Tag: knowledge management

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The Future of Knowledge Management

The knowledge extraction helmet

I’ve been directly involved in knowledge management — the science of collecting, sharing and leveraging knowledge — for nearly ten years, and indirectly much longer. Knowledge management, or more simply KM, is often unknown outside of the organizations who practice it. Sometimes KM is disguised with a different moniker — knowledge sharing, collaboration, team rooms, Enterprise 2.0 and so on. And among those who do practice KM, there is often a misperception that KM is a tool — a software solution.

The reality is that even after ten years of revolutionary KM, it’s still primarily about connecting people. Cutting through the digital noise and making a connection with that person whose expertise intersects with my need.

Now for the next ten years. How do you see knowledge sharing changing between now and the year 2020?

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The Physics of Cities

Geoffrey West is a theoretical physicist at the Santa Fe Institute who has researched and studied the dynamics of large cities; how and why they grow, and the patterns that emerge. His findings are surprising.

New York Times Magazine has a great article about West’s research. West found that he can predict with 85% accuracy the average income of a city’s inhabitants or the size of their sewage system. Basically, larger cities — in spite of their unique culture — are predictably the same in almost every other measurement.

And largely, cities are more efficient and sustainable than suburban towns. The efficiencies of scale at work.

Why do people live in cities?

This excerpt from the NYT article really stuck out:

Cities are valuable because they facilitate human interactions, as people crammed into a few square miles exchange ideas and start collaborations. “If you ask people why they move to the city, they always give the same reasons,” West says. “They’ve come to get a job or follow their friends or to be at the center of a scene. That’s why we pay the high rent. Cities are all about the people, not the infrastructure.”

This reminded me very much of what I like to say about knowledge management (KM): that KM is all about connecting people, and not about the “tool” (infrastructure). This is precisely why enterprises that drive their KM actvities as an Information Technology (IT) initiative almost always fail miserably.

Sharing knowledge is an exchange between two (or more) people. Technology can either assist or get out of the way.

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My 50-Word Bio

I’m submitting an abstract to speak at the APQC knowledge management conference in May 2011. As part of the submittal process, I had to write a 50-word bio.

Here’s what I came up with:

Jeff Hester is passionate about communities, working with leaders, employees and developers to help them deliver business value through KM. Co-author of three books and frequent speaker, the combination of engineering background and dot-com experience give him a unique ability to bridge the gap between practice and theory in plain English.

Whatever you think about my bio, I had a few observations about the process that anyone can benefit from.

  1. Telling someone who you are in 50 words or less is challenging. There’s a lot that goes unspoken in that bio.
  2. This bio was clearly  tailored to the audience (the knowledge management crowd). If I were speaking on WordPress or backpacking the JMT, the bio would look decidedly different. This doesn’t change who I am; it simply acknowledges that I am multi-faceted. They key point? Know your audience.
  3. It was fun! You may not plan to speak at a conference anytime soon, but having a clear statement about who you are and what distinguishes you from the rest of the pack is an exercise worth doing. Think of it as an elevator pitch for YOU!

Oh, and in case you counted, I came  in one word under fifty (not counting my name). Better to come in under budget.

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Social Media, Knowledge Management and Yahoo!

At Fluor, knowledge management has always been centered around the community. KM-heads call them CoPs or ‘communities of practice.’ We call them simply knowledge communities. And these knowledge communities are the quintessential social media often touted as a Web 2.0 phenomena.

Knowledge communities share many attributes with Web 2.0 sites like Flickr, Upcoming and del.icio.us — all web sites acquired by Yahoo! in the past year. Like these social media sites, knowledge communities are fed by the members themselves. The knowledge they contain and maintain; the experts identified; the discussions in the forums — all are initiated and led by the community-at-large. Like these social media sites, knowledge communities share a common challenge: creating a thriving, vibrant community of people who willingly share their time, talent and knowledge.

Reading danah boyd’s blog today (yes, I have some catching up to do), I saw a reference to an excellent article titled Creators, Synthesizers and Consumers. Written by Bradley Horowitz, head of the Technology Development Group at Yahoo! Search and Marketplace (which includes Yahoo Research Berkeley, where danah works), the article addresses the phases of value creation.

Bradley’s conclusion? Social software sites don’t require 100% active participation to generate great value. This applies to knowledge communities just as it does to social media sites.

If you care about developing online communities, inside or outside the firewall, read his article, and tell me if you agree.