Keith April 16th, 2011
So today I presented this topic at trampoline. Trampoline is a “self-organising event for those who find the world interesting, have something to offer and share, and have an inquisitive mind”. I’ve been at some of the earlier trampoline days, and it’s great to get back and get energised again!
photo: thesquigglyline
This morning, I presented on the same topic as my last KMLF presentation – see this post for the details. This time, I have tweaked the presentation a little, and had the luxury of enough time to get the audience engaged in the conversation. Since the KMLF presentation, I have also written an article on this topic for Online Currents, which is being published this month. A copy of the article will be posted here a little while after the magazine is out.
The new slide pack is now up on SlideShare. One thing that has emerged from this work that is added to this version of the presentation is my proposed Innovative Meeting Test:
- Have we all been introduced?
- Is everyone open and willing to change?
- Are we all taking equal turns?
- Is the talk friendly and constructive?
- Do we have sufficiently diverse viewpoints?
Keith April 1st, 2011
Matt Moore, the chair of the NSW KM Forum, and I will be facilitating two Knowledge Cafés on 11 April, one on each of these topics.
These events will be taking place at the Abbotsford Convent. Information Governance will run from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon; Followership from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm. Booking is required for these sessions – entry is only $20 for each.
Information Governance: How do we manage this flood of “stuff” that we have created as individuals and organisations? More information here; Book now.
Followership: We hear a lot about leaders, but what about followers? Some more background at the Followership Centre; Book now.
Matt Moore is Director of Innotecture. He has over a decade’s worth of experience working in knowledge management, learning and development, internal communications and community development with PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBM, Oracle and the Australian government. See more info at http://innotecture.co…
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Please feel free to pass this on to anyone else that may be interested in attending.
Keith March 21st, 2011
I have just written a guest post for the IABC Vic Chapter blog. It summarises why I see a strong connection between KM and communications, with a bit of history on my membership of the IABC. It also touches on why it is important to maintain an interest in fields outside your own core expertise. Have a read.
Keith February 28th, 2011
On Tue 15 Mar, I’ll be speaking at the Queensland Joint Information Management Conference for Records and Information Management Professionals Australasia. The topic is a familiar one – Building and managing a knowledge transfer program.
This will be similar to earlier versions of this presentation, but will have a little more stress on the use of Social Media principles in this work. The outline is as follows:
How do you encourage technical experts to share their knowledge with others in the organisation that need it to do their jobs? How do you maintain currency and accuracy? This case study presentation will explain how to build a successful knowledge transfer toolkit, covering aspects such as:
- Encouraging knowledge-sharing behaviours
- Building a program-managed multimedia toolkit, comprising content, communication, learning and social media
- Governance – keeping content up to date
- Engaging the target audience in improving content
- Using social media principles to build trust and engagement
See you there?
Keith February 23rd, 2011
Many large organisations have subject matter experts with a deep knowledge and understanding of business-critical information. This knowledge needs to be conveyed to a target audience in another area of the organisation, mostly comprised of staff with a lower level of technical expertise. In traditional organisational structures, content management, intranet, communications and training are often located in separate silos. Yet all of these areas provide tools that assist in knowledge transfer – the desired end result is an informed audience.
This splitting of functions can lead to inefficiency, duplication of effort, confused messages and errors. Other critical factors impacting effective knowledge transfer are maintenance of the currency and accuracy of content, as well as the problem of knowledge hoarding.
In this article, a strategy for building a complete knowledge transfer toolkit will be described. This toolkit includes a range of individual elements, comprising content management, communications, learning and multimedia elements, coordinated as a managed program. Approaches to maintaining the currency and accuracy of content, dealing with knowledge hoarding and the relevance of social media principles will also be addressed.
I have written here many times about the “toolkit” approach we used in my work at Telstra (2000-2008). This has been covered in a number of presentations that I have delivered, most recently at the 2010 CPA Congress. I wrote an article about it in 2009, and it was originally documented in a Case Study by Andrew Mitchell, also available on this site.
I have now published a more detailed article on the toolkit, chapter three in the book: TIMAF Information Management Best Practices – Volume 1, issued in November 2010. A copy of my article is now available for free download from this site here.
Continue Reading »
Keith February 20th, 2011
We know all about explicit knowledge – it is visible and tactile, and has been recorded in libraries since Sumerian times. Tacit knowledge, however, is somewhat harder to tie down. This is the knowledge inside peoples’ heads. We often attempt – with varying degrees of success – to convert it into an explicit form so we can better measure and account for it. However, one of the best ways to handle tacit knowledge is for people to simply work together with it, and talk about it. This article investigates one of the most effective ways of dealing with tacit knowledge in organisations – Communities of Practice – and why helping them to grow and flourish requires a better understanding of the words “community” and “practice”, as well as an understanding of the place of technology.
So begins the latest version of my thoughts on Communities of Practice – this time, in an article in the Thomson Reuters publication Online Currents. A full copy of this article is now available on this site.
This extends the ideas in my earlier article The theory and practice of communities.
Keith January 20th, 2011
Some recent research has highlighted the transformative power of conversation. I presented on this topic at the Melbourne KMLF last night. This was one of three “Ignite” format presentations done on the night. This format requires twenty slides, timed at 15 seconds each. Total time per presentation – 5 minutes, plus discussion.
The slide pack, including speaker notes, is available at SlideShare. A list of references is also included on the Notes page of the last slide.
The main ideas drawn on for this presentation are as follows:
We also discussed the pros and cons of the format, with mixed results. I think that it is a great format, provided that it can lead into further discussion as required. We have just started using MeetUp for managing Melbourne KMLF events, so expect further discussion on the MeetUp post.
Keith December 16th, 2010
In late March 2011, Matt Moore of Innotecture and I will be running an Information Management Clinic in Melbourne. This is a session focused on information “pain relief” and practical problem solving.
In conjunction with this event, we are running an Enterprise Content Management maturity assessment survey based on the open source ECM3 methodology. It should take you 10 minutes and you will be in the running for some nifty Apple technology. Summarised results will be available under a Creative Commons license. So please take the survey and let us know what’s going on!
More information on the clinic will be posted here and on the Innotecture site as it is developed.
Keith November 16th, 2010
I presented on this topic at Ark Group’s Collaboration Site Visits event in Sydney on 8 September. The Slide Pack is now available on SlideShare here. This was a half-day workshop, and it was delivered in three parts. The title was, of course, intentionally misleading – the whole point is that you can’t really make collaboration happen – you need to set up the right environment to support it.
The first part addressed the dynamics of collaboration and CoPs – a discussion about community. This is built on articles I have written previously, one of which is discussed on this site. This also refers to Stan Garfield’s Communities Manifesto.
The second part provided some of the outcomes of the work Matt Moore and I did in our survey and report OzCollab – Collaboration Software in Australia. We then broke into a collaborative exercise, using another card game involving Patrick Lambe’s KM Method Cards.
The final part of the session then addressed the approach to participative change that has also been discussed here before – The Idea Monopoly. This highlights the need for creativity, trust and openness in today’s complex organisations, and draws on the Cynefin model and other recent research.
Keith October 6th, 2010
I will be presenting two sessions at the CPA Congress in Melbourne next Monday.
The Slide Packs are now available on SlideShare – they are:
Knowledge Transfer Toolkit Program
This case study outlines how to capture knowledge from a team of experts and make it available to a non-expert target audience.
A managed program approach is used to bring together all of the (traditionally separate) threads of content management, communications and learning to form a coherent, flexible knowledge transfer toolkit. A key element in putting this program into place is to encourage the required behaviours of all participants, including promoting knowledge sharing.
Using social media as a business tool
Topics covered are:
- Trust and openness –the new paradigm for engagement
- The importance of people and personality
- Evaluating the benefits, risks and challenges
- Existing channels and new strategies
- Practical examples of social media
