The Human Library in its initial form is a mobile library set up as a space for dialogue and interaction. Visitors to the Human Library are given the opportunity to speak informally with “people on loan”;this latter group being extremely varied in age, sex and cultural background.
With these principles in mind, OLA is featuring a career focus for conference delegates who wish to borrow a Living Book. The purpose is to encourage open discussion about interesting, unusual, or leadership career positions with a view to:exploring and expanding the scope of career opportunities for people to consider, anddebunking stereotypes (good or bad) associated with career paths (let’s face it – we have them!). The delegates may be students developing their career ambitions, or seasoned professionals who are intrigued by the career path you have taken.
Delegates will be informed of our loan policy: “please remember that all Living Books have kindly volunteered to be lent out as examples of some intriguing career paths. They must be returned to us in the same condition, as they were in at the time of check-out. You are encouraged to ask questions and share your own point of view, but always with respect for the person who has volunteered. The Living Book can choose to discontinue a loan and return to the Library, if he or she feels so inclined. “
There’s no tougher time slot to speak in at a conference than that dreaded “post lunch.” Humour & good story telling always helps. And that’s what Susan Reisinger & Gregor McLeod brought as they presented “Tools for Knowledge-sharing: Wiki Success Case Study for the US Navy’s Global Distance Support Centre. Imagine for a moment trying to implement technology to deploy highly sensitive information in an extraordinarily security conscious environment — oh, with no budget. And, that the information may be about how to move a cat from one country to another, or it may be about informing next of kin that their family member is deceased. Oh — and that many of the influencers in the organization have “tribal knowledge” and have been chiefs who held that information. Those information holders know quite a bit, and they know who to know & who does know. You definitely want them on board (no pun intended.)
The platform chosen had to have an easy access and easy to use, & allow ppl to attach documents; it had to have a training application, as well as a way to relay and highlight new, hot information - and threads for discussions. The wiki supports 20 ppl working in the call centre that are responding to the requests of more than 250,000 ppl. Wow.
The answer? the wiki — a commercial wiki was free, with access controlled via the internet. It met all the criteria, plus it could be customized by any call centre to meet its unique needs. Usage can be tracked and refinements made based on experiece. It has been an easy access into the 2.0 environment for people that don’t text on their phones, probably haven’t heard of Twitter and are dubious of Facebook. The disadvantage has been security, but no classified information has been put on the wiki; like other government agencies, wikis are making their way into their internal intranets — they are looking at using Sharepoint, and they’ve seen a significant shift in the attitude towards collaborative tools like this in the past year. Another disadvantage was that there is currently no way for the wiki to interact with their crm; this will be a huge step forward for knowledge sharing when this connection can happen.
What have they learned?
- That if they ask ppl what they need on the wiki, those same ppl will then use the wiki
- they did start with content they already had, and then began enhancing that content that may be outside the standard environment — that “tribal knowledge”
- that after a while, ppl will start to ask for content to be added to the wiki
- that a “gate keeper” works in some environments, like the navy
- that giving the wiki prominence as the authoritative source works in engaging ppl
- having a signle authority to review and manage content frequently is critical
- all 20 ppl in the call centre will be engaged in the upkeep
- “even the most resistant will embrace
the wiki when they see how easy it is, and how
it helps them do their job.”
The wiki allowed them to have a son in Iraq r
espond to his family that he was “ok” within 45 minutes of them hearing on the news that his unit had come under fire. That works.
Reisinger and McLeod at KMWorldUS Navy Global Distance Support Centre wiki
Kiho Sohn, Chief Knowledge Officer for Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne raised an interesting question: why, at KM conferences, do we talk about innovation, but at innovation conferences there’s no mention of KM? Hm….. at PWR the expertise is in-house — not too many other companies are designing rocket engines. So they’ve concentrated on helping employees generate ideas that lead to solutions — and out of this they’ve developed many new patents, using the TRIZ method within a 2 day innovation workshop.
Gordon Vala-Webb’s (Nat’l Director, KM, PriceWaterhouseCoopers Canada) session on Knowledge Sharing Using Social media Tools in the Enterprise has already given me some pause for thought…..he’s talking about the difference between networking and collaborating in a team/work environment. Hm…..it makes perfect sense, as Gordon would, I just hadn’t thought about it. When ppl network, they do so voluntarily, and the actual outcome of their networking is unknown. But when they collaborate in a work environment, they aren’t doing so as volunteers and the output is the end goal. Those are very different starting points for people, and drive their behaviours. There’s a difference between team work and net work.
So what? Well, the issues today that clients want help with require a very broad perspective & broad network; yet ppl won’t net work at work & express their opinions if they don’t feel safe to do so. I picture ppl on a highwire with a “net” to save them if they fall off. Is that a metaphor for net working on the wire, or wireless, as the case may be?
“Ambient Awareness” Gordon says, is really the need to have some sense of what else is out there in order to connect when needed. That’s net working. Email is still the #1 social collaborative tool in all organizations — I’d say beyond organizations too, but I may be wrong. Team collaboration spaces have only a 14% adoption rate — and that’s for all age groups. why? these spaces are obviously not how ppl want to work together & connect. Do you fight email? If email is “where knowledge goes to die” then how is it a collaboration tool? Because everyone uses it……..
The alternative is to get a tool that does “everything”; what would that be? He used a wonderful metaphor of a swiss army knife - that does many things, just nothing really well. Social media is just the same. Social or shared messaging or micro blogging within the organization helps build ambient awareness - commenting back & forth on each others comments - but it doesn’t really do anything very well. Social media within the enterprise may work the same as it does outside the firm, but the consequences are very different; how it differs depends very much on leadership & the culture they want to create.
Next steps? First, figure out where your organization is — who, in your organization is interested in this capability & where you are in terms of a relationship with them. Next, you need to map out who you need to connect with — you can’t do this alone, & you’ll need friends in legal, technology, etc. Finally, you need to have some sort of strategy for moving this forward. Just as in chess, you need a strategy & you need to adapt that strategy depending on what happens. Move & adapt, move & adapt. Strategy isn’t easy — & is about making decisions in the face of uncertainty. Social media is uncertain for organizations - & although it may still be at the swiss army knife stage, not doing anythings really well, it is in it’s early stages, and organizations need to start to deal with it.
Next session at KMWorld 2009, with Tracy Conn and Kathy Valderrama discussing the experience of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland with lessons learned (LL). Banks are notoriously conservative culture where ‘mistakes’ aren’t usually widely shared. But they started the KM work in 2000 with after action reviews, looking for improvement opportunities. But they found cynicism growing and the experience was pretty negative — not what they really wanted to achieve. It also wasn’t connected to their core business of examining banks.
So, in 2005 they began to formalize their approach, and then, as is so often the case, a senior vp asked if new hires were being made aware of a case where a bank had failed in 2000. That’s how it happens, isn’t it? A senior voice asks the right question.
Kathy & Tracy tell a good story — and that’s the approach they adopted with LL: they tell stories; they involved as many ppl as possible in interviews, with a facilitator to guide the process (using appreciative approach - yeah!), ask the questions & probe a bit; the interviews are recorded & the project managers set the context for the situation being discussed. They not only talk about the problems encountered, but the solutions used - or what they wish they’d used –& then on-going follow-up and advice to future teams.
They also created some Balance Scorecard metrics. That’s a lot! phew! Developing the process took them about 6 months & introduced the process at a department meeting to about 150 ppl with a senior vp endorsing it. The vp used the analogy of fire fighters — that they need to look at planning to prevent fires & how best to manage fires when they do break out.
This approach has been used for the past 3 yrs; they put the LL into the learning management system so they could track usage & embed these into existing training curriculum. Now all new hires take the LL as part of their training when they start work. They are also tested on their understanding so that if their scores aren’t as expected someone sits with them to help increase understanding. Their strategic objective is to accelerate the learning curve for new hires into bank examiner roles.
They are now engaging subject matter experts to help them create their “legacies” - in some cases these are video-taped. And they are using km champions to identify situations to explore, with real examples to reinforce the concepts. People remember the stories - don’t we all?
The other part to their LL is aligning with business imperatives; they faced a dilemma of more than twice the normal number of new examiners who had to go thru the 3 yr training program. And, the bank had a high risk of extensive knowledge capital loss with many examiners leaving; 40% of their staff (much higher than other banks) had less than 5 yrs experience.
They developed an online simulation with all the main players — from the chief examiner as the coach, right through to the bank board members (all fictitious). So the avatars talk to the learner, while the text runs on the side simultaneously. It has built in decision paths, so as soon as the learner chooses, the coach can respond. COOL. And the learner can select a variety of coaching videos as they go along from REAL people, not avatars — but from those more experienced within the bank. COOL COOL.
This learning approach gives a wealth of experiences to the learners that may not come up in their real work during the first 3 years. They are also finding it not only leverages & reuses the knowledge in the bank, but increases retention because it is interesting & relevant for the learners. “Tell me how you handled an angry bank manager?” resonates for new hires — they want to hear other people’s experiences. The new hires on on the road 70-80% of their time, so they are trying to put some of this into podcasts. It’s not replacing the whole LL process, but leveraging it & enhancing it. What’s different about their approach?
- it’s embedded in exisiting business processes & usage is tracked throguh the LMS
- it puts real examples in real context for them - & it’s interesting for the learners - combines people who have “been there, done that” with avatars - story telling brings results
The content is in small pieces, so changes or edits can be made to small pieces & not the whole program. They use commercial products to do the simulation and for their LMS.
Darcy Lemon, Senior Proj Manager at American Productivity & Quality Centre is shared their findings on how to units of the US Army and Credit Suisse manage their lessons learned at KMWorld 2009. She started by looking at the challenges many organizations have in managing lessons learned including:
- management really doesn’t support capturing or using lessons learned
- people don’t want to admit mistakes
- it’s extra work that no one uses again anyway
You know the list. But she moved quickly beyond these challenges to describe how the US Army’s Center for Lessons Learned, and the Army’s ARDEC units, as well as Credit Suisse are successfully using their lessons learned. This includes:
1. they clarify the strategic objective for the lessons learned initiative — articulating & getting buy-in into how this initiative advances organizational goals both near-term & long-term
2. they set up governance - wow! - clarifying the roles & skills for all those involved in capturing lessons learned; this was interesting after having heard Dave Snowden talk yesterday about an organization that has KM managers go sit with people for 15 mins/day to help them blog their insights & learnings — this organization has learned that ppl are much more willing to record their ideas & understanding if someone can help them write these up into a blog quickly. Seems that this may apply to lessons learned too. Just a bit more about what APQC found in their work with the Army & Credit Suisse, is that the best ppl to work on lessons learned are those who don’t know anything about the work processes - because they don’t overlay their assumptions or judgements. Interesting.
3. it’s critical that the lessons learned are built into an organization’s quality improvement work; I wonder if it’s also integrated into innovation functions?
4. & just as critical that LL is built into the work processes - especially project design
5. measures measures measures — measures, both process & business impact measures are important
She ended by putting up disjointed photos & asking ppl what they see: a jumble — & the metaphor is that the LL joins those disjointed bits of data/information into different images to display & demonstrate what’s working in some cases & what’s not.
Last but not least - communication. Too often people don’t know LL are being captured, or how to even get to these, let alone how to incorporate them. It’s all about re-use & demonstrating process & organizational benefits to investing in LL & managing the related perceived risks.
Nancy Dixon just blogged about A-Space, a Facebook-like space for the US intelligence community. She mentioned this to me a few months ago when we were finalizing her participation in KMWorld 2009 and I’m really pleased to see the executive summary in this post and the full 30 page study here. It talks about how A-Space is shaping the analysts’ work bringing in cogintive diversity. It emphasizes:
A-Space is an environment in which analysts collaboratively create new meaning out of the diverse ideas and perspectives they collectively bring to an issue. Through this collaboration, analysts have the potential to break through long held assumptions to provide new ways of thinking about complex problems.
Networked relationships on A-Space provide a stream of cognitively diverse information without the costly time investment that maintaining strong ties requires.
A-Space is reinforcing the value of asking questions of colleagues, providing analysts the means to uncover flaws in their own data and reasoning.
A-Space is providing analysts a set of new practices to: 1) build cross agency networks, 2) gain situational awareness, and 3) hold discussions of interpretation, that operate in parallel with the normal production process. These new practices constitute an emerging model that provides a level of cognitive diversity not previously available.
The non-hierarchal nature of A-Space, results in analysts feeling that it is okay to offer their thinking even if it is not completely formed or thought through, increasing the speed of product development by eliminating faulty hypotheses early on and quickly settling on those that are viable.
I love the title of Nancy Dixon’s new blog, Conversation Matters. She “focuses on the people side of knowledge management. Our most effective knowledge sharing tool is conversation. The words we choose, the questions we ask, and the metaphors we use to explain ourselves, are what determine our success in creating new knowledge, as well as sharing that knowledge with each other.” In her most recent post, Four Conversations to Address Adaptive Challenges, Nancy defines conversation as “the interaction that occurs when each person is actively working to understand the meaning the other is trying to convey” and goes on to describe four different types:
Just read an advance copy of Information Advisor’s KM supplement, Dec 2008 written by Robert Berkman and published by Information Today. I got really excited reading the discussions around using knowledge in the enterprise and how the new Web 2.0 tools are enabling better participation. Loved the interview with consultant, author & professor Tom Davenport (occassional keynote speaker at KMWorld & Intranets, and blogger) where he talked about the knowledge still being very important but “management” not so much. I’ve always thought that that KM was more about knowledge sharing than knowledge management. Great info from Cognizant CKO Sukumar Rajagopal, and loved his quote: “Web 2.0 technologies, due to the participatory nature both on the contribution and consumption sides, can dramatcially improve the effectiveness of knowledge management.” He also talks about Cognizant’s knowlege champions and their “router model of KM” — “Knowledge Creation is essentially a distributed function; the router model avoids the need to accumulate all the knowledge in one place and thereby obviates the need for “keeping-the-central-repository-current” problem….we strongly believed in the wisdom of crowds and enabled community contribution through multiple media—blogs, forums, wikis, social bookmarking, etc. We have a small team of moderators who act as catalysts in building and sustaining the community by connecting the seekers to experts as required, and moderating the content.”
But one of the best parts of the Berkman’s newsletter is the one page Recommended Sources of Inforamtion on Enterprise 2.0 — very nice! Includes books, blogs, websites, reseearch resports, user generated videos, associations and more. Thanks Robert.
Dave Snowden, Cognitive Edge, started with, “System design is not a linear process” and today requires a co-evolutionary approach.
Key concepts: everything is fragmented, pattern based decisions (associated with the concept of mess), complexity & constraint, distributed cognition (from fail safe to safe fail experimentaiton), natural numbers (5, 15, 150) (some of which Dave covered in last year’s keynote, it’s podcast is available.)
Project design — Cynefin, see Harvard Business Review article Nov 07 (which won an Academy of Management’s Award for the best article by practitioners — and article which Dave wrote with Mary Boone)
Dave recorded his talk today and will post a podcast on his site.
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What a great idea, the Human Library. I’m so pleased to be participating in the Human Library @ OLA as the “Networking Librarian” on Thursday morning Feb 25th at 10 am at the Ontario Library Association Super Conference at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Come join me. Here’s the idea:
