Wikis in Knowledge Management Presentation

This is the presentation I gave at the Dublin Institute of Technology on 08/11/09. There were 2 masters classes in attendance (Knowledge Management & IT).

Wikis In Knowledge Management Enabling Effective Collaboration

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Enterprise 2.0 Starting Points

I have been discussing the introduction of web 2.0 tools into a global organisation with a contact recently and a few familiar points arose relating to the introduction of these tools / way of working. So to help address them, I have broken these points down into some headings:

Understanding - There is no point in implementing web 2.0 tools for the sake of it. You must understand both your target audience internally and how these tools can improve how you do what you do. Here you must look at how collaboration is different in the new way of working compared to how it is currently being achieved. From basic principles it is about connecting people through their knowledge and expertise by providing the environment (real & virtual) which encourages them to share information as part of their daily operation. This famous "Meet Charlie" deck gives a nice introduction to the potential of what can be done:

Meet Charlie - what is Enterprise2.0?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: 2.0 enterprise)

Support / Sponsorship - Once you fully understand what web 2.0 is about ("I get it!"), you now need to get your organisation on board. There are 2 elements to this:

1. Senior Management - The initiative needs to be supported top-down by senior management in the organisation (across all divisions / geographies). This is required from the beginning, and will work in a lead-by-example method e.g. Executive Blogs. The sales pitch to this group needs to echo their needs from existing programmes. Avoiding redundant effort, avoiding repeated mistakes, taking advantage of existing expertise, making individuals more effective, making teams more effective.
   
2. Grass Roots - The initiative needs to be driven laterally by communities of practice at grass roots level. Employees need to be encouraged to participate and rewarded for contributing. The model is suited to achieving a critical mass of users to ensure trust and sustained engagement for ongoing success.
   

Education - Web 2.0 is new to many, so it is important to convert these people by demonstrating a clear benefit to them from using the tools. Removing the technical jargon for business users can help to speed their introduction to web 2.0. I am a big fan of the CommonCraft show which has taught us to focus on plain english explanations of technical tools / concepts for business users. An example of how they simplify these concepts is RSS in plain english:



Starting Points - I believe that the best starting points for the introduction of web 2.0 tools are those which have high visibility, are cross divisional / geographically dispersed and can have a quick turn-around for early results. Operations & Technology is always a good area for testing the waters in this domain. The tasks and roles in O&T divisions are suited to adopting tools like instant messaging, wikis for documenting practices / ideas, RSS feeds for monitoring systems etc. Prove the value here and the other areas of your organisation will follow.

Growth - You need champions and evangelists to drive adoption and early growth for a successful beginning for your web 2.0 initiative. It is so important to fuel the flame of enthusiasm early on by demonstrating functionality, mentoring and supporting your user community. I had posted in the past about the characteristics of a wiki champion, but they are applicable to all web 2.0 adoption really:

• Be a Clear Communicator
• Be a Coach
• Be Patient
• Be Enthusiastic
• Be Engaging
• Have Fun!
  

Measurement - This is a real grey area, as the metrics could be different for each organisation depending on the goals of your initiative. There are however some emerging examples of what organisations are measuring when it comes to examining trends and ROI for web 2.0 programmes. Things like # of unique users, # of unique contributions etc. This slide deck shows some of the metrics that Accenture use for their knowledge management initiatives:

Measuring the impact of knowledge management

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: knowledge management roi)

This is by no means an extensive coverage of this topic, however I would encourage those interested in Web 2.0 or enterprise 2.0 to use the tools online to discover more e.g. YouTube, SlideShare, RSS Readers / Blogs, LinkedIn etc.

KM Dissertation Advice

I met with a friend and former KM classmate of mine, Colman McMahon, today in preparation for a presentation we will be giving to the current students of the MSc in Knowledge Management at the Dublin Institute of Technology. We will be sharing our experience of tackling a dissertation in KM and also an open Q&A about our views on the current state of KM.

It was interesting to compare thoughts on where we see the future of KM, particularly on the technology and tooling side. We both had looked at wiki-use during our research and agreed that they are certainly useful in demonstrating the human elements of KM (capture, sharing, organising of knowledge etc). We also spoke about Sharepoint and Lotus Connections - we both agreed that there is huge potential in relation to the power of these environments to provide a solid infrastructure for KM and Enterprise 2.0 features going forward.

In terms of what advice we would pass on to the current class, we have yet to conclude on this. My own thoughts include:

• KM is more than just a technology discipline, in fact it encompasses many aspects of a working organisation. This is an important lesson to learn, as many people have fallen at this first hurdle of understanding what KM is and how it will provide value and enable internal growth for your organisation.
• The role of HR in KM is very important. "Learning & Development" has out-grown its welcome, and the days of simply attending courses and returning to the desk are over. The next generation of "Learning & Development" is continuous learning & development - KM! The knowledge workers of Gen X/Y want to search and discover knowledge instantly (instead of attending a 3-day course to do so).
• The tie between Web 2.0 and KM is a growing discipline. However, it is important to remember and focus-on the core KM principles. Don't deploy a wiki or blog because it's cool - deploy them for what they can add to your organisation, and be clear on what you are using them for.

Once we narrow down our thoughts on KM research and our experiences in the next few weeks, I will share them here.

Connectr #4 Presentation from ILUG 2008

As per my previous post, I presented at the Connectr #4 event as part of the ILUG 2008 at the IBM campus in Dublin last week (see slides below). This was a great event to be part of as we got to meet the IBM development team and hear their views on working towards Lotus Connections 2.0 which has just been announced.

Other presenters on the day included:

• Heidi Votaw (IBM Lotus Program Director, Social Software)


• Alan Crean (Process Master)


• Neil Burston (Oak Ridge Business Solutions)


• Ian McNairn (IBM Program Director, Web Technology & Innovation)

Some interesting features of Connections were also demoed (eg Blogs, Communites, Activities, Wiki Integration, Atlas). Given that Enterprise 2.0 is a hot topic this week due to the Enterprise 2.0 conference taking place in Boston, there has been lots of discussion around Connections 2.0 and the comparison to Sharepoint.

My thanks to Neil Burston and Stuart McIntyre for organising the event, and also to IBM for being excellent hosts on the day. I will post more on Heidi's presentation again. Here are my slides from the day:

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Presenting at Connectr #4 in Dublin

I will be presenting a "15 minutes of Fame" session at the ILUG Connectr #4 event at the IBM campus in Dublin on June 3rd. My slot is called "Implementing KM - Success Factors" which is closely linked to my previous post on the subject when finishing my dissertation.

Promoting Your Enterprise Wiki Portal - Business Card Idea

I have been thinking of ways to promote our enterprise wiki, particularly to new groups who have not been using wiki systems before. One thing I have been trying to do is to sell the concept that the wiki portal can act as a central knowledge repository that we can all benefit from. We called it 'OnePlace', to symbolise this idea "...find all your answers in One Place!".

Then, in a slide show I was putting together, it came to me that if I want to promote this as a great source of knowledge within the organisation, why not promote it using a business card. Now if teams say "where will we find information about xxxx", they can check OnePlace!

I have yet to 'test' this idea, but I think I will include it in any presentations I give internally as my closing slide......"Now the important contact you need is OnePlace"

Implementing KM - Success Factors

I gave a presentation tonight at the Dublin Institute of Technology based on my dissertation. In it I was demonstrating the high level findings of the research and some of the learning points and experiences of piloting an enterprise wiki as a knowledge management enabler.

First off was the idea that knowledge management is much more about people, their knowledge and embedding a knowledge sharing culture than any particular technology. IT will inevitably be part of any large KM initiative, but is only the enabler of the end goal. It is important to tie the goals of the KM program to the objectives of the organisation in which it is positioned. This will help senior management to sell and promote it.

I have tried to promote the benefits of KM as part of the initiative. I have found it is important to communicate these in a language which makes sense to all stakeholders, without too much jargon. The first 3 are recommended by Stan Garfield. They were:

• Avoiding redundant effort.
• Avoiding repeated mistakes.
• Taking advantage of existing expertise in the organisation.
• Making individuals more effective.
• Making teams more effective.

Given the people focus of my research, collaboration and knowledge flows became important. If we examine the knowledge networks which exist in an organisation, we can better understand how knowledge flows throughout it. Large Organisations are made up of many networks, with key players who act as information brokers, boundary spanners, central connectors, and peripheral specialists. These flows can often create knowledge bottlenecks of bureaucracy, which can prevent free knowledge sharing.

Next it was onto Web 2.0, and how the elements and behaviours of web 2.0 applications and communities are becoming increasingly popular in knowledge management. For example, a Forrester paper out last week reported that 85% of companies using Wikis were using them as a knowledge management tool. The match between tools such as wikis to the knowledge cycle (find, organise, share, use/reuse) and the enabling features (Search Link Author Tag Extend Signal) of web 2.0 is one which has not gone unoticed. My approach was simple:

• Engage Senior Management to back the initiative.
• Secure exclusive, high profile use-cases for the portal.
• Brand the portal to promote its use.
• Meet with prospective teams and user groups to gauge reaction.
• Drive wiki adoption by becoming a ‘Wiki Champion’.

The initiative was supported top-down by senior management, driven bottom-up from grassroots, and promoted laterally through communities of practices. This ensures sustained engagement across a wide range of groups within the organisation.

3 high level conclusions:

1. Knowledge management is more about people and the processes which enable knowledge management than specific technologies.


2. Simplicity is important, providing knowledge workers with the tools to quickly capture, organise, share and reuse knowledge which is important to their work.


3. Wiki’s provide users with the collaborative environment required for successful knowledge management.

What is Enterprise2.0?

In my last post, I shared the title of my KM dissertation - "Enterprise 2.0 – Using web 2.0 tools to improve collaboration & knowledge sharing in an organisation". So here is my first post in relation to understanding what Enterprise2.0 is all about.

I was thinking about how I would present the idea of Enterprise 2.0 to others who may not be familiar with web 2.0, social networking or indeed knowledge management. I came across this excellent presentation on slideshare called "Meet Charlie - what is Enterprise2.0?" which I think sums it up nicely:

I think my focus will be about examining the traditional methods on slide 31:

• Outlook
• Project
• Excel
• Word
• Internet Explorer

and comparing them with the benefits of the tools on slide 32:

• Wikipedia
• Google Docs/Mail
• Blogging
• RSS
• Instant Messaging
• Linkedin (Social Networking)

Overall, I think this is a great presentation and helps explain Enterprise2.0 in "Plain English", a style which is proving very popular as used by the folks over at CommonCraft in videos such as:

Wikis in Plain English

RSS in Plain English

Social Bookmarking in Plain English