The 3e Factor is an innovative management consultancy specialising in business transformation, leadership development, and recruitment services, with its head office in Melbourne, Australia. Our focus is: Transforming Strategic Thinking into Reality by Developing Corporate Capability.

Have a look at the site, and browse the capabilities of the consultants working with the group.

Please feel free to contact me or The 3e Factor  if you would like to know more.

The topic of organisational change – and getting people more involved in it – is something I have been becoming quite passionate about for a while now.  This presentation at trampoline will be the first time I have presented on the topic. I intend to develop this work, and its linking themes, in time to come.  I am currently playing with a new term for this – “orgsourcing”. You heard it first here!

First, back to the Digital Ministry article:

I like to record notes when I attend seminars.  For some time, I have been taking notes on a PDA rather than on paper, as the notes are then synchronised with my PC, and available for blogging or other reuse.  This is great for me.

But with Twitter, I can take notes in just the same way, and everyone “following” me on Twitter can choose to tune in if the topic is of interest.  The notes are necessarily brief, which helps to keep them focused.  Some of the feedback I have received from this has been overwhelmingly positive, with some stating that it is just like being there themselves.

The “tuning in” is done with the use of a “hashtag” – a word relevant to the title of the conference, preceded by a “#”, added to each tweet.  The attendees at the conference can immediately see each other’s tweets by searching for the hashtag, as can all of their followers not at the conference.  (It’s also a great way to connect with people with similar interests.) The Twitter stream provides a great summary after the conference for everyone. You can do this in Twitter search (which can be a bit slow and flaky), or through any of a number of other sites that access Twitter, such as #hashtags.

Since writing that, I have seen this practice grow. As there are more and more people using Twitter at conferences, the richness of the conversation has also grown. It has been great to see people unable to attend conferences actually joining in through Twitter. This is greatly facilitated by mobile Twitter interfaces or clients (dabr is my interface of choice). You can pick a Twitter-aware conference organiser when you see the hashtag put up on the screen at the beginning of the conference!  This saves any hassle in getting an agreed tag going.

Regular meetings may have different hashtags for different dates, or just re-use the same tag. For instance, at the monthly Melbourne KMLF meetings, we tend to stick to the same tag each month – #kmlf.  You can see some of our recent conversations (before, during and after the actual meetings) on #hashtags.

There’s more to be said about Twitter at conferences – but see Olivia Mitchell’s blog posts How to Present While People are Twittering and  8 things I learnt about using twitter as a participation tool for a great insight into fairly serious Twitter use at presentations.  (By the way – if you want to put up a live Twitter display during your presentation, go to Visible Tweets and enter your hashtag.) 

There are three particular points I would like to make on this topic:

The question of etiquette

“So the next time you present at a conference, instead of being confronted by a sea of faces looking at you, you may be phased by a sea of heads looking down at their laptops.” – Olivia Mitchell

The use of Twitter at conferences may be problematic to some people. To the presenter, it may seem that people aren’t concentrating. (Of course, they may be tweeting on a smart phone rather than a laptop, but the issue is the same.) As Olivia points out, the speaker may need to adjust to the fact that this may indicate that the audience is far more engaged than if they were staring out the window!

However, as always it amazes me that people will confuse an action with the tool used to perform the action. (I wrote about this some time ago.) In what way will the audience’s concentration be different when tweeting, compared to taking hand-written notes? Conference venues still supply pens and notepaper for this purpose, and I am not aware of anyone ever having a problem with an audience taking notes.

I have experienced audience members considering tweeting by others during conferences to be rude, and in general my response to this is the same. However, we do need to choose our times even when taking notes – one shouldn’t be tweeting or note-taking during times of group discussion.

Peer-to-peer learning 

“Let go of the illusion that you might know more than the audience.” – Olivia Mitchell

Olivia makes this point exceptionally well. Monitoring Twitter during a presentation is a great addition to just attempting o read body language. Very few of us that deliver presentations will know more on every point than every member of the audience! This can be a great tool for enhancing what we are saying, as well as our audience learning from each other. I understand that recent research in learning emphasises the importance of peer-to-peer learning - we usually learn more this way than we do from non-interactive lectures.

The challenge 

So here is the interesting part. All of the above assumes that there is no reason not to share what we are hearing at a conference or seminar.  It appears that most savvy conference companies have embraced this (it’s good publicity). To the other extreme, there are few people that would inadvertently tweet company meetings that were discussing commercially sensitive issues.

What is of interest to me is the area between these two extremes. Are there conference companies that have totally failed to realise what is going on, and have allowed tweeting without realising the implications? And are there other groups that wish to have some form of secrecy that would want to prohibit tweeting? I would really see this as a retrograde step. Social Media is all about the recognition that we live in an age of abundance, not scarcity. It’s all about the recognition that we all learn and grow by sharing. We are not living in an age of secrecy and prohibition.

(Late addition – see Do Conference Bloggers and Tweeters Need to Follow Media Rules? on Eric Schnell’s blog: “The Medium is the Message” for a very detailed guide to when to tweet and when not to!)

I have never yet been at any form of conference or meeting where I have been told that tweeting is “not allowed”, yet I have heard about some meetings where apparently there has been talk after the meeting that tweeting was frowned upon (although apparently not mentioned at the time).

But as per my point about the confusion between the action and the tool above, if people take their own notes, and then talk to others about the meeting, does that not amount to the same thing? Are we saying that Twitter is in some way subversive? It may be a more immediate way to spread what we learn at conferences, but is doesn’t really differ in substance from any other way of sharing what we learn.

So maybe Twitter is in fact a revolutionary tool. A tool that is shining a new light into places that some thought were in the dark, behind closed doors.

Vive la révolution!

In order to clarify the consultancy services that AcKnowledge Consulting is offering to the market, I have drafted a collection of Capability Statements. A Capability Statement is normally a fairly straightforward document, outlining a technical function that can be delivered by an organisation – particularly one operating in an area like IT outsourcing. This is fine where the technical capability is readily understood by all concerned.

The main area  of this consultancy service is Optimising organisational efficiency by effectively managing and delivering the knowledge required to meet business demands – with a particular focus on meeting the demands of a sales force. This could be summarised as “Knowledge Management for Sales”, but the term “Knowledge Management” can mean many different things. Accordingly, I have developed a slightly different format for my Capability Statements, as follows:

• The Business Situation – an outline of the needs of a particular function or group within an organisation.
• The Challenge – some specific issues in this area that require attention, or that are presenting a problem.
• Where AcKnowledge Consulting can help – an outline of some of the specific ways that AcKnowledge Consulting can address these issues.
• Why AcKnowledge Consulting? – some supporting information on relevant experience that can be brought to bear in this situation, including testimonials from clients as appropriate.

These documents are written on a single page for each capability.  For an example, see the Knowledge Transfer Capability Statement.  The current list of capabilities and statements is available on the About page on this site.

I welcome any feedback or comments on these statements, and how useful you may find them for understanding the services described.

See the updated slide pack on SlideShare.

The details are as follows:

• A toolkit approach to organisational comms – an overview of a range of comms media that can be used.
• Understanding the social media revolution – understand how much things are changing around us.
• Engaging and collaborating – working through a number of Web 2.0 tools, their applications and results.
• Segmenting the audience – understanding diverse styles and needs.
• Putting it all together – how to assemble a program of both traditional and Web 2.0 tools, with some specific case studies.

The brief was a keynote presentation for Panviva’s annual SupportPoint User Conference.  SupportPoint is a “Business Process Guidance” system.

The brief was to deliver a Keynote presentation, and to set the theme for the conference: “Communication and Collaboration”.  The underlying theme that I used to couch this on was Creativity, and the importance of creativity in both leadership and knowledge work.  The slide pack is available on SlideShare.

I have used this as a good opportunity to shake off (at least some of) the shackles of PowerPoint – by using lots of pictures, and a lot less words.  Some of the photos are mine, and most of the rest are Flickr “Creative Commons – Attributions” licensed photos, all with links on the relevant slides.

As there are lots of pictures, some of the slides may not be clear without the voice over (which maybe I’ll add to SlideShare later).  The initial point is explaining my initial perceptions of creativity – influenced by the paintings of both my mother and my sister.  (See the post “Moving mountains” on this site for more of this story.)

The next section refers to the material in this post on creativity in leadership, and briefly touches on my thoughts on Change Management. I then go over some of my past experiences with a Knowledge Management Toolkit, and how we went about developing it.  The final part of the presentation picks up on a recent post on story at Anecdote, which includes a link to the story of “the one-armed boy”.

With that explanation, I hope it all makes sense, and that you enjoy this as much as I did!

There is a brief synopsis of the presentation on a previous post.  Summary points as follows:

• Developing a knowledge sharing toolkit
• Keeping content up to date
• Dealing with knowledge hoarding
• Using multiple media and applying Social Media principles 

As I also chaired one day of the conference, there is also a bonus introductory slide pack, featuring photos of New Zealand!

This international case study presents the Knowledge Management and Transfer toolkit developed by the Telstra Corporation (Australia) Enterprise & Government KM team.
 
This toolkit was used to capture the product and service knowledge developed by the Product Management teams, and make it available to the business sales force, using an integrated program of content, communications and training initiatives.  This included developing a standard taxonomy, governance processes and templates, with all developed content made available via a single portal.
 
This presentation will focus on the processes used to maintain the currency of content, the use of an open policy and rewards and recognition to promote knowledge sharing, and the use of multiple media to ensure that the needs of the total audience were adequately catered for.

The lessons learned from this development are broadly applicable to knowledge capture and sharing in project teams, organisational changes, enterprise-wide knowledge programs and many other similar situations.

I will also be chairing day two of the conference. 

In other news, my son Scott is in the final stages of planning for a two-month trek on the National Bicentennial Trail with three friends (and six horses). We have set up a new blog for loading stories and photos once the trip commences.  They will be starting at Providence (near Canberra), and the plan is to finish at Knockwood, Victoria.  We will be travelling to meet them at least once during the trip.

So that’s two trips I’ll be doing in March, not counting a few days in Darwin for my mother’s 95th Birthday.  And then there’s the CPA Congress in Newcastle, as well…

Talking Cock (v.): A Singaporean term meaning either to talk nonsense or engage in idle banter.
 - The Coxford Singlish Dictionary

Over the last few years, I have had the privilege of traveling to Singapore on a number of occasions to speak at conferences.  I have greatly enjoyed the experience - both the conferences, and wandering around Singapore as a tourist.  I have met some fantastic people there, and have greatly enjoyed the culture – and the food!

Singapore is a land of contrasts.  It is richly multicultural, with all public signage in four languages.  The population is predominantly Chinese, yet most of the public institutions are as British as they were before independence.  It has earned a reputation as a non-democratic nation, yet the country is alive with art and innovation, and not in the least like a totalitarian state.  I feel safer walking around the streets anywhere in Singapore than I do in some parts of Melbourne.

Some would like to portray Singapore as a place where freedom of speech is suppressed by the government, yet Singapore is now becoming increasingly open. One friend I have made in Singapore is Enrico Varella.  Enrico introduced me to a fantastic local web site – Talking Cock.

This site bills itself as “Singapore’s premier satirical humour website”, and includes the delightful Coxford Singlish Dictionary.  (Singlish is the version of English spoken in Singapore.)  Talking Cock presents itself as apolitical: “Our main aim is to celebrate all the nonsensical parts of Singaporean life. We make fun of people in every sector, strata and profession in a completely democratic way.” Yet a sensitive government could easily take much of the satirical content on the site as criticism and take action against it.  The site also warns that “We have employed… language which might be upsetting to some and which some consider unsuitable for children.”

So what does this have to do with Mr. Conroy?

It appears that Australia’s Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy has proposed imposing a filtering system on the Internet.  This purports to be an attempt to shield children from inappropriate content.  A number of people have raised many problems with this.  At the very least, it would significantly slow Internet traffic for all Australians – some estimates put it as high as an 87% reduction in speed. If indeed it is primarily aimed at protecting children, then it also takes away from parents the responsibility of making their own decisions on what is suitable for their children.  There are many more arguments about this proposal – others have advanced these very eloquently.

My view on this is typified by the Talking Cock website.  Would this be one of the estimated 10,000 sites that our government is likely to block as “unsuitable”?  Would we block a site that the Singaporean government overtly allows?  If not initially, would sites such as this be blocked in future? Is it possible that our current or future governments would block sites that are deemed to be critical of the government of the day?  And if so, how would we ever know which sites were being blocked? 

This all seems like an attack on freedom of speech and access to information that is far too open to abuse.  Who will be making the decisions about which sites will be blocked, anyway?

If Talking Cock was determined to be a site that should be blocked, will my blog site also be blocked, because of this post?  As I also use this site for my business, would this expose the government to a liability for unfair restraint of trade?  Does the fact that the site you are looking at now is actually hosted on servers in the USA make me more or less likely to be subject to government scrutiny?

It seems that Mr. Conroy is attempting to use a simplistic industrial-age concept to address a very complex problem, and like most simple solutions, I believe that it is totally inappropriate.

Will we be able to say in future something like this statement on Talking Cock’s home page:

We donno how we’ve escaped the speech-smothering tentacles of the state, but we suspect it’s got a lot to do with you Singaporeans and your tremendous (and very touching) support for us since we began.

This article is a summary of several previous posts on this site:

You’ve read about Social Media. You may have dipped a toe in the water here or there – or you may be up to your armpits. But have you tweeted yet? What’s all the buzz (or should that be “chorus”) about Twitter? Scared about making the commitment? I was not long ago, too… View full article

Also new to this article:

I have also found [Twitter] to be an amazing way to engage in “open note taking”.  I like to record notes when I attend seminars.  For some time, I have been taking notes on a PDA rather than on paper, as the notes are then synchronised with my PC, and available for blogging or other reuse.  This is great for me.

But with Twitter, I can take notes in just the same way, and everyone “following” me on Twitter can choose to tune in if the topic is of interest.  The notes are necessarily brief, which helps to keep them focused.  Some of the feedback I have received from this has been overwhelmingly positive, with some stating that it is just like being there themselves.  (This is something I will blog about later in more detail.)

… watch this space!