Jeff Hester

Poking around the intersection of KM and Social Media

KM

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

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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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.

What is the WordPress KM Project?

What is the WordPress KM Project?

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Knowledge Management is a term laden with baggage. For some people, KM synonymous with expensive IT systems and tools. For others it conjures memories of failed initiatives from a time past. But for most people, KM is a concept that they really don’t get.

Not that they need to “get it.” The term itself was invented by academians and consultants conspiring to elevate their science. But when the rubber meets the road, KM is simply about sharing and leveraging knowledge intelligently. The typical knowledge worker isn’t usually familiar with the term knowledge management or even knowledge worker. They just know that they need to tap into knowledge and expertise to help them do their job.

And so, we KM professionals are tasked with providing a systematic approach to KM that doesn’t burden knowledge workers with learning a whole new language. Taxonomy, vocabulary, subject matter experts, communities of practice — all are misguided labels that serve the KM professionals (we know what we mean) but obfuscate the message to the engineer on a project.

We need to put the process into terms they already know and understand. In many ways, Enterprise 2.0 concepts come closer. Blogs, social networking, profiles and discussion forums are all part of our common experience of the web. And they all fit nicely into a community-centric approach to knowledge management.

I’ve said many times that KM is not about the tool. Successful KM is more about the processes and behaviors that drive collaboration, knowledge sharing and reuse. Show people how they benefit when they share their knowledge and it doesn’t matter what the tool is. As long as that tool doesn’t impede your ability to connect with knowledge and the people who have or need expertise, which tool is almost irrelevant. Not exactly the message that the big software vendors want you to hear, but it’s true.

 

Which got me thinking: if it’s not about the tool, why not choose some tools that are readily and freely available? Could this not make KM accessible to many more companies, and perhaps spawn a new era of extra-enterprise collaboration?

Thus was born The WordPress KM Project. The goal is to create a community-centric knowledge management platform that leverages freely available and easily deployed technology — WordPress.

WordPress is primarily considered blogging software, but it can be much more. A single WordPress installation can now support multiple sites or communities. Plugins such as the BuddyPress suite add discussion forums and extensible user profiles. And the core WordPress system is already well-suited for content creation and management.

What are the key requirements for the WordPress KM Project?

  • User Management – Each user must have a profile that can contain contact information as well as skills and expertise. This is important in establishing context and building trust among people who may not know each other.
  • Communities – The core management of knowledge and expertise is delegated to domain experts. People interested in that domain are the primary participants of these communities.
  • Enterprise scope – Although knowledge and expertise is delegate to communities, the partipants have access to the full breadth and depth of knowledge across all communities.
  • Search – For most people, this will be the primary method of retrieving needed knowledge or expertise. For that reason, search — by default — must cross community boundaries.
  • Discussion – The primary medium for ad hoc collaboration and knowledge sharing. Each community will have discussion forums centered around the subjects relating to their domain expertise.
  • Blogs – This could also be considered news, but carries the advantage of allowing community participation through comments.
  • Knowledge – This is experience codified. Explicit knowledge stored in web page or other electronic form.

The goal of the WordPress KM Project is to build a working prototype environment, and then share the results with the world. To do this well, I need your help.

Do you have a passion for KM, WordPress, enterprise systems or just contributing to the greater good? I want to hear from you. Get involved, share your ideas, and join the team.

Let’s begin. Start by leaving a comment below.