Via Column Two:
Column Two: Knowledge Management Primer
The University of Toronto has published a Knowledge Management Primer, providing an introduction to KM in 14 modular sections.
This looks like a great resource for getting up to speed on KM. Lots of very concise and to-the-point summaries with pointers to additional material for greater detail.
From Column Two:
The intranet market is broken
There are a huge number of intranets within organisations worldwide. By Martin White’s estimate, for example, there are over 300,000 intranets in the UK alone. Yet the intranet marketplace is almost non-existant.
For example, there is only one blog devoted to intranets, less than a dozen serious websites, and no active mailing lists. What is happening here?
Borrowing loosely from economics, what we have is a very inneficient marketplace. There is a need, and suppliers, but no easy mechanism for connecting the two.
I’ve been researching intranet design and solutions lately and it is true: there is not a lot of information out there.
I wish there were a trade or professional association for intranet software and design that could help create standards and foster discussion about best practices, innovation, product directories, etc. (This kind of market inefficiency is a common reason for forming an association.)
I did find an intranet association located in Quebec called API but no other credible organizations. Here is a post from Intranet Focus about API.
API could probably pick up a lot of new members if they started translating their material and programs into English.
Ben and Mena have release a stand-alone version of TrackBack.
With this you could create ping repositories without some of the minor kludge work arounds you have to do within a full-blown MT blog (such as I had to do with KMpings).
It also gives people using other blog software the ability to integrate TB into their own blogs if they can support perl cgi scripts on their server.
Nice innovation!
John Robb has written some documentation for knowledge webloggers using Radio who are just getting started. This is definitely a piece that needed to be written. Another that they need to write (and it looks like John is working on it) is a deployment white paper on how to set up klog network using the Userland tools.
Ray Ozzie has published an essay on why he works in the collaborative software market. Below is an exceprt where he points out the tension between private space and open space sharing:
Of course, blogs are (and the theory behind klogs is, I believe) at the complete opposite end of the spectrum – being “make public by default”. By choosing to work “in the open”, others surely can benefit from work that “should” be published. And let there be no doubt: if you can get people to work in the open, it can be quite valuable to others so long as people broadly understand what should be shared and what shouldn’t.
James Robertson has been giving us a view over his shoulder as he reviews the intranet of one of his clients. In his latest entry he outlines the main issues they will need to resolve in improving the intranet. Thanks for sharing your ideas and experience, James!
The IT guy concluded that, “You guys are making it way too easy to share with others.” And then he dropped the bomb: “Listen, our business users are stupid, we have to help protect them from themselves.” Yea, and if you allow them to share and work securely with others this company JUST might keep up with the demands of the street, because human interaction is the rocket fuel that propels innovation.
This is the same concept as companies restricting access to the web for their employees because they fear they will goof off by surfing. Hello! People have been goofing off at work since the dark ages. If not the web, they’ll find something else.
If your organization is incapable of judging an employee’s performance and work product well enough to know when they are not meeting objectives then you’re in trouble and no restrictive blanket IT policy is gonna help fix it. You may even be harming the work of your most productive employees by developing a policy for all based on the short-comings of a few.
www.davidwatson.org wrote a piece back in June about the difficulties a klog implementation could face. Training and organizational culture again. This is worth checking out as another addition to a balanced view on klogging.
The Downside of Knowledge Management found via Blunt Force Trauma.
This article provides a nice counter-point to the low-cost klog network. The article concludes that:
Here’s the bottom line:
– for specialist communication between specialist groups, KM is a great idea
– for broader, much more useful communication across an entire enterprise, KM will not work very efficiently unless you implement a major awareness program…
Wait a minute. This is beginning to sound expensive. I thought you could implement KM for $40 a desk.
Sorry.
This is a great piece to read if you are susceptable to being dazzled by the possiblities of technology (which certainly happens to me quite often).
The conclusion that the deployment of KM with cheap or free tools is still expensive is based on the requirements of senior level buy-in and staff training needed in order to deploy KM tools across the enterprise. These are items that a grass-roots implementation most likely lack.
I think there is an assumption at the base of that idea, however. The assumption is that KM solutions must be applied consistently across the entire organization in order to be doing KM well. Why? Can’t a solution or tool be used by a small group within the enterprise and derive value and benefit from it? Does the entire company have to be wired into a KM network in order to consider a KM initiative a success?
Perhaps KM can only happen among small, informal groups within the organization. There have not been many success stories from enterprise-level deployments of KM systems. Maybe truly valuable knowledge sharing only happens with informal swarming connections and rapid permutations thereof.
I’m just thinking out loud here. I do believe that training is very important but probably less so than having an organizational culture that at a minimum does not actively discourage the sharing of information and knowledge.
I’m very interested in hearing some other opinions on micro vs. macro KM.
The level of investment required for really excellent km tools, such as weblogs, has gotten so low that it is much easier for a relatively low level employee to start a grass-roots movement within the staff if they are motivated. Given the failure of enterprise level KM initiatives and the burst .com bubble, this could be the perfect time to stealth in some web-based knowledge sharing tools.
In this article I will discuss how you can create a low-cost knowledge weblog (klog) network using free and/or donor supported software. This method is well suited to the stealthy introduction of weblogging as a knowledge management tool. All you need is one server to host the klogs and you can be off and running before senior management has a chance to quash your initiative. Or take credit for it. :).
C. David Gammel, CAE 