KM Edge: Where the best in Knowledge Management come together

10 Principles for Successful Communities

2010-03-18T21:01:35Z

We hope you will be able to join us for APQC's March 2010 knowledge management community call featuring guest facilitator Stan Garfield, community evangelist at Deloitte. During the call, Stan will present 10 principles for successful communities based on his experiences creating, leading, and managing communities and communities programs both inside and outside of organizations.

This one-hour call will take place next Thursday, March 25, at 10:30 a.m. Central time. You can register for the call at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/204945736.

To read more about Stan, visit his Web site at http://sites.google.com/site/stangarfield.

Is a Digital Nation Necessarily a Dumber Nation?

2010-02-22T23:22:46Z

Continuing the theme of my last post on digital devices, I really enjoyed the PBS.org documentary Digital Nation, which talks about the growing dominance of digital media and interaction on all our lives. My husband and I had to pause the TiVo every five minutes to process what we were seeing. Both the entire documentary and short segments are available at this link.

My last two sentences are an ironic commentary on the message of the documentary itself: Are all our digital devices making us dumb, prompting us to think in sound bites instead of essays and willing to settle for just good enough instead of great when it comes to knowledge and information?

Or is the current transformation just a case of a new generation finding its own way? After all, every generation in recent memory has been more productive than the last.

However, that tide could be reversing. Even though each generation of Americans in the past century has lived longer and been healthier than its parents, the next one promises to be sicker, given the unhealthy quantity and quality of food we eat and the emergence of gaming over playing. And paradoxically, this decline is all a result of our affluence and access to "the good life".

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Are we doomed to dumbing down, or just taking some time to get used to this new world?

Making Sure Your KM Initiatives Complement Your Organization's Culture

2010-02-12T23:26:16Z

Do you want to find out why going against the cultural grain of your organization can keep you from excellence in KM? At APQC's February knowledge management community call, eNthusaProve Chief Innovation Officer Paul Armstrong will discuss why certain KM methods are so successful in some organizations, but falter in others. The presentation will also provide insight to help KM strategists consider corporate culture when planning KM initiatives.

This one-hour call will take place next Thursday, February 18, at 2:00 p.m. Central time. You can register for the call at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/206828161.

Power in the Palm of Your Hand

2010-01-28T22:35:46Z

If you read my last KM Edge post, you know that I was quite taken with the new world that video opens for KM. Now the smart phone has captured my attention as a KM tool. The quip "we have an app for that" has entered our lexicon, and everyone seems to be perpetually in a "Crackberry" prayer mode or immersed in their iPhone to the exclusion of all else. No longer a computer company, Apple is now defined by Steven Jobs as a mobile devices company--in fact, the largest in the world.

So what? Smart phones have been around a long time. There are well-established company policies and precedents for how to manage security; who pays for the device and its text, voice, and data charges; and how IT can establish, manage, and integrate the whole system.

What is not well-established is how KM professionals can capitalize on this ubiquitous, addictive pocket computer. What is appropriate to share through that tiny screen? How much do people want to know, and when do they want to know it? What can we learn from Twitter, RSS, and alert systems such as Continental Airlines telling me whether my plane is on time?

]]> APQC's KM Advanced Working Group, a set of seven organizations pushing the envelope, will work over the next few months to create such a set of guidelines. We'd love your input and will share what we ultimately develop with everyone who contributes.

Share your ideas below in the comments section. We'll update you as the list develops and make sure you get a final copy.

Mentoring: Is It for You?

2010-01-26T17:36:34Z

Most of you are familiar with Jim Lee as APQC's KM senior adviser and a frequent (and often entertaining) contributor to this blog. At our January knowledge management community call, Jim will be highlighting some mentoring insights from APQC's best practices research, answering questions about the areas that benefit from mentoring and the issues surrounding mentoring programs.

To hear Jim's take on mentoring and to share your own experiences and questions, please join us this Thursday, January 28, at 10:30 a.m. Central time. You can register for the call at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/591993305.

Successfully Measuring KM: The Right Tools, the Right People, the Right Attitude

2010-01-19T17:17:43Z

Last summer, Carla wrote a blog post in which she expressed amazement that she is still repeatedly asked, "Can you measure the impact of knowledge management? And, if so, how?" APQC's response (as well as Carla's) is always the same: "Of course you can!" In that post, Carla went on to cite some of the tactics that APQC has found most successful in measuring KM impact.

Now, I admit that measuring things is not a glamorous or rewarding process. There is no shortcut for defining, developing, collecting, analyzing, monitoring, and reporting measures that track performance. (Process flow that!) Furthermore, just following the steps will not always yield the results you want or expect.

Despite this, I constantly tell APQC's KM measurement customers to just trust the process--because I know it works. After all, a process is like a recipe, in that it gives you the basic steps. Anyone can follow a recipe, but expert chefs know how to select the best ingredients and equipment, fine-tune the instructions, and trouble-shoot when things don't go as planned. The same goes for measurement: The process provides the framework, but high-quality inputs, effective tools, and process knowledge are needed to ensure you get the best result every time.

Let me share three pieces of advice that, when combined, go a long way to ensuring the success of a KM measurement effort.

Use tools that provide a framework for thinking and promote dialog.
When designing measures, engage people who are involved in the workflow itself.
Prepare for the long haul, and take steps to align measures with change management initiatives.

]]> Effective Tools

Over the years, APQC has worked with our customers and members to collect the best tools to support the KM measurement process. One of these tools is APQC's Measurement Alignment Worksheet, pictured below.

Developed during APQC's 2003 Collaborative Research study Measuring the Impact of Knowledge Management, this tool has helped community leaders, KM core groups, business process stakeholders, and sponsors align and correlate KM activities and approaches to business process outputs and outcomes. The success of this tool (and others) is driven by the participation and engagement of the appropriate people in the KM measurement process.

Engaging the Right People

Define what measures matter to your audience by asking them. A member of a reservoir engineering community of practice will think measuring the number of best practices submitted is a good measure only if you can tie it back to the value of implementing those best practices. In addition to submission and implementation measures, a KM core group evaluating an approach for the transfer of best practices is typically interested in the number of best practices validated, the number of best practices shared, and the number of best practices accessed because such measures are useful in monitoring process efficiency.

My friends at U.S. Navy Carrier Team One believe in KM metrics for learning. Their Knowledge Sharing Networks (KSNs) bring together people with common business problems and facilitate the development of creative solutions. By engaging the members of the KSNs, Carrier Team One is able to help community members understand the importance of their active participation in the KSNs and how it leads to the achievement of business process outputs and goals.

When you design a set of measures, make sure that you involve the people who will be using the resulting metrics to make decisions, improve processes, or change the workflow.

Stamina and Change Management

Don't prepare to measure KM and think you will "get it right" the first--or even the second, third, or fourth--time. As wiser men have said before me, "The road goes on forever and the party never ends." Measurement is a journey, so set up milestones along the way at which to report and celebrate success and learning.

The process and tools should help us continuously learn, adjust, recalibrate, and improve. According to my calculations, success in measuring knowledge management is about 20 percent process and 80 percent change management. Reporting the measures is important, but collecting and analyzing data is only the beginning: You must help people understand the results that are being reported and how to use those results to change thinking, improve decision making, or hone practices. This is one of the true signposts of KM measurement success.

I'm sure there are other "secret ingredients" you have discovered through your own measurement experiences. I'd be interested in hearing about them!

Knowledge: How Much Is Too Much?

2010-01-07T17:22:17Z

At this time of year, we are often inspired to reflect on what has occurred over the past twelve months. But I'm not particularly interested in reliving my past unless we're talking Disco, and I don't know why that didn't last. So, with an eye to the future, I'm spending time thinking about how to solve a problem for all time: How much knowledge (or information or data) is too much? I think the ultimate answer lies in "sense-making," but that's too big of a topic for me to think about right now, so I'm going to stay with much simpler examples to illustrate potential solutions.

This is not merely an academic exercise or thought experiment--it's a real problem that many organizations experience, but don't know how to address. In fact, I'm working with one such organization right now, and this problem has the organization at a crossroads regarding what to do about it. And while I don't have the complete solution yet myself, I do know what side of the fence I fall on and what type of solution I would prefer to see. That'll be the basis of my argument. Supporting evidence and even counterpoints are definitely welcome here.

]]> Situation: A project-based organization wants to develop a comprehensive KM manual. A common approach, and nothing inherently wrong with the idea. So far, so good.

Environment: Since this organization is project-based, the vast majority--say 99 percent--of the people involved in the process do not think about KM in even sporadic terms (not unrealistic, given that 3,000 people may be on the project, so less than 300 are actively aware of and use KM). Exacerbating the problem is that the projects are minimally many months long, and periodically many years long. So the folks that started the project aren't always the same folks that finish it.

Implications: The best opportunity for KM to be wildly successful is in the diffusion to the 99 percent. We already know that the current manual is distributed to project leaders, but what does the organization need to do to bring a KM manual to the masses?

My response: Simpler is better. I don't want the entire KM collection from the Library of Congress when I only need a quick definition of how a community of practice can help me with the problem facing me right now. Or, more generally, I don't need to boil the ocean when all I want is a cup of tea.

So what's my evidence for arguing that "less is more" when it comes to knowledge? Just off the top of my balding head:

Printer instructions. I've been lucky (?) enough to have gotten several printers in the past few years. As a piece of machinery, printers seem to be complex devices. Yet, for me to operate them, I'm given essentially a single-sided, picture laden sheet of paper that tells me exactly how to connect it properly, turn it on, and start printing! Sure, I still get a big, honkin' manual to go with it, but I can't remember the last time I ever actually opened one of those manuals to find an answer.
I fly--a lot. Last year I took 123 flights, which is about average for me. Not enough to compare to George Clooney in Up in the Air, but then again, who can compare to him? Presumably, the flight attendants--the "knowledge managers" in this case--are given very good and detailed instructions on how to effectively evacuate an airplane. The rest of us? A cardboard comic book that doesn't even have text, but provides just enough information to keep us from trampling each other on the way out (assuming we don't all panic like I probably would).
Google wants to index the world's information, whether we like it or not. So why does Bing exist?
Even though we may see Kindles everywhere we go, why can we still buy CliffsNotes?
Why is there fast food?

Okay, I guess I've gone over the top now. What does anyone else have to say about this?

Happy Holidays: New Content from APQC and Capt. Ralph Soule

2009-12-17T00:30:42Z

At APQC, many of us (including myself) are getting ready to take time off to relax with family and reflect on a challenging year. In the spirit of the season, the KM Edge team would like to offer you a few holiday gifts in the form of exciting, in-depth content from our 2009 knowledge management conference. Most of this content comes to us from Capt. Ralph Soule, a KM Edge contributor and a good friend of APQC. After taking extensive notes at last year's conference, Capt. Soule was generous enough to share some of his notes, and we would like to share these with you.

Driving Results Through Social Networks is a collection of notes based on Rob Cross' 2009 keynote presentation. Cross, an associate professor at the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce, has performed extensive research into networks and the role they play in organizational excellence.
Change or Die is a set of notes based on Alan Deutschman's 2009 keynote presentation. Deutschman is the author of Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life, a groundbreaking book about why our typical strategies fail to incite change and how we can overcome these barriers, both inside organizations and in our personal lives.
To the Moon and Beyond: Capturing 50 Years of Human Spaceflight Knowledge provides highlights from a 2009 breakout session by Jean Engle, CKO at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC), and Pamela O'Beirne, program manager/strategic management consultant at SAIC. The notes describe JSC's efforts to improve its knowledge transfer processes and promote collaboration.
As a special bonus, I'd also like to offer this 15-minute video clip of APQC's own Carla O'Dell speaking at the 2009 conference. In the clip, Carla talks about the five "ideal future results" needed to ensure that KM supports the enterprise of the future (as identified by APQC's KM Advanced Working Group).

As you review these resources from our 2009 conference, we'd like to remind everyone that we're already gearing up for 2010! Visit the Web site for APQC's 2010 knowledge management conference to learn about our keynote speakers, find out which training courses will be offered, and get information on pricing and registration. We hope to see you all in Houston next April for what promises to be another fantastic event.

KM World 2009: Streaming Video Is the Future

2009-12-08T23:30:07Z

There were some great keynote speakers at this year's KM World, but the biggest "a-ha" for me did not come from a speaker--it came from the exhibitors. Based on the number and excitement of vendors and attendees, the future of KM belongs to streaming video. Always too expensive previously, Web video is now literally in the hands of millions of people. YouTube and big bandwidth have made video a feasible and desirable medium for millions of "average" people to teach, learn, and share.

Web analytics firm ComScore released its data for online video usage in October 2009: Google/YouTube continues to dominate with over 125 million monthly viewers (and over 1 billion views per day). According to YouTube's blog, 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

Video has come of age as a primary way for people to share information, whether they're uploading a recording of baby's first steps or participating in populist journalism (CNN's iReports is a great example). The "show me, don't tell me" nature of video makes it far superior to text when you want to convey something physical (e.g., how to open a banana like a monkey). Video is also terrific for communicating emotion. Now the buzz is to use it for a wide range of internal communications, rather than just the stiff annual CEO speech.

Cheap, immediate, with almost no barriers to use or distribution--why wouldn't you incorporate video into your KM approaches?

]]> Here are a few of my other take-aways from KM World.

Non-high tech executives don't like the word "social" - as in social networking, social media, and social "not-working".
Plateaus in the growth of participation are normal. Even Facebook and Twitter signups are starting to level off. The challenge is to repeatedly find the energy to keep it vibrant.
Web 2.0 reports success in terms of the number of users (ala Facebook and Google), whereas Enterprise 2.0 is more about the percentage of users (adoption rate, penetration, etc.).
It's important to remember the power of collective attention. There is no way any one of us can keep up with everything, but there is very little that is going to slip by all of us. The problem still remains: How do you elevate an idea, threat, or opportunity to collective consciousness and a leadership priority?

And finally, many thanks to those who commented on my KM Edge entry about my plans to speak at KM World. The views presented there on attention span are well worth reading--and certainly held my attention, even without video.

Learn More About the MAKE Award and the 2009 North American Winners

2009-11-30T15:39:11Z

Have you ever wondered what it takes for an organization to be recognized as a knowledge leader? APQC's December knowledge management community call will focus on the winners of the 2009 North American Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) study, conducted by Teleos in association with The KNOW Network. Rory Chase, managing director of Teleos, will be our special guest presenter to discuss the history of the award and announce the 2009 North American winners. Some of this year's winners will also be on hand to share attributes that have contributed to their success.

The call will take place this Thursday, December 3, at 10:30 a.m. Central time. To register, visit https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/639742720.

APQC is a 2009 North American MAKE Award Winner

2009-11-19T23:32:00Z

APQC is happy to announce that, for a fifth time, it has been named one of North America's Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) by Teleos and the KNOW network.

For more than a decade, the MAKE research program has recognized leading organizations for their ability to use knowledge-driven strategies to transform corporate knowledge into intellectual capital. APQC was recognized for:

Developing knowledge-based products/services/solutions,
Enterprise collaborative knowledge sharing, and
Organizational learning (first place).

The 2009 North American MAKE Winners were selected by a panel of North American Fortune Global 500 business executives and leading knowledge management experts. Other winners include Apple, ConocoPhillips, Fluor, Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, IDEO, Microsoft, and MITRE.

To access an executive summary, visit www.knowledgebusiness.com.

KMWorld 2009: Lessons Learned Approaches

2009-11-16T15:34:01Z

Lessons learned: The very name of this knowledge-sharing approach implies that knowledge is being reused--that each lesson drives an action designed to improve a policy, procedure, process, or practice for future users. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Many organizations have lessons learned processes in place, but admit that what they actually have are lessons captured but not yet applied.

So, what prevents organizations from optimizing and reusing these valuable lessons to reduce risks, lessen costs, minimize reinvention, and improve key business processes? Tomorrow, November 17, I will be at KMWorld 2009 to present the results of APQC's latest Collaborative Research study, which focused on lessons learned processes and systems. Please join me to learn about the results of the study, including examples from the three best-practice organizations--Credit Suisse, U.S. Army ARDEC, and U.S. Army Center for Lessons Learned (CALL).

Envisioning the Enterprise of the Future at KMWorld 2009

2009-11-05T23:04:05Z

On Thursday November 19, I will be joining a KMWorld 2009 conference panel to share thoughts on "Envisioning the Enterprise of the Future." My goal will be to identify the driving forces shaping the knowledge-based organization of the future. Three of these forces are in play today:

     Multiple Generations@ Work
     Social Computing & Networking
     Decline of Attention Span

All three reflect a chasm between what used to define "productive" and what may define it in the future. One thing we know for sure: Every generation is more productive than the last one, despite the dire predictions. Managers complain about "social not-working" and the lost time on the job while people update their friends on Facebook. Maybe they are right...or maybe not. How could social networking actually make us more productive?

I will be thinking about that and related profundities between now and November 19. If you have any ephiphanies, let me know.

More information on the panel, including the other participants, is available here. Slides will be up on the KM world site for registrations in a few days.

Speak at APQC's Next KM Conference

2009-11-03T20:35:03Z

APQC's 2010 knowledge management conference is taking place April 29-30 at the Houstonian Hotel, Club & Spa in Houston. At this event, we will continue our 15-year tradition of having the best KM practitioners tell their stories about the creative use and measurable impact of KM around the world.

Do you have a knowledge management story to tell? I encourage you to review the call for presentations and submit your abstract using our online form. The deadline to submit a presentation abstract is November 20, 2009.

Examples of presentation topics include:

New and effective approaches for knowledge transfer
New ways of collaborating
Driving support, participation, and change
Linking KM to strategic issues

If you have any questions or need further information, contact Debbie Norman at dnorman@apqc.org.

How to Communicate About Innovation

2009-10-20T19:33:26Z

Please join us for our next knowledge management community call, at which APQC Senior Program Manager Marisa Brown will discuss how leading companies are using stories and images to communicate with senior leadership about innovation.

Examples will be drawn from APQC's 2008 research study "New Product and Service Innovation: Improving Front-End Effectiveness" featuring Shell International Exploration & Production's GameChanger program and J&J's Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc.

The one-hour call will take place this Thursday, October 22, at 10:30 a.m. Central time. Click here to register.