How to tell when IM gets confused with KM

Pople often confuse KM with information management. Sometimes they do this innocently, sometimes I think it's an attempt to "sex up" IM by using KM as a sort of fuzzy buzzword.
There's an easy test to tell whether they have confused the two. Look at their website - how often in the first two or three sentences does the word "information" appear?

Here's an anonymous example -

"Acme Knowledge Manager allows you to share information from your website or Intranet with an enterprise-grade knowledge base, reducing customer support, improving staff productivity and eliminating time wasted searching for information across disparate systems such as shared folders and paper documents"

Information appears twice in the first sentence. Thats pretty confused. Another example

Key Advantages of Acme2 Knowledge Management Software

Customer care improvement. Staff receives feedback information and takes appropriate measures in time

Customer support costs decreasing. Customers receive sought-for information without staff involvement.

Staff is able to find or receive necessary information faster.

Information appears 3 times in 6 sentences. No mention of Knowledge. And they call this "knowledge management software"?

Alternatively you can look at their KM definition or description. Here's two more examples

One of the key goals of knowledge management is to ensure that staff have the information they need, at the time they need it.

and

Knowledge Management is the systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information in a way that improves an employee's comprehension in a specific area of interest.

There's still a lot of confusion out there, apparently. All of these people are talking about information management, not knowledge management. Check the definitions, check the website, and you can tell when IM and KM have been confused.

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A fifth reason

I've thought of one more application for KM in a downturn.

One of the most distressing and risky activities in a downturn is downsizing (ie making people redundant). Distressing for obvious reasons, risky because it distracts employees from the safe and effective operation of their work, can cause negative publicity both locally and nationally, and can leave the remaining staff disenfranchised and insecure.

Maybe that's why the Knowledge Asset we built in 1998 in BP on effective downsizing was considered so valuable. We looked at historical downsizing exercises, we drew out lessons learned and good practices, and we documented the secrets of downsizing quickly, effectively, fairly and openly; to minimise disruption, anxiety and insecurity. This knowledge was then applied in several downturns in South America, and proved very useful indeed.

So, reason number 5 for KM in a downturn; learning about downsizing. You may well have to lose staff from your company, so use KM to learn how to do this fast and fairly, leaving the remaining workforce energised about the future rather than traumatised and insecure.

4 reasons why KM can help you through recession.

I was interviewed on Friday, in Schipol airport, by a lady writing an article for a Dutch banking magazine. She asked me, how relevant is KM during times of recession? I had a quick think, and I came up with 4 reasons why it is still very relevant. I would like to share them with you, and see what you think.

Firstly, I argued; recession is a time of change and disruption, when old business models and assumptions crumble, and new models need to be worked out quickly. The company that does not learn and adapt, does not survive. "Surviving recession" now becomes Critical Knowledge Topic #1. If, as I do, you view Knowledge Management as the systematic and strategic acquisition and deployment of knowledge, then KM need to be turned up to maximum setting, and aimed at "Learning how to survive".

Secondly, when the value of your financial assets is low, you look to release the value from your other assets. Knowledge is an asset you have for free - you already own it. Why not see how much value you can release from this (often unmanaged) asset?

Thirdly, when work is slack, you have the time and the resources to release this value. You can direct people towards identifying crucial knowledge, developing current best practice, and using the know-how of the organisation to rework and improve processes, procedures and business models, so that when the upturn comes, you hit the ground running (and running much faster than your competitors). Think about it - what does a football team do between matches? They learn and they train. They study themselves, they study their past performance, they study their opponents, and they improve their performance for the future. What does an army do, between wars? They learn and they train. They study themselves, they study their past performance, they study their opponents, and they improve their performance for the future. So what should a bank, or a business, do between business cycles? The answer seems obvious to me.

Finally, a downturn is a time when your knowledge starts to leave the building. With every departing employee, some critical know-how disappears. You need to employ KM to retain, as best you can, some of this knowledge. Now is not the time to be letting assets leak away.

When I get hold of the article for publication, which expands on these topics, I will post it here.

Tools of the trade for the front-line Knowledge Manager

I am here in Chicago, having deep conversations with a real knowledge worker - a guy who has been working at this industrial plant for 35 years, and knows every aspect of his business. He is sharing his stories, his insights, his tips and tricks, and his visions and dreams - and I am listening hard and trying to record all I can.

Which made me realise, once again, that the main tools of the trade for the front-line knowledge manager are few and relatively simple

• a digital video camera


• a digital voice recorder


• a digital stills camera


• a set of sharp pencils, and loads of notebooks

With these, I have as good a record as possible of our rich conversations. These are the few simple tools I come back to time and time again, and which never let me down. Plus, of course, a lot of practice at listening!

"Best" Practice

There seems to be some controversy around the term "Best Practice"

Last week I was in a meeting with business leaders, talking about transfer of a particular "best practice" - and met a very impassioned response. "This is not best practice! This is common sense! This is what we should be doing - what we used to do, until standards slipped. It is standard practice - not best practice". We seemed to skip over the fact that this practice was far better than what they were doing already, to a debate about whether it was "Best". To my mind, this debate was a sidetrack - the real debate should have been about whether they adopted this practice and improved what they were doing. Who cares if it's "Best" - it's better than what they have at the moment.

Similarly, in the online discussions, there are some strong views expressed that 'best practices' are harmful to leading KM' - partly I think because of a worry that KM will focus on codification of practice rather than process improvement. Also I have heard people say that the concept of Best Practice stifles improvement. If something is identified as a Best Practice, then people can refuse to improve it - "We can't change this! It's Best Practice!"

Personally, I think that the term "Best Practice" is so well established that it cannot be avoided, but that we should think of "Best Practice" as a goal, not a reality. It is something to be aimed for, not something that already exists.

I work a lot with teams who drill for oil, and their attitude to Practice illustrates what I mean. For them, there is an existing practice which is the Current Best; in other words, what they currently recognise as the best way to drill a well in a specific area. This is documented in their defining documents such as their "Recommended Practice" for specific operations. However they also know that this practice will be constantly reviewed, and improvements constantly sought. They always look to improve beyond the Current Best, and the operation of every well is scrutinised to look for improvements. When improvements are found, the Recommended Practice document is updated. Practices are continuously improved, and performance is continuously improved as a result. Best Practice is the aim, but they know they will never get to "Best". Improvements are always possible.

It's like a championship team. You may be the best at the moment - you may hold the Heineken Cup or the FA cup - but there will be a better team along any minute. Champions can be toppled. Being "the best" is a momentary thing - something to aim for - and it will always be overtaken by something better.

So don't worry too much about the term "Best Practice"; it's pretty much here to stay. Just make sure people treat it as a goal to be chased, and not a reality that already exists and that needs to be captured and preserved. Keep looking for those improvements, keep looking to use the current best as a yardstick to be met and exceeded, and keep learning.

KM and national culture

Our latest Knoco newsletter has an article on KM and culture, exploring the impact of national culture on KM techniques. This is based on our experience of implementing knowledge management on seven continents, but we know there is much more to learn.

Thats why I started a discussion in LinkedIn, to tap into experiences from other KM experts.

But what about you?

Do you have experience of the impact that national culture can have on the implementation of Knowledge Management? If so, I would be delighted to hear from you.

Wiki myths and realities

Here is a useful article on Wiki Myths and realities, which is a precautionary read for anyone tempted by a technology-led KM approach. I summarise their argument -

"Myth #1: A wiki will heighten motivation and spark contributions

Myth #2: Employees will know how to contribute

Myth #3: Wikis will always surface the information you need

Wiki Reaility - A wiki offers a simple and flexible approach to creating and sharing information. Despite such simplicity and flexibility, a wiki project will not necessarily prove successful. Remember that flexibility also represents one of your largest challenges: You may gain a quick "win" for enabling collaborative content creation -- but this corpus could just as easily grow beyond your capacity for handling it".

I recommend you read the article - it's good

Learning from Experience is easy, if you do it the hard way

Anyone can learn from experience. Even my dog learns from experience. Three times she has tangled with an electric fence (once even managing to clip herself to the fence with the clip on her lead - which led to a hectic time for all concerned) and now she has learned, the hard way, that electric fences are to be avoided. Its easy to learn from experience, if the experiences are powerful enough.

It's a lot more challenging, but a lot more beneficial, to learn from the experiences of others. If the experiences are bad, we'd rather not learn the hard way by experiencing them ourselves. We don't want to learn from our own experience that you should not pet a rattlesnake, or stick a knife in a toaster, or eat soap. We rely on others to give us warning, based on someone else's hard won lessons. At work, our Knowledge Management systems should be designed to allow us to learn from the experiences of others, so we dont have to learn things the hard way ourselves.

If only dogs could share their knowledge, and their experiences of electric fences, their life would be a lot more pleasant!

Useful tool - concept mapping

I really like this concept mapping tool, which you can download for free. It's like a mind map, but you describe the nature of the link between the concepts in the different bubbles. So rather than using it as a brainstorming tool, you use it to organise concepts by relationship. I ran it recently on material from a knowledge retention interview, and it helped to organise the contents into a pattern that made sense.

Managing as if knowledge mattered

Knowledge Management has been around for over a decade now, but it seems nobody can agree on what it is. There are still regular posts in the Linkedin groups asking for a definition, and the range of definitions they receive is huge. Some people answer with a technology viewpoint, some think it's about provision of information, some think its about changing the culture of the organisation.

For me, the shortest definition is the best.

Knowledge management is "Managing, as if knowledge mattered"

The analogy is with other management disciplines, such as safety management, and risk management. Safety management came to the fore when companies realised, or maybe acknowledged, that safety is a big deal, and that they needed to change the way they management the company as a result. Risk management came to the fore when companies realised that risk was important, and that they needed to change they way they managed as a result.

Knowledge management happens when an organisation, or a team, or a person, realises that Knowledge matters, it is important, and it has value. Then they change the way they operate as a result. They start to use new technologies, they start to introduce new habits and processes, and they start to assign new roles and accountabilities. They start to do "Knowledge
Management"