Comments on: Are You Obsolete or Mission Critical?

By: KM’s Worst Enemy | Above and Beyond KM

KM’s Worst Enemy | Above and Beyond KM — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:20:35 +0000

[...] Are You Obsolete or Mission Critical? [...]

By: VMaryAbraham

VMaryAbraham — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:11:58 +0000

Thanks very much, Rick.

Over the years, I've moved from puzzling about capture to puzzling about engagement. It seems to me that if we can promote engagement, then that can continue in a self-perpetuating manner without the overhead of a large staff. By contrast, capture often requires intervention and, consequently, staffing. In these lean economic times, it may be difficult to justify this staffing.

- Mary

By: Rick Grbavac

Rick Grbavac — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:03:06 +0000

I always ask our clients the question: “What is the value of knowledge that is never used?” Easy answer: “Zero” But knowledge is not enough. I have found that there is always plenty of knowledge around but very few people with the wisdom of how to use that knowledge effectively in the workplace.

The key to getting people engaged in organizations is to get them to understand the wisdom of the top performers of how to best use knowledge to be consistently successful. It took us several years to figure out how to quickly capture this wisdom from any group of top performers and it took several more years to fine tune a method of getting others to engage with that expert wisdom and knowledge.

It was absolutely refreshing to read your findings and assessment of the need for management commitment and a combination of personal interaction with the best data to bring about positive change. Thanks.

By: VMaryAbraham

VMaryAbraham — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:28:52 +0000

Daniel –

It sounds like you're a natural when it comes to personal knowledge management. Are there others in your department or organization? Is this something you all could leverage in a coordinated fashion? If you can, you should find productivity increasing significantly.

- Mary

By: VMaryAbraham

VMaryAbraham — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:27:02 +0000

Thanks for your kind words, Paula. I'm looking forward to further conversation on this.

- Mary

By: Daniel J. Pritchett

Daniel J. Pritchett — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:46:43 +0000

Thanks for the tip on PKM. I'd never heard that term before but I need to think about it extensively now. I have been running personal wikis and other repositories for 2-3 years now just to help myself out at work. It would be neat if other people had that option.

By: rotkapchen

rotkapchen — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:16:24 +0000

This is THE most balanced piece on KM and E2.0 that I've ever seen. Thanks so much. Will refer liberally.

By: VMaryAbraham

VMaryAbraham — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:45:19 +0000

Thanks, David. It's great to hear success stories like yours. Davenport & Prusak told us years ago that the secret to KM was helping each knowledge worker manage their own knowledge, but we've been ignoring them for years and insisting on centralized "solutions."

On the issue of metrics, I suspect that you'll be relying on anecdote in the first instance. However, if you can build tools that allow you to aggregate or skim the cream off the top of individual collections, you'll be able to show the growth of something impressive. And, it will be quantifiable.

Good luck!

- Mary

By: David Hobbie

David Hobbie — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:32:43 +0000

Outstanding post Mary. I have been focusing on personal knowledge management (initially for partners) and enabling knowledge-sharing through set-up and championing tools like blogs and wikis for much of the past year and find that making the front-line workers work better in these ways is much more effective and adds more value than my personal efforts to create pools of content.

Where I need to move next with these is to try to measure and quantify the positive effects that these shifts have had, as Cisco has done with their collaboration effort. I find it personally rewarding when someone finds that an existing tool they didn't know about fits their needs or helps them collaborate, but it's harder to judge the improvement their than it is to track uses of a particular piece of precedent or visits to a useful resource on civil procedure that I set up.