That was my initial reaction when I read Michael Sampson’s post, Who Owns “Collaboration” in Your Firm? He describes ownership of collaboration in the following ways:

• has the responsibility for analyzing work processes and recommending ways of improving those through collaboration technology.
• has the responsibility for analyzing specific collaboration technologies and recommending or deciding on which ones to use.
• has the responsibility for helping staff use new collaboration technology effectively in their work.

The reality is that while it might be tempting for the KM, IT or HR departments to start explaining to other departments how to collaborate, offering those explanations is a far cry from actually initiating meaningful collaboration.  Collaboration occurs when people are ready to collaborate — not a minute before.  For collaboration truly to take hold, you need people in each area of the firm who approach their work with a collaborative mindset.  This means people who are willing to give up some turf and even credit for good ideas in order to foster teamwork for the benefit of the enterprise generally.  Without these kinds of people, it’s very hard to achieve any meaningful collaboration — regardless of the brilliance of the collaboration plans offered by your collaboration owners or consultants.

[Photo Credit:  tibchris]

A little while later, I received an e-mail from someone more senior at the vendor asking for an opportunity to show us the product again.  (I later learned that a mutual friend had told him about the disappointing first demo.)  Our experience during the second demo was the polar opposite of the first one.  In fact, it was as if we were looking at a completely different product.  This time, everything worked and the explanations were crystal clear.  As a result, I can now see how this product might be useful in our environment and I’ve started to measure other products against it.  All in all, it was a win for the vendor.

One product.  Two representatives.  A world of difference.

So, how good is your sales team?

[Photo Credit:  The Rocketeer]

According to Seth Godin, they are using a low-effort sales technique that rarely leads to good results:  they are doing little more than putting the facts out in front of their target audience and hoping they will be swayed.  The reality is that while stating the facts clearly sometimes does close the sale, all too often you need more than that.  In Godin’s view, the facts are just the first step:

Great brands and projects are built on real value and a real advantage, but great marketers use this as a supporting column, not the entire foundation. Instead, they build a story on top of their head start. They focus on relationships and worldviews and interactions, and use the boost from their initial head start to build competitive insulation.

So, if you’re serious about E2.0 adoption, you’re going to have to get serious about change management.  You’re going to have to focus on building relationships.  In addition, Dennis Stevenson suggests that “driving change in people is about motivating them to want to change.”  Think about what motivates your potential users.  Help them answer their first question:  “What’s in it for me?” And then figure out how to support them as they begin to use  the tool.  After all, you’re not just trying to recruit users, you’re trying to create social media advocates who will help E2.0 go viral behind your firewall.

[Photo Credit:  Rennett Stowe]

Paula Thornton suggests that the key to avoiding a pirate’s flogging approach is to use good design in your E2.0 deployment:

If you have to “drive adoption” you’ve failed at 2.0 design and implementation. The fundamentals of 2.0 are based on design that is organic — meets the individual where they are and adapts based on feedback — it emerges. The ‘adoption’ comes from rigorous ‘adaptation’ — it continuously morphs based on involvement from the ‘masses’. If done right, you can’t keep them away…because you’ve brought the scratch for their itch.

Her comments serve to highlight the fundamental difference between top-down old style KM and bottom-up emergent Enterprise 2.0.  The pirates think they can make you participate, while those wiser about E2.0 understand that the right tool in the hands of the right group will be adopted with enthusiasm because it meets user needs.

In the world of Enterprise 2.0, flogging people into submission and participation is a sure sign that you’ve missed the whole point of the exercise.  When that happens, it’s time for you to walk the plank.

[Photo Credit:  Grant MacDonald]

Why too short?  I suspect that in the long-term organizations are going to be increasingly reluctant to fund large groups of knowledge managers to do work that should be done by front line knowledge workers.  Instead, employers are going to expect that every knowledge worker has at least minimum competence in personal knowledge management.  Accordingly, knowledge managers will move into personal knowledge management coaching.  These shifts make economic and practical sense.  For too long, knowledge workers have been outsourcing their KM responsibilities to centralized KM departments.  The distance between the KM department and the front line often results in central data repositories that tend to reflect management’s view of what’s important rather than the shifting concerns and interests of front line knowledge workers who actually have to use the information collected.  Unfortunately, as Dave Pollard aptly points out, management itself is often too far removed from the front line to understand what the front line knowledge worker truly needs.  The problem is compounded if the knowledge managers don’t have subject matter expertise.  Without the experience of walking in the shoes of the front line workers they are supposed to be supporting, their decisions about what’s important to collect and how to organize it or what collaborative tools to provide will largely be based on hearsay.

Further, the traditional one-size-fits-all approach to information management has disregarded the fact that our centralized collections rarely fit many.  Research reported by the Wharton School of Business found that a focus on knowledge capture didn’t always yield the desired benefits and sometimes incurred some painful costs:

We find that using codified knowledge in the form of electronic documents saved time during the task, but did not improve work quality or signal competence to clients, whereas in contrast, sharing personal advice improved work quality and signaled competence, but did not save time….  This is interesting because managers often believe that capturing and sharing knowledge via document databases can substitute for getting personal advice, and that sharing advice through personal networks can save time.

Partly in response to this research, Harold Jarche has suggested that it’s past time that we moved beyond “central digital repositories.”  Instead, we should focus on enabling what he calls a “parallel system” to support knowledge workers in those many instances in which the central repository proves inadequate.  What would that parallel system look like?  Here are his suggestions:

• Develop measures that can help experienced knowledge workers capture and make sense of their knowledge. [This is personal KM.]
• Support the sharing of information and expertise between knowledge workers, on their terms, using personalized knowledge management methods & tools.
• Keep only essential information, and what is necessary for inexperienced workers, in the organizational knowledge base – keep it simple.

So what might a future knowledge manager spend their time doing?  Primarily, coaching individual knowledge workers to become effective personal knowledge managers and online collaborators. Secondarily, creating systems that facilitate collaboration and allow passive sharing of the results of these individual personal KM efforts.  This mission critical approach puts knowledge management where it belongs — on the front lines and in the hands of the the knowledge workers who can use the information shared to strengthen networks and produce revenue.

* * * * *

Here are some additional resources if you’re interested in learning more about Personal Knowledge Management and the possible future direction of KM:

• KM 0.0 - Simply Enabling Trusted Context-Rich Conversations Among Communities That Care (Dave Pollard)
• Managing the Fire Hose (Mary Abraham)
• Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) - An Update (Dave Pollard)
• Personal Toolkit: Three thousand communities of practice (Steve Barth)
• Sense-Making with PKM (Harold Jarche)
• What’s Next After Knowledge Management?  A Scenario (Dave Pollard)
• Your say: Personal knowledge management (Sandra Higgison)

[Photo Credit:  Kimberly Faye]

The worst that can happen is that you don’t have the best supper of your life. And the best that can happen is that you feel thrilled and excited and gratified by the fact that it’s worked.

This is a great example of the value of setting perspective in order to enable innovation.  By pointing out that all that was at stake was the quality of the supper, she creates a “safe-fail” environment, which is key to innovation.  In this instance, the downside is not dire, so what do you really have to lose by trying something new?  And, if your experiment doesn’t work, what real harm is done?

What are some equivalent opportunities in your organization?  Are there areas where you’ve been been recipe-bound for lack of willingness to take the comparatively small risk that supper might only be edible rather than delicious tonight?

[Photo Credit:  Rosie Greenway]

In a few short years, the Blackberry has become a critical business tool for most law firms as well as businesses in other industries. Despite its ubiquity, can anyone tell me of an instance where the Blackberry was used to advance law firm knowledge management efforts? Does it allow users access to KM systems? Is its display of your RSS feeds so attractive that lawyers are happy to read those feeds on their Blackberries? Does it provide the ability to use your social media tools (e.g., your internal wikis, blogs, etc.) remotely? What about your enterprise search engine — can you run a search via your Blackberry?

In fairness, the Blackberry is not a portable computer and, therefore,  we should not expect to replicate the functionality of our office desktops on our Blackberries. However, this fact does leave a question for law firm knowledge managers: if the most popular tool in the firm provides 24/7 access to lawyers, but handles only e-mail well, do we need to tailor our KM systems to work via e-mail? Or is this a gross distortion of good business process? Alternatively, if your KM systems aren’t accessible via Blackberry, are you, your KM systems and your team a luxury only available in the office? Does that make sense when your lawyers have to work around the clock and around the world?

If the Blackberry is going to be a fixture in our enterprises (at least in the short term), doesn’t it make sense to confront our favorite Canadian and figure out how the Blackberry can be used to advance knowledge management?

Happy Canada Day!

[Photo Credit:  michael40001]

One of the problems facing those of us who try to explain the value of Enterprise 2.0 tools is that most companies have not measured the cost to the enterprise of their failure to nurture internal social networks and a spirit of collaboration. Does management know how many deals weren’t closed because expertise was hidden rather than shared? Has management measured the hits to efficiency and effectiveness that result when critical information is buried in a silo rather than easily accessible via the community?  Does management understand the impact that dysfunctional communities have on employee morale and productivity?

Until you’ve counted the cost of a dysfunctional community, how can you properly value the potential benefits of social media tools that could help build and strengthen a healthy community?

[Photo Credit:  Niall Kennedy]

For those of you who read this blog post by e-mail or via an RSS reader, please do take a look at the image above.  I promise it will be worth your while.

[Photo credit:  Dullhunk]

At February’s LegalTech 2009 NY conference, there were persistent problems with the WiFi.  In that case, it wasn’t made available in all sessions initially.  For those of us in the Web 2.0 track, sessions without reliable WiFi were frustrating to say the least.  And then this week we saw another WiFi problem at, of all places, the E2.0 Conference.  The tweet stream on this subject has been funny and at times rather sad.

First, elation:

elsuaRT @VMaryAbraham: @elsua Wifi Works!!! Perhaps you died and went to heaven? #e2conf < Yes, I did! & tables available, too! Impressed!

VMaryAbraham @elsua So glad the organizers understand the value of Wifi. Wish all tech conferences got this. Enjoy! #e2conf

elsua@VMaryAbraham Yeah, I know what you mean, Mary; last year it wasn’t a pretty experience, but so far, this year, it ROCKS!! (So far )

Then reality sets in:

VMaryAbraham RT @VMaryAbraham: @elsua @elsuacon I’ve found the solution to the wifi problem: Stay at home and watch the livestream! #e2conf

elsua@VMaryAbraham LOL! I am actually thinking you may have luckier with us struggling to get a connect working, while you guys watch it live!

KMHobbie@VMaryAbraham so you have *more* access to #e20conf info sitting in NY than I do here in the room?? *grump*

carlfrappaolo RT @KMHobbie: @VMaryAbraham so you have *more* access to #e20conf info sitting in NY than I do here in the room?? *grump* FUNNY

e2conf RT @VMaryAbraham: @carlfrappaolo While I’m sorry I’m not able to meet all of you at #e2conf, I’m loving not having to fight for WiFi. (ha)

vanderwal@VMaryAbraham LOL! Yes, I keep looking on the ground for WiFi as it drops so much.

VMaryAbraham @dberlind Best of all, the WiFi in my home is GREAT! Too bad we can’t say the same for the Waterfront Westin. #e2conf

elsuacon #e2conf My energy levels are running on a deep low after several unsuccessful attempts to get decent wi-fi connectivity working :-///

elsuacon Suspecting #e2conf hasn’t been trending in Twitter during this time due to the yo-yo effect of the wifi connection; still working in patches

elsuacon PRT @leebryant: wifi down all session, but fantastic presentation from IDEO about their tools - massive congrats to @thoughtfarmer #e20conf

VMaryAbraham Condolences! RT @benkepes: It is very hard to live blog an event with no WiFi - frustrated at #e2conf

benkepes@VMaryAbraham even worse to be sitting in the hotel lobby trying decide between attending or connectivity….

VMaryAbraham @benkepes Forget connectivity. Attend the conference. Your pen and paper still work. Right? #e2conf

So help me out here.  What makes this technology so difficult for the organizers of tech conferences?  Is WiFi intrinsically difficult, or do all of us in the Web 2.0/tech space need to start practicing what we preach?

[Photo Credit:  Goldberg]