Klogging vs. the 11 Deadly KM Sins.
How does klogging avoid the quagmire?
1. Not developing a working definition of knowledge
The best exercise is the one you do. The same is true for KM tools and practices.
People klog.
It’s easier to edit than write. The best way to define knowledge is to start from experience; klogging gives you that experience. More data points loosely scattered.
2. Emphasizing knowledge stock to the detriment of knowledge flow
Klogging is all about flow.
Freshness, updates, syndication, aggregation, linking. Part and parcel.
3. Viewing knowledge as existing predominantly outside the heads of individuals
Klogging is conversational. Content-rich klogs help you find the right people to chime in on a question.
4. Not understanding that a fundamental intermediate purpose of managing knowledge is to create shared context
Klogging illuminates context.
Context of time.
Of geography.
Of social connection.
Of topic.
By reading your colleague’s klogs, you crawl inside a little of their day.
Almost as fun as being John Malkovich
5. Paying little heed to the role and importance of tacit knowledge
Klogging creates a tacit source.
I may not be conscious of documenting my knowledge. I may just be telling the story of an encounter with a customer, a staff meeting, a thorny problem.
It is there, or clues to it, just the same.
6. Disentangling knowledge from its uses
Klogging puts knowledge in context. Expose the experience of applying knowledge by klogging your After Action Reviews.
7. Downplaying thinking and reasoning
Klogs’ conversational nature encourages people to share their train of thought and explain their conclusions.
8. Focusing on the past and the present and not on the future
Klogging won’t help, yet. Unless you klog your plans, visions, scenarios, coming events, trends…
9. Failing to recognize the importance of experimentation
Can’t help you there. You either reward the effort so people try new things, or you don’t.
10. Substituting technological contact for human interface
Klogging complements face time. That which can be electronically mediated, is. That which needs real space (decisions, brainstorming, bonding) gets it.
If you are a virtual team, widely dispersed, klogs augment conference calls and email.
11. Seeking to develop direct measures of knowledge
Nike: “Just Do It.”
The U.S.M.M.A motto: “Acta non verba” (action, not talk)
Forest Gump: “Knowledge is as Knowledge does.”
You can measure klogging. Operational health, user activity. Hits, posts, by user, by category.
But klogging is not about chunking knowledge (although “the post” is almost an atomic expression of an idea).
Real knowledge is created by multiple authors, in multiple posts, over time. Klogging tools help you uncover the threads that tie them together.
The indirect measures are most important: Improvement in sales, cost containment, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, speed, quality.
Category Archives: Weblogs
klog Pilot Notes
We have started a pilot knowledge log at my office. Our team has been running a multi-author weblog on our intranet, writing about the web sites and related projects that we run.
Our original intent was to provide an easy way for other staff in the office to keep up with what’s going on with the web, updates on technical problems, major content changes, etc. We have had good feedback so far from our audience and are working on rolling out a few more klogs for other units that are interested in klogging their work. The grassroots revolution has begun! 🙂
Within our team, we have been surprised at how well the team klog has helped us to have a better understanding of what each of us is currently working on. We didn’t realize how much of our individual work was below the radar of our closest co-workers. No wonder we often get questions from other staff wondering what the web team does day-to-day. The klog should help with that office-wide.
My own experience returning from a week of vacation really illustrates the benefits it has had within our own team. The first thing I did yesterday was fire up our team klog and read what had been going on while I was out last week. I immediately saw a couple items that needed my attention (which I dealt with in a few minutes each) and got up to speed on what the rest of the team had been focusing. All before I had finished my first cup of coffee and long before I had made it through my backlog of 200 e-mails and a few voice mail messages. (See John Robb’s comments on the communication efficiency of klogs.)
It really took my breath away how effective it was for quickly getting me back up to speed. And I’ve been the one evangelizing this stuff! Without the team klog I would not have gotten to the critical items as quickly and I might not have ever learned about some of the other things that went on while I was out.
klogging your career
Phil Wolff has some insightful observations on how writing a weblog could benefit your career.
Taxonomy and RSS
The group that maintains the RSS standard is exploring the addition of some taxonomy elements. (Found via Ease.)
At first glance it looks like it will give you the ability to add pointers to related information and/or topics on your own web site or elsewhere. Taking a weblog as an example, you could add category-specific archives links to individual posts in an RSS feed. A news reader could then render links to your category archive for a particular post which the user could then follow if they want to see whatelse you have said on the overall subject.
rc3.org Aggie Review
Rafe has posted his Aggie review. He gives it good marks.
I’ve been using Aggie for a few weeks and like it quite a bit. I have started storing my subscription list (generated by Aggie at home) on my site and then point Aggie on my work box at the list. That solved my need for a portable subscription list. I just have to remember to update the file on the web server occaisionally.
Nice KM/Blogging Resource Page
KmBlogger is a wiki page with links to a variety of resources related to using weblogs as KM tool.
Welcome to the MT Version of High Context
Just finished the conversion from CityDesk to Movable Type for the weblog parts of this site. The home page now has the more traditional weblog layout.
The conversion was pretty painless. I wrote a short CityScript script to export the old weblog entries into the Greymatter export format, loaded them into MT, assigned categories, rebuilt the pages and here we are. I spent more time tweaking the templates and css than I did converting data or setting up the core software.
Still to do: change the CityDesk templates for the rest of the site to match the home page.
Let me know if you spot any broken links or problems with the site. The RSS feed has the same name and is in the same location so there should be no problems there.
RSS of the Automata
Shane McChesney is writing about some very exciting possibilities with automated RSS newsfeed generation (using his company’s product, Fetch, as an example):
“Basically, though, we’ve put a scheduling engine and a SQL query interface together to allow users — IT users, analysts, not the end-user / reader — to write and schedule SQL queries on any ODBC datasource in the enterprise.
The query results are formatted into two text strings, which become the <title> and <description> elements of an <item> in a Fetch RSS <channel>.”
The information can then be read in the Fetch reader on the desktop or they can use any reader that supports RSS. Their focus right now is on the call center but it can really be used throughout a company. Plus, you can query any system that supports ODBC. No worries about integrating with a multitude of different systems. Very cool.
I can think of a lot of applications specifically for associations:
- Total members that day compared to a year ago.
- Names of new members that day/week (with a link to more information about that person/company).
- Names of people/companies whose memberships have lapsed that day/week (with a link to their info). Or even better, members who are about to lapse in the next two weeks. Call those folks and get them to re-up!
- Total conference/convention registration numbers compared to same time last year.
- Members who were recently given an award or other achievement recognition by the association.
Now, I realize that any association management system can create these same reports for you. However, the immediacy of having that data show up on the desktops of staff automatically when they boot-up in the morning is much more powerful and likely to be acted upon than a report sitting in your AMS.
Check out the klogs group for more discussion on automated RSS feeds as well as weblogs as a KM tool.
Rafe's RSS Aggregator Reviews
Rafe of rc3.org just published his first in a series of RSS newsfeed aggregator software reviews. Current review: FeedReader. My favorite line:
“First, let me say that it’s the best application written by an Estonian that I’ve ever used.”
I’m looking forward to the full series.
Blog Becomes a Word
Editors at the Oxford English Dictionairy are looking at adding blog to their official list of words. Wow. (Found via www.scripting.com via Dane Carlson.)
C. David Gammel, CAE 