversations about research issues, tools, techniques, knowledge services staff, or whatever other topics come up, take the initiative and slant the conversation so you – as the knowledge services director – can get a “snapshot” of what’s going on. Do you need more information? Is there a “tone” or an underlying reticence for entering into new programs because of some perceived barrier with respect to strategic knowledge? You can find out by listening, and if you add what you hear to what you observe when you’re walking about, you’re going to come away with more than a snapshot. You’ll have a good picture and, more important, you will now have enough information to take action.

4. Sponsorship. In every consultancy we undertake, Dale Stanley and I look first at the relationships in place in the organization. We particularly focus on senior management and the commitment of people at the senior management level to the KD/KS process. When you meet up with organizational leaders (casually or formally), what’s your take on their understanding of the role of strategic knowledge in the organization? Do they understand the value of strategic knowledge? Are they in tune with the organization as a knowledge culture? Does their understanding of organizational strategy include a reference point for knowledge strategy? If so, does the knowledge strategy match the business strategy?

Dale and I make a point of trying to get enterprise leaders to work with the knowledge services director to, as Dale puts it, “express, model, and reinforce” an organizational commitment to excellence in KM/knowledge services. We try to pin senior management (or even a single senior manager) down not only to saying they support good KM/knowledge services. We look for more, and we encourage them to take on a particular KM/knowledge services tool or technique and spread the word that they are using it (or support its use, if direct use of the tool isn’t germane to their work). Finally, we invite them to put some strength into their commitment, to let the word out that not taking advantage of good KM/knowledge services opportunities will influence their judgment about professional performance.

5. Organizational effectiveness. In the long run, it is organizational effectiveness that we’re going for, and that quest just might be the best motivational tool we bring to the organization. Today’s enterprise leaders are naturally interested in organizational development and in strengthening the organization – after all, it’s what we seem to be working on most of the time, and what we’ve been doing for over forty years now. But the true focus in the 21st century workplace is on organizational effectiveness. Effectiveness is our new organizational purpose. How well is our company (organization, agency) doing what it is supposed to be doing? How successful are we in delivering on our organization’s desired effects? This is a very powerful paradigm in today’s workplace, and knowledge workers know it and relate to it. If we can bring to our people a desire to commit to the effectiveness of the larger organization, their commitment to KD/KS will fall into place.

Strategic Knowledge Services Management: The Essentials

Here we are, knowledge services directors with responsibility for the management of strategic knowledge in our employing organizations. 

Most of the time we're required to deal with standard management functions. Once in a while, though, a real opportunity comes along, and we find ourselves positioned to move the organization forward in terms of knowledge services. 

Two recent queries from colleagues got me to thinking about how we might prepare for such an occasion.

One colleague asks what essentials he should have in his basket "as he floats through the KM/knowledge services cloud on a balloon" - as he charmingly puts it. Another colleague notes that he may likely be presented with the opportunity to re-structure his organization's specialized library into the company's knowledge center, a knowledge nexus for all knowledge services-related transactions and functions.

Here are the "essentials" I would aim for:

• Extremely high visibility in the organization Make it your business to ensure that everyone understands what strategic knowledge is. Make sure they know that if they have any exercise, task, product development idea, project, or just plain ol' document management issues to deal with or choose from, your strategic knowledge management skills make you to go-to person (or your team if you have several people in your office).   
  

• Structural "fit" Position your knowledge services functional unit to ensure it supports units and programs where the action is. You and your staff want to be known for taking on the tough tasks, the hard stuff that no one else - even the subject experts - can figure out for themselves (or who get it wrong). Stay away from the kid stuff. And when you and your team are part of a successful strategic knowledge sharing scenario, promote the hell out of it. Let anybody who gets within ten feet of you know how tough the job was and how great it was to pull it off. And be sure to give credit to the people from outside your unit who worked with your team to make it a successful.
  

• Build your troops Within every department or functional unit in the organization, identify someone to be that unit's designated person who - while focusing on the specific subject or functionality of the unit - has responsibility as the knowledge services point person for the unit. This person doesn't have to be an information, knowledge, or strategic learning "professional" per se, but it should be someone who is assigned when hired to "help" the unit in terms of information, knowledge, or strategic learning (and the person doesn't have to have top-heavy qualifications - just an interest in helping people find what they need to know). Once you've identified the point person for the unit, you and your team take responsibility for and work with unit management in mentoring, advising, and coaching the point person so they learn to direct people to your knowledge center - the organizational knowledge nexus - for any query having to do with finding and learning what they need to know
  

Leading to...

• Knowledge leadership Establish yourself and your team as the strategic learning specialists for the organization. Your goal is to make sure the knowledge development/knowledge sharing (KD/KS) process is "built in" to the organizational culture. Talk about what Dale Stanley refers to as the "catalytic" quality of knowledge services, how KD/KS enables you and the people you come in contact with to create knowledge value through KD/KS. Use the language. Get people to talking about strategic knowledge and what strategic knowledge is for each person's workplace. Create the KD/KS buzz in your organization.
  

• Go holistic. Finally (and very appropriate for this week, in which we are observing the 100th anniversary of Peter Drucker's birth), take whatever steps are necessary to see that you and your team support the entire organization. A recent article in Harvard Business Review offers that Mr. Drucker's real contribution lies in his "integrative, holistic thinking." Integrative, holistic thinking works in managing strategic knowledge services, too. Make it enterprise-wide. Don't allow yourself and your staff to become the intellectual "pets" of this or that research unit or function. If that's what's needed, get yourself or a staff member embedded in that unit's projects, on a case-by-case basis. Your job is to be the KD/KS process managers, the knowledge thought leaders, for the entire organization.

Strategic Knowledge - A Letter to SLA's Members

If I were invited to send a letter to SLA’s members at this particular time in history, here is what I would say:

Dear Colleagues,

This letter is being sent to you a few days before polls open for the historic vote on the name of the association.

I am writing to you today because I will not be in my usual workplace during the 16 November – 9 December voting period. I will vote though, because we live and work in a society that is connected globally. Even though I will be at a remote location – on assignment for a client – SLA is an international association and is managed so that I can vote in the election from wherever I am.

To me, this happy state of affairs exemplifies what this election is about. I know the history of SLA pretty well, and I’ve researched and studied how decisions were made over the past 100 years. Until the last few years, any SLA election required a mail ballot, or the presence of members in a single meeting room.

We don’t have to do that anymore, because we are part of a society in which economic, technological, and sociological advances have eliminated such restrictions. We can all vote, and we can do so from wherever we happen to be at the time the ballot is sent to us electronically. We are a boundaryless organization.

Our membership should be boundaryless as well. The work we do – providing management and service delivery functions for strategic knowledge relating to whatever organization, group, team, task force, or other entity we’re associated with – is critical, essential, and highly desirable. Regardless of our job titles or individual roles in the management of strategic knowledge assets, we are the guardians of strategic knowledge for the organization. We have the decidedly honorable task of ensuring that strategic knowledge assets – however defined and however utilized – are maintained and accessed as well as they can be maintained and accessed. Excellence of quality in strategic knowledge asset management is not an exception with us – it is our fundamental purpose. It is why we do what we do.

With this election, we have the opportunity to take our dedication to excellence to a new level. When we have identified ourselves as strategic knowledge professionals, we will find ourselves recognized and acknowledged for the excellence and dedication with which we manage strategic knowledge assets for our employers. When that happens, an accumulation of professional barriers will be removed and we will be positioned as knowledge thought leaders in our organizations.

Let me share two examples. In one, a speaker at a recent public event described the pollution in two important bodies of water on opposite sides of North America. In his presentation, he spoke strongly about the need for knowledge sharing, for the development of a knowledge strategy through which the leaders of the various industries, academic institutions, government agencies, and other affected societal entities could pool their intellectual efforts, their intellectual infrastructure as it were, and devise a plan for dealing with the pollution and resolving the problem.

In another example, a consulting company specializing in KM, knowledge services, and the building of the organizational knowledge culture is called to a developing country to create a knowledge strategy for a humanitarian body, an organization that seeks to improve the lives of millions of disadvantaged people who simply want – and deserve – to live a better life. The organization exists to help these people, and to achieve organizational effectiveness, a knowledge strategy for managing the vast accumulated body of knowledge related to the organization’s work must be devised. The assignment is to align the organization’s strategic knowledge assets with its organizational purpose.

In both examples, it is knowledge – strategic knowledge specific to the support of the organizational performance strategy – that must be developed, organized, managed, analyzed, delivered, and shared. And the people with responsibility for this management and service delivery function are strategic knowledge professionals.

It will be an honor to cast my vote in what is arguably the most important decision of my professional life. It will also be a deeply humbling experience, because in voting in this election I have the opportunity to be part of moving my and my colleagues’ professional work into a position of influence it has never known before. In both the larger professional world of KM/knowledge services and in society at large, we strategic knowledge professionals will now be perceived and accepted as the knowledge thought leaders we are. Now we will be recognized – at long last – for what we do well. It is a privilege to vote in this election.