Jeff Hester

Poking around the intersection of KM and Social Media

Knowledge Management

2013 Enterprise Collaboration Survey

2013 Enterprise Collaboration Survey

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collaborationCollaboration. Do it well, and it can improve the quality and velocity of results. Many of us collaborate on a routine basis, and have done so for years.

When I first began working, collaboration largely involved face-to-face interaction. Asking a colleague a question; getting feedback; informing decisions. Today, networks have transformed collaboration, enabling us to share our expertise and make virtual connections across the world.

I am researching how enterprises are collaborating in 2013, both inside and outside the firewall, and I need your help.

If you work for a company, organization or institution and routinely collaborate either internally or externally, take 5-10 minutes to answer this short, eleven question survey.

I will aggregating, anonymizing and share the results.

Take the 2013 Enterprise Collaboration Survey now, and share with your network. 

Knowledge Management on Twitter: Who to Follow

Knowledge Management on Twitter: Who to Follow

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KM_influencerTwitter is increasingly a popular way to connect with experts across a variety of fields. Finding the people you know is easy enough, but how do you discover people who are actively tweeting about the topics you’re interested in? For me, I’m interested in a number of subjects, but of particular interest is the field of knowledge management — helping connect people to share and leverage knowledge and expertise.

On the subject of knowledge management, MindTouch has attempted to do just that — creating an annual list of the Top 100 Influencers in KM. While I’m honored to be included on the list (at #53), I should point out that it’s far from perfect. The list evaluates Twitter users, based on their use of the #KM and #KMers hash tags. If you’re a key influencer who does not use Twitter, you’re not on the list. If you’re a key influencer who doesn’t use the key hash tags, you’re also not on the list (sorry @elsua).

[Read more…] about Knowledge Management on Twitter: Who to Follow

Election Day, the Wisdom of Crowds, and the Enterprise

Election Day, the Wisdom of Crowds, and the Enterprise

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In The Wisdom of Crowds, author James Surowiecki suggests that leveraging the collective can often yield better results that asking any single expert. On election day, there are plenty of examples of crowd wisdom and prediction markets to draw from.

In business, we’re often focused on efficiency innovations — incremental improvements in efficiency that save time, money, or preferably both. So can crowdsourcing be used to automated processes effectively in the enterprise?

The answer? It depends on the question. 

If the problem can be represented by a simply solution such as single number (42?), or deals primarily with optimization, then crowdsourcing can make a lot of sense. In the presidential election, leveraging the crowd to predict the winner fits the first dimension perfectly. There can be only one winner: either Romney or Obama.

If the problem, on the other hand, is complex, requiring wisdom and expertise, the crowd will be of little help. If you need to engineer a fuel system for a new airplane, the crowd may actually do more harm than good. While “asking the audience” may work statistically for “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” remember that those questions also present multiple choice answers. And do you want to be on the maiden voyage of a new aircraft designed by the crowd?

Part of the problem–and therefore, the solution–comes from defining what we mean by crowdsourcing. Is it asking for an answer, even from the uninformed? If we’re talking elections, yes. If we’re talking jet propulsion, absolutely not.

Can we apply the wisdom of crowds in the enterprise? Certainly, but we must do so thoughtfully. Polling the crowd, whether that be inside our outside the firewall, can help inform decision-making. The crowd can either confirm or challenge our conclusions, but it does not replace the need for critical thought. And when safety is on the line, we have to be vigilant that we don’t allow a confirmation by the crowd to lull us into happily accepting our hopeful answer as the correct one.

After all, the crowd can be wrong. 

What do you think? How and when would you apply the wisdom of crowds inside your organization?

 

 

The Power of Knowledge Discovery in Moscow

The Power of Knowledge Discovery in Moscow

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Two weeks ago I spoke in Moscow at Knowledge Management for the Oil and Gas Sector: Project Optimization and Business Efficiency. This international conference was attended by a number of clients–including BP, CononcoPhillips, Chevron and Lukoil–and we shared how we were using knowledge management to address the business needs facing our respective companies.

Moscow is the largest city in Europe, and if it weren’t for the famously onion-domed churches dotting the city, it would look much like any major metropolis, right down to the Starbucks and KFC. I was surprised to discover the dramatic changes the Muscovites have seen during my lifetime.

Being an informed traveler on my first visit to Moscow, I used GlobeSmart to learn about business etiquette and travel tips. While the advice was sound, it was also very generic. I very nearly forgot the most basic advise of all–leveraging our own KM system. A simple search for the term “Moscow” turned up a guide for visitors created by our Moscow office, complete with the inside information on getting from the airport to the hotel, restaurant recommendations and local contacts. Sometimes knowing what you’re looking for can cause you to miss the valuable knowledge you don’t yet know exists.

During my talk I shared this story to illustrate the power and promise of knowledge management to expose knowledge that we don’t know exists. Finding what we know exists is relatively easy; but discovering knowledge we don’t yet know of–knowledge that can shape our decision process and help us reach better solutions–that is real power.

Special thanks to my colleague Tara for reminding me of the power of knowledge discovery.

Social Computing and Knowledge Management: Chat Transcript

Social Computing and Knowledge Management: Chat Transcript

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Earlier today I moderated a KMers.org TweetChat on the subject of Social Computing and Knowledge Management. We had great participation, and according to TweetReach.com, the last 50 tweets using the #KMers hashtag reached 16,212 people.

Thanks to Liz Williams, Brett Miller, V Mary Abraham, James Monroe, Stan Garfield, Juha Krapinoja, Allison Maguire, Ryan McClead, Ben Hack, Kelly Craft, David Wallace, Joe Raimondo for joining the dialogue.

Here’s the complete transcript:

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[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/gbrettmiller/statuses/121253765834752001″]

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[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/jeffhester/statuses/121254445446201344″]

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[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/jeffhester/statuses/121256735641042944″]

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/VMaryAbraham/statuses/121256888317906944″]

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[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/jeffhester/statuses/121257158322040833″]

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[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/VMaryAbraham/statuses/121259312306851840″]

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[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/VMaryAbraham/statuses/121260309741711360″]

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/JuKra59/statuses/121260317350182912″]

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[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/JuKra59/statuses/121260873544241152″]

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/gbrettmiller/statuses/121260928611254273″]

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[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/VMaryAbraham/statuses/121261285173243905″]

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/liz_with_hat/statuses/121261296611110912″]

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If you’ve got a KM-related subject you would like to discuss, get involved! Volunteer to moderate a TweetChat at KMers.org.

Social Computing and Knowledge Management

Social Computing and Knowledge Management

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Social networking tools have taken off in the past five years. Facebook has over 800 million users, Twitter over 200 million, and even newcomer Google+ with over 50 million. The ubiquity of these tools in our personal lives has spilled over the firewall and into the enterprise, re-labeled as social computing.

Social computing is a broad term that encompasses a range to tools, including blogs, wikis, profiles (with social/professional connections), microblogging and discussion forums.

Are you an advocate for social computing? A knowledge management practitioner? Join me on Tuesday, October 4th for a Twitter Chat I’ll be moderating at KMers.org. To participate in this Twitter-powered discussion you can use your favorite Twitter app with the hashtag #KMers or even easier — just sign in with your Twitter account at the live chat page on KMers.org. The chat will begin at 9am Pacific and run for an hour.

During this chat we will discuss the differences and similarities between the social computing movement and knowledge management, how to reconcile and integrate the two, and the implications for KM over the next five years.

Agenda

  • How do you define social computing, and how does it differ from KM?
  • What social computing tools and approaches are working well for you?
  • Where do informal social computing “communities” or team rooms fit in the context of communities of practice?
  • Should social computing tools be “managed?”
  • When does social computing and collaboration become KM? Is a boundary necessary or even beneficial?

Interested? Join us, and you can follow me @jeffhester and keep the discussion going.

Connected, The Film

Connected, The Film

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Every month a terrific group of bright minds meets in Los Angeles to share, challenge, drink and discuss how we can live an enlightened life. The gathering is known as Mindshare, and if you live anywhere within driving distance of downtown LA, I highly recommend it.

This past Thursday, Mindshare hosted a preview screening of Tiffany Shlain’s new film: Connected.

Connected takes on what it means to be connected in the 21st century. How does technology factor in? Why do we connected? Is our growing interdependence the next step in human evolution?  Shlain went in with this vision, but as so often is the case, life gets in the way. In her case, it was the cancerous brain tumor in her father, and her own high-risk pregnancy that caused her to tweak her vision for the film in a personal way.

The end result wasn’t revolutionary or mind-bending. The key premise is that we are evolving as a species, specifically by becoming more interdependent. To continue to grow, we must connect with each other — rely on others — and build stronger connections not only between the two hemispheres of our own brain, but between each other. The ideas are not ground-breaking. But Shlain tells the story in a way that is both personal and memorable.

Connected is currently playing in Los Angeles at the Arclight in Hollywood. If you get a chance, check it out.