The Knowledge Management (KM) Depot

Governing the Information Architecture

2014-02-18T10:26:00.002-06:00

The enterprise is ever changing, and the information architecture (i.e., content model, taxonomy and metadata) should and will evolve. This evolution may include developing new content types, expanding/collapsing the taxonomy and modifying the metadata, as well as relationships between content types and its associated business rules. This effects all of your applications (including customer facing websites and intranet sites) and a plan to manage and govern its use must be put in place.

By managing the Information Architecture you can promote the consistency of the information used across all organizational areas, teams and systems. The content model facilitates consistency in storing, retrieving, and presenting content while improving the search (“findability”) of content. By managing enterprise content (information and knowledge), its metadata, and associated taxonomy, the customers (internal and external) that use these various applications will find the content they are looking for when and how they need it.

The following gives some brief information on managing the Content Model, Taxonomy and Metadata Schema:

Content Model - The Content Model (CM) represents the graphical “road map” of content in support of the customer along with their associated relationships. The intent is that all software systems using content across the enterprise will align with the CM. Situations will arise where changes to the model will be needed, certain business activities may in fact necessitate a change to the model. Managing the changes and understanding the impacts downstream (taxonomy, metadata, and systems) must be coordinated and acted upon.

Taxonomy - Taxonomies evolve as the business grows, extend as additional technology-related functions are incorporated, and morph as the business model changes. Once implemented, it is imperative to conduct frequent and consistent pulse checks with the business to continually gauge the taxonomy’s fit and relevance. Armed with this information, the appropriate governance measures can be taken to adapt the taxonomy to meet evolving requirements.

Metadata - The metadata schema governance represents the business discipline for managing the metadata about the content of the organization. The intent is that all software systems using content across the enterprise will incorporate the recommended metadata associated to the content. Metadata governance will ensure consistency of name and meaning of metadata fields and its associated values (i.e., reconcile the difference in terminology such as "clients" and "customers," "revenue" and "sales," etc.). Metadata governance will also ensure clarity of relationships, by resolving ambiguity and inconsistencies when determining the associations between entities stored throughout content environment. For example, if a customer declares a "beneficiary" in one application, and this beneficiary is called a "participant" in another application, metadata definitions would help clarify the situation.

So, the question is are you managing/governing your Information Architecture? If not, why? I am very interested in hearing your thoughts on this subject!

Leveraging Faceted Search

2013-12-31T14:04:00.001-06:00

In my upcoming publication Knowledge Management in Practice I detail search in a chapter called "Dude Where's my Car: Utilizing Search in KM". At the KM World Taxonomy Boot Camp I spoke about Utilizing Ontologies for Taxonomy & Content Organization and during this discussion there were questions concerning faceted search. Before the year ends (literally) I wanted to provide some details concerning faceted search:

Faceted search offers remarkable potential for putting the search experience in the hands of the user. It provides a flexible framework by which users can satisfy a wide variety of information needs, ranging from simple look up and fact retrieval to complex exploratory search and discovery scenarios.

With faceting, search results are grouped under useful headings, using tags you apply ahead of time to the documents in your index. For example, the results of a shopping query for books might be grouped according to the type of book and the price.

Each time the user clicks a facet value, the set of results is reduced to only the items that have that value. Additional clicks continue to narrow down the search—the previous facet values are remembered and applied again.

Faceted search results provide an easy-to-scan, browse and display that helps users quickly narrow down each search. The faceting tags that you store with your documents provide a way to add your own taxonomy to directly control the presentation of search results. In the end, it's about helping the user find the right information. Faceted search gives a user the power to create an individualized navigation path, drilling down through successive refinements to reach the right document. This more effectively mirrors the intuitive thought patterns of most users. Faceted search has become an expected feature, particularly for commerce sites.

However, before you get too deep into the intricacies of faceted search, it is extremely important that you develop use cases or user stories around your search scenarios mentioned earlier. A great way to get started is to identify the main concepts you would like to search (People, reports, policies, etc.); next create logical categories (start by building or leveraging a taxonomy) for each group (Engineers, Executives, Administrators, etc.) a card sort exercise will be helpful here, and finally create (or use a current) information/content model showing relationships and considering navigation paths.

This will put you on a path to realizing the benefits of faceted search!

Santa Claus is.. was... Real?

2013-12-24T16:27:00.001-06:00

Have you ever wondered why your parents went through all of that trouble to tell you about Santa Claus and being good in order to receive presents? Was it all an elaborate scheme that all parents had everywhere to get their children to behave albeit for a short period of time? Well as we all became older and became parents we continued to tell our children about Santa Claus… and the story… just continued!

But wait… hold on there… STOP THE BUS!!! A story this elaborate, so contrived, that has gone on for I don’t know how long has to have some basis of fact? Doesn’t it? Well I’m here to tell you IT DOES!! According to History.Com the legend of Santa Claus goes back to the third century! Originally Santa was a monk named St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas was born sometime around 280 A.D. in Patara, near Myra in (modern day) Turkey. He was much admired for his piety and kindness, and It is said that he gave away all of his inherited wealth and traveled the countryside helping the poor and sick. Over the course of many years, St. Nicholas's popularity spread and he became known as the protector of children and sailors. In fact his feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his death on December 6. This day was traditionally considered a lucky day to make large purchases or to get married. By the Renaissance, St. Nicholas was the most popular saint in Europe.

So, when and how did he become Santa Claus? According to History.Com, the name Santa Claus evolved from Nick's Dutch nickname, Sinter Klaas, a shortened form of Sint Nikolaas (Dutch for Saint Nicholas). In addition the legend grew to its current imagery when in 1822, Clement Clarke Moore, an Episcopal minister, wrote a long Christmas poem for his three daughters entitled "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas." Moore's poem, which he was initially hesitant to publish due to the frivolous nature of its subject, is largely responsible for our modern image of Santa Claus as a "right jolly old elf" with a portly figure and the supernatural ability to ascend a chimney with a mere nod of his head!

Well as you can probably imagine the story continues…. For additional information on the Big Jolly Fella check out the Museum of Unnatural History and the St. Nicolas Center.

As we celebrate Christmas don’t forget the reason for the season… a celebration of the birth of Christ (for all of us Christians) and a celebration of family and spirit of giving for all of us no matter your religious beliefs and/or spiritual connection. At this time we need to be especially kind, helpful and loving to everyone we meet and interact with. Remember when the time comes share the “true” story of Santa Claus and his love and generosity toward all!

I want to wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season!!!

The Role of the Information Architect

2013-11-28T09:21:00.000-06:00

The Role of the Information Architect

Often when I am working with organizations to implement a Knowledge Management (KM) Solution the role of the business and more specifically the users of the application are discussed. The users of the proposed KM application will determine its worth to the organization. If the system is not used and/or is poorly received the organization would have wasted time and valuable resources in developing the KM solution. When this occurs KM in many instances receives a negative view in the minds of the people at the organization and this leads to the abandonment of KM entirely. To prevent this unseemly situation and to get your organization started in the right direction I would recommend bringing in an Information Architect. In this role the information Architect will be the catalyst to bring the users together, along with specific business objectives to enable the KM solution to be adopted by the users and embraced by the organization.

One thing you may be asking is “How does the Information Architect accomplish this?” The information Architect Instead of focusing on typical IT problems, comes to the project with a threefold focus: Users of the Information, the Information Itself and the Business/Organization. With this focus the Information Architect will perform the following tasks:

· Gather Requirements pertaining to the content and structure of the KM solution (SME’s and Users are heavily involved here)

· Construct the Information Model (SME’s and Users are heavily involved here to further define and validate Content)

· Instantiate Business Rules (depicted as relationships) onto the model (SME’s and Users are heavily involved here to further define and validate Content Relationships)

· Develop the Taxonomy (categorizations of content (information & knowledge) for the KM Solution

o SME’s and Users are heavily involved here

o Card Sort exercise is often used to solidify the Content Categories and Taxonomy

· Develops the Metadata Schema (specific information about the content)

· Develops Standards for Content Assembly

· Contributes to the development of the Style Guide for Content Delivery

· Contributes to creating an authoring Environment that would leverage the Standards and Style Guide for Content

When developing your KM solution having an Information Architect (or team of Information Architects) will ensure user and business involvement as well as the adoption and use of the KM solution. This is a step in the right direction to contribute to KM being viewed as a positive influence and having value within the culture of your organization.

If your organization is considering developing or enhancing a KM Solution and are using or considering using an Information Architect I would like to especially hear from you!

The Need for Knowledge Governance

2013-11-22T22:09:00.000-06:00

Once your organization has established its Knowledge Management Program and has populated the knowledge repository with the corporate knowledge assets, it is now time to provide for the "care and feeding" and the ongoing maintenance of your corporate knowledge. In order to do this a governance plan has to be established and executed.
Content (information and knowledge) governance is the orchestration of people, process, and technology to enable the organization to leverage content as an enterprise asset. Content governance details the managing of issues around incomplete content, poor or untimely access to content, lack of or poor metadata and managing and resolving duplicate (or similar) content.

The Knowledge Governance Plan describes the policies, procedures, roles, and responsibilities, as it pertains to maintaining content. Effective governance planning and the application of the governance plan are critical for the ongoing success of your knowledge management program.

The Knowledge Governance plan will establish the processes and policies to:

Avoid content proliferation
Ensure Content is maintained by implementing quality management policies
Establish clear decision-making authority and escalation procedures so policy violations are managed and conflicts are resolved on a timely basis.
Ensure that the solution strategy is aligned with business objectives so that it continuously delivers business value.
Ensure that content is retained in compliance with record retention guidelines.

This is just the beginning of understanding how to govern your knowledge assets. If your organization will or has established a governance plan for it's knowledge assets I would like to hear from you!

SharePoint as a Collaboration Tool

2013-09-15T17:19:00.000-05:00

Since my last post, I had taken a brief hiatus to work on a few publishing projects and conference presentations and now I'm back and will be making more blog post over the next couple of weeks. During my brief hiatus I have heard about more about SharePoint (specifically SharePoint 2013) than I really want to know! So, this has prompted me to write about SharePoint as a collaboration tool and solicit the thoughts of my blog viewers on this subject.

CollaborationTool: SharePoint

At the majority of the clients I am working with, the SharePoint platform serves as the mechanism where collaboration takes place. In the SharePoint environment, collaboration sites such as wikis, discussion boards and blogs serve as ways teams share information and knowledge. Most teams have created team pages and document libraries where specific documents and other content (spreadsheets, images, video, PowerPoint presentation, etc.) are worked on and shared with specific members of the team.

Part of collaboration infrastructure on the SharePoint platform is the use of automated workflows. The automated workflows are leveraged to facilitate the maintenance of content (information and knowledge), which consist of creating, updating and review/approval of content before it is published in the knowledge base.

SharePoint 2013 offers a more robust platform (than previous versions) to connect and share with the people across your organization as they work on the myriad of problems and projects within the enterprise. The question remains is SharePoint the optimal tool within your organization to share knowledge? For those upgrading… are you convinced that SharePoint 2013 is the right solution for you? Finally what have been your challenges using, upgrading, or integrating with SharePoint?

From Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 and Beyond

2013-06-02T12:09:00.002-05:00

As the internet has matured we have been introduced to terms such as Web 1.0, Web 2.0 Web 3.0 and Web 4.0. The question on my mind are these terms just buzz words, a result of cleaver marketing, or do these terms have true meaning? Let’s for the purpose of this blog post take the stance that these terms have true meaning. In doing so let’s examine the evolution of the web, and the concepts being covered by the above mentioned terms.
At the beginning of the Web we had Web 1.0. According to Jonathan Strickland of “HowStuff Works”and techopedia, Web 1.0 exact definition is up for debate. However, what we do know is that Web 1.0 provided static web pages with minimal linking and search capabilities.

Web 2.0 is where we firmly find ourselves in today. Web 2.0 is about socialization! People publishing to each other to inform, work and socialize with one another. This included social networks, group workspaces such as communities of practices. In Web 2.0, the websites are more responsive and search technologies improved to enable improved searching and sharing of information. This is detailed by Daniel Nations Web Trends article on About.Com and Tim O’Reilly.

In Web 3.0 the focus is on people and how they interact with each other through the web. Web 3.0 moves towards providing intelligence, which includes semantic/natural language search, location awareness and recommendation engines. According to Daniel Nations Web Trends article on About.Com we should be entering into Web 3.0 sometime in 2015.

What about, do I dare say… Web 4.0? According to Jonathan Fowler and Elizabeth Rodd’s article “The Ultra-Intelligent Electronic Agent is Coming”, they mention that the device to leverage Web 4.0 does not yet exist, but the concept does. The concept includes an advance level of intelligence that will not only provide you with information but knowledge that will enable the device to make decisions for you and/or present you with viable options.

Web 3.0 semantic technology concepts are beginning to show up as search mechanisms in commercial products. According to Eric Savitz’s article in Forbs semantic search is being leverage in Database Management, Drug Discovery, Travel, and Human Capital Management. I believe that the underlining theme in the evolution of the web will heavy rely on the evolution of the advancement of search and leveraging it to provide knowledge to its users. Whatever, the future looks like for the Web, I am confident that there will be people exploring concepts and developing tools that will deliver the promise that Web 3.0 and Web 4.0 presents.

Master of Science concentration in Knowledge Management

2013-04-30T22:55:00.001-05:00

As the college school year comes to an end, a vast amount of undergraduates are either looking to start their career or looking to continue their education. If your graduate is looking to embark on the continued educational journey, I would suggest they consider a Master of Science degree in Knowledge Management.

You may not know that Knowledge Management continues to be a growing discipline in which organizations are seeking qualified individuals. A Master of Science concentration in Knowledge Management offers students an opportunity to enter the Knowledge Economy and become an important asset to organizations working to get the right knowledge to the right people at the right time. When considering a Masters in Knowledge Management, each student should consider a university program that presents a holistic approach to the principles, practices, policies and technology that are being deployed today at organizations in the field of Knowledge Management.

A Master of Science concentration in Knowledge Management will provide the successful student with the ability to assist organizations in making better decisions, understand where knowledge exist and uncover knowledge gaps that will lead to better performance and communication between workers.

Here are some universities offer Masters in Knowledge Management:

Knowledge Systems Institute

George Mason University
George Washington University
Kent State

Here are some additiuonal MS in KM Programs:

Notre Dame of Maryland
Columbia University
Drexel University
Northwestern University
California InterContinental University
Jones International University

More University MS in KM Programs:

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

If you know of others please let me know and I will add them to this blog post!

Show Me the Money! - KM in Finance

2013-04-29T21:09:00.001-05:00

This blog post represents a sneak peak at my upcoming book KM in Practice

Show Me the Money! - KM in Finance

The financial services industry is a highly dynamic and competitive marketplace. As the fight for customers intensifies, it is increasingly important to attend to customer needs while ensuring customer information is shared with the right people at the right time across the institution. To this end the technology supporting the institution is vital to facilitating the movement of information and knowledge to the customer. KM systems will have an increased importance as trends in personal investing move towards broader services and integrated product offerings.

By utilizing a knowledge management system, all employees interacting with a customer will have up to date knowledge of that customer’s breadth of relationship and experience with the institution. This helps the institution with cross selling, up selling and reporting on the effectiveness of any new customer initiatives.

It is well recognized that the financial services business environment is ever changing and is doing so at an ever increasing rate. This presents financial organizations with the challenge of acting and reacting to this volatility and communicating an appropriate value proposition to the market. In addition having an increasingly sophisticated consumer who is armed with the latest trading technology has added further stress to these companies to deliver the right knowledge at the right time in the right way to their customers.

If you are involved in the financial services sector as an employee and/or customer I would like to hear from you. Are you utilizing the tools and receiving the knowledge to make you successful? Look forward to all of your comments!

Knowledge Management for Research Institutions - Webinar

2013-03-31T22:51:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday April 17th, there will be a 60 minute webinar detailing the use of Knowledge Management (KM) at and for research departments and/or institutions. The following is a brief description of the webinar:

Research Institutions are critical to innovation and new product creation. The speeds to market for new products are essential to stay ahead of your competitors. Knowledge Management (KM) plays a central role not only from the perspective of innovation by knowing what has been done and/or what is being done in other areas of research that can be utilized, but also from the collaboration and knowledge sharing among researchers contributing to the speed of new products to market.

At its core the nature of research is to nurture open access to extensive amounts of tacit knowledge (knowledge within the minds of people) and explicit knowledge (knowledge that is written down) by applying a model that reflects the natural of flow of knowledge. The model of Connect – Collect ---Reuse and Learn depicts a knowledge flow model that supports KM within research institutions and R&D functions within organizations. For KM to work within a research environment (as with other environments) a culture and structure that supports, rewards and proves the value KM can bring will encourage the continued use and adoption of the KM practice.

In addition the choice of IT tools (which is of secondary importance) should be brought in to the organization to automate the knowledge flow and its associated process. The KM tool(s) must support KM goals/strategies, provide a means to connect, collect, catalog, access, and reuse tacit and explicit knowledge. In addition the KM tool(s) must capture new learning to share across the organization, and provide search and retrieval mechanisms to bring pertinent knowledge to the user.

This webinar will cover the KM strategy, techniques, best practices and application of KM necessary for research institutions to innovate more effectively and shorten the time to bring new products to market.

In a previous blog post I covered KM at Research Institutions and this topic will be presented in depth in my next book Knowledge Management in Practice. For more information click on KM for Research Institutions link. I look forward to your questions and comments.

KM Conference Mash Up!

2013-03-27T00:58:00.001-05:00

As we move into 2013 there are several Knowledge Management (KM) conferences that I would highly recommend you attend, participate and/or inquire about. Here is the list, including the link and a brief note about each:

APQC hosts its 18th Knowledge ManagementConference - Training April 29 – May 1 & Conference May 2 -3 in Houston Texas). APQC is a leading benchmarking, best practice and research organization, which has Knowledge Management as one of its core areas. The focus of this conference is to explore the knowledge and knowledge processes organizations are using to boost creativity, innovation, and competitiveness.

ICICKM 10th International Conference on Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management & Organizational Learning – ICICKM 2013, The George Washington University, School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) and Engineering Management and Systems Engineering (EMSE) Washington, DC, USA 24-25 October 2013 This conference also includes several mini tracks.

KM World 2013 Conference Building Collaborative Organizations: People, Platforms & Programs. November 6 – 8, 2013 at the Renaissance Washington, DC Hotel in Washington DC. KMWorld offers a wide-ranging program especially focused to meet the needs of executives and strategic business and technology decision makers. This is a must-attend for those concerned with improving their organization’s bottom line, business processes and productivity, as well as streamlining operations and accelerating development and innovation in their evolving enterprises.

Taxonomy Boot Camp November 5 – 6 in Washington DC. This conference is a part of the KM World conference. The Taxonomy Boot Camp brings together practitioners and experts in taxonomy, vendors who have created tools to help manage your taxonomies, and novices who are starting out in the world of information management. This conference includes interactive panel discussions and workshops centered around designing, developing and executing taxonomies.

Enterprise Search Summit also a part of the KM World conference occurs during November 6 – 8, in Washington DC. This conference brings together practitioners and experts in Enterprise Search. The conference features speakers exploring search and how it facilitates knowledge “findability” and sharing including effective information delivery, and business operations improvement.

SEKE 2013 - The Twenty-Fifth International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE 2013) will be held at Hyatt Harborside at Boston's Logan International Airport, USA from June 27 to June 29, 2013. This is primarily an academic conference. This conference aims at bringing together experts in software engineering and knowledge engineering to discuss on relevant research, papers and software solutions in either software engineering or knowledge engineering or both. Special emphasis will be put on the transference of methods between both domains.

ACM Conference of Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM 2013) This conference will be held from October 27 to November 1, 2013 at San Francisco Airport Marriott Waterfront, Burlingame, CA, USA. The purpose of the conference is to identify challenging problems facing the development of future knowledge and information systems, and to shape future research directions through the publication of high quality, applied and theoretical research findings.

These conferences only represent a portion of the KM Conferences that will be occurring in 2013. I will be attending and/or presenting at a few of the conferences mention above. If you know of other conferences please contact me and I will update this “Mash Up”!

More KM and Big Data

2013-02-28T23:56:00.001-06:00

In my last post regarding Big Data I posed two questions: What is your experience with Big Data? Are you like most of us determining what Big Data really means to me and my organization? As it pertains to Knowledge Management (KM) and Big Data within organizations, the advancement of search technologies on Big Data is making an impact. In KM World's 100 companies that matter in KM, they point out that Search Technologies’ ability to implement, service, and manage Big Data environments is the key reason for their inclusion. The "findability" of information and knowledge within large amounts of unstructured data contribute to the ability to disseminate and reuse the knowledge of the enterprise.
Besides Search Technologies, there are several companies offering KM solutions to address Big Data. Some of these companies include: CACI which offers solutions and services to go from data to decisions, Autonomy (an HP Company) offers KM solutions that mine unstructured data, tag this data and where appropriate make it available to the knowledge base, and IBM who offers a Big Data platform that includes KM to address Big Data's vast amount of unstructured data. As organizations come to know more about Big Data and how to manage and use/reuse the vast amounts of information and knowledge it provides, more software and consulting companies will provide the products and solutions organizations are looking for. Where is Big Data going? A recent Gartner Report stated that "Many global organisations have failed to implement a data management strategy but will have to as IT leaders need to support big data volumes, velocity and variety," as well as "decisions from big data projects for decision support, and insights in the context of their role and job function, will expand from 28 per cent of users in 2011 to 50 per cent in 2014.” Big Data will be the catalyst for an increase in the need for Data, Information and Knowledge Management expertise. We will need Big Knowledge Management to address Big Data!

Knowledge Management and BIG Data

2013-01-31T07:00:00.000-06:00

Big Data has been buzzing for some time now. Many organizations are formulating their approach to managing Big Data and aligning it with their strategic objectives. Lets first take a look of what Big Data is; Big Data refers to data that has grown so big it is difficult to manage. Big Data spans four dimensions Volume, Velocity, Variety, and Veracity.

Volume: The proliferation of all types of data expanding many terabytes of information.Velocity: The ability to process data quickly. Variety: Refers to the different types of data (structured and unstructured data such as text, sensor data, audio, video, click streams, log files, etc.) See what IBM is saying about Big Data.

Knowledge Management has the ability to integrate and leverage information from multiple perspectives. Big Data is uniquely positioned to take advantage of KM processes and procedures. These processes and procedures enables KM to provide a rich structure to enable decisions to be made on a multitude and variety of data. In the KM World March 2012 issue it was pointed out that "organizations do not make decisions just based on one factor, such as revenue, employee salaries or interest rates for commercial loans. The total picture is what should drive decisions". KM enables organizations to take the total picture Big Data provides, and along with leveraging tools that provide processing speed to break up the data into subsets for analysis will empower organizations to make decisions on the vast amout and variety of data and information being provided.

What is your experience with Big Data? Are you like most of us determining what Big Data really means to me and my organization? If these and other questions are on your mind concerning Big Data I want to hear from you!

KM in 2013

2013-01-30T04:00:00.001-06:00

Now that we are firmly into 2013 lets take a look at what is trending in Knowledge Management (KM) this year. With the proliferation of mobile devices (IPhone, Chromebook, IPad, Android Devices) Personal KM is moving front and center. In the enterprise as more and more content and knowledge gets created and the need to access and use that knowledge and content to address day-to-day knowledge needs of workers and customers (see Big Data), providing knowledge quickly to address internal and external users as well as search and findability are getting much attention within organizations implementing KM. Let's take a look at what some others are indicating the trends will be for KM in 2013: Matthew Whalley - ClientKnowledge Manager (Legal Services), talks about "helping clients to realize efficiencies and knowledge gains, the growing realization that KM delivers more than "documents" providing “operational” efficiency, transaction delivery, knowledge re-use and transformation, and technology – social and mobile channels"; SAP indicates that "defining a knowledge management strategy, structuring content and measuring business impact as well as reaching external leadership are becoming more and more important"; KMWorld indicates that the focus is on sharing collective knowledge and on KM strategy more so than the technology.

These are some thoughts on what to expect regarding KM for 2013. So, what do you think? I look forward to hearing more about what other organizations and individuals are doing with KM in 2013!

2012 KM Blog In Review

2013-01-25T22:23:00.000-06:00

In 2012 I wrote about many topics. These topics started with a series of posts looking at Knowledge Management (KM) in Specific Industries (first looking at KM in Customer Service Centers); followed by KM in Research Institutions, Talent Management, the Legal Profession, the Military, and KM applied to Disaster Response (First Responders). All of these industries and more will be explored and analyzed in detail in my next book Knowledge Management in Practice. I also explored Aligning KM and ITIL pointing out the connections between the two and identifying the gaps ITIL has when it comes to KM. Other blog posts included examining The Case for Developing an Enterprise Information Architecture (a catalyst for focused enterprise search and findability of content and knowledge), Creating a Winning' NSF SBIR Phase I & Phase II Proposal (a synopsis of my webinar I conducted through Principle Investigators), Power Directed ("If Knowledge is Power then Knowledge Management is Power Directed"), Anatomy of a KM Project (by Guest Blogger Bruce Fransen). I concluded the 2012 Knowledge Management Depot postings with Are you Maintaining Your Taxonomy, KM Program vs KM Project, and Components of a KM Strategic Plan (The Strategic Plan is what all organizations should start with before executing a KM initiative).
So, there you have it! I believe I presented some pertinent topics and some solutions within the Knowledge Management discipline, If you missed any of my blog posts in 2012 feel free to go back, review and make comments. I look forward to more guest bloggers in 2013 and more relevant and current topics that give insight on where KM will be heading in 2013!

Components of a KM Strategic Plan

2012-12-31T15:14:00.002-06:00

Thinking about crafting your Knowledge Management Strategic Plan? Not sure where to start? Here I am presenting a "straw-man" to get you started! Following the information presented below will get you on your way:

1 - Executive Summary

The executive summary is often considered the most important section of a KM Strategic Plan. This section briefly tells your reader where your company is, where you want to take it, and why your business idea will be successful when implementing Knowledge Management. The executive summary should highlight the strengths of your overall plan and therefore be the last section you write.

2 - KM Vision Statement

The KM vision statement takes into account the current status of the organization, and serves to point the direction of where KM in the organization wishes to go. As a means of setting a central goal that the organization will aspire to reach, the vision statement helps to provide a focus for the mission.

3 - KM Mission Statement

The KM mission statement serves as a guide to the actions of the organization as it pertains to KM, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making. It provides "the framework or context within which the company's KM strategy is formulated and aligns with the KM vision (Note: the KM Vision and Mission are often combined).

4 - Current KM Environment (Include If one exist)

This section details the current knowledge environment. Any knowledge management activities and experience will be detailed here. This section will also outline any benefits that have been gained and how they can be built upon or leverage in future initiatives.

5 - KM Best Practices

This section details the KM Best Practices that this KM Strategic Plan will align to.

6 - Challenges and Knowledge Needs

The key issues and knowledge needs of the organization will be summarized here and will include any knowledge resources, processes and tools that will be needed to effectively execute the knowledge management strategy.

7 - Strategy Details and Key Initiatives

The key activities to implement the Knowledge Management Strategy are as follows:

8 - Knowledge Transfer

Knowledge Transfer is a culture-based process by which adaptive organizational knowledge that lies in people’s heads and which lies in documents, programs, reports, etc is exchanged with others. This section will indicate how knowledge transfer will play a role in the overall knowledge management strategy.

9 - Dependencies

This section will detail critical dependencies such as the availability of key personnel, approval of budgets, and available technologies to initiate the knowledge management strategy. This section will also analyze the effect of not executing the knowledge management strategy at all.

10 - On-going Knowledge Management

To continue to foster an atmosphere of sharing, transferring, harvesting and creating knowledge within the organization an adherence to this strategy will be imperative. On-going support will include:

Identifying the key knowledge holders within the organization
Creating an environment which motivates people to share
Creating opportunities and utilizing tools to harvest knowledge
Creating opportunities to foster knowledge creation
Designing a sharing mechanism to facilitate the knowledge transfer
Measuring the effects of executing the knowledge strategy

11 - Establish a Central Knowledge Management Office

The Central Knowledge Management Office (CKMO) comprised of Senior Management and Core Team members and is the vehicle for implementing and keeping under review the KM Program and on-going KM initiatives that will be championed by the organization.

12 - Tools

This section details the tools and how they will be utilized to deliver Knowledge Management through out the organization.

Feel free to leave your comments and/or questions regarding this KM Strategic Plan "straw-man".

KM Program vs. KM Project

2012-12-31T14:10:00.000-06:00

In many of my Knowledge Management (KM) engagements, organizations look to initiate KM through a specific initiative or project. Once that project is concluded many of these organizations believe that there KM involvement is done and they move on to the next initiative. In order to have a sustainable KM presence at an organization we must move from the tactical approach of a KM project to that of a strategic approach of a KM Program. In order to accomplish this a KM Strategy has to be developed. The KM Strategy is positioned at the Program Level and this strategy will drive specific initiatives that align with the mission and objectives of the KM Program. The KM Strategy includes formal procedures to collect knowledge throughout the organization, a well-established infrastructure, networks for transferring knowledge between employees, and tools to facilitate the process. The KM Strategy will lay the foundation to align specific tools/technology to enhances individual and organizational performance,. This is accomplished by incorporating the following three (3) components into the fabric of an organization’s environment:

People, those who create, organize, apply, and transfer knowledge; and the leaders who act on that knowledge
Processes, methods of creating, organizing, applying and transferring knowledge
Technology, information systems used to put knowledge products and services into organized frameworks

The KM Strategy is constructed to establish effective knowledge management operations. The intent is to outline how organization will organize and implement KM to get relevant knowledge, to the right person, at the right time, and in the right format to enable rapid situational understanding and decision-making.

The KM Program must optimize the organization, exchange, currency, and accessibility of knowledge so employees and other stakeholders spend less time looking for what they need in order to make critical decisions and complete specific tasks and activities. Effective workers do not just need to recognize their own knowledge and skills, but they must also recognize and strategically use those of others. The KM Program must leverage the KM Strategy to focus on developing the following practices among individuals and groups to make them an integral part of the organizational KM culture:

Recognition and valuing of individual knowledgeRecognition and valuing of knowledge held by othersEnthusiasm to search for new knowledge
Skills to search for that new knowledge
Enthusiasm for sharing knowledge with others, and a capacity to link personal and shared knowledge to organizational goals and performance
Enthusiasm for contributing to the intellectual capital of the organization

One important aspect of the KM Strategy to keep in mind is that all KM Strategies must include the initiatives required to implement the KM Program's enterprise mission, vision and objectives. For those who are contemplating building a KM Program/Strategy and those already executing their KM Strategy on behalf of creating a sustainable KM Program I would like to hear from you!

Are You Maintaining Your Taxonomy?

2012-11-30T15:21:00.000-06:00

Once you have deployed your Knowledge Portal or Knowledge Management (KM) System’s taxonomy, controlled vocabulary, information architecture, achieved initial search engine optimization (SEO), and deployed to your users, you're done! Hold on... You're not done yet! As a matter of fact you have just begun! Now you must execute your strategy on how you will maintain the knowledge portal's taxonomy and its underlining taxonomy infrastructure.

In your Knowledge Management Strategy, indicating how your organization will maintain the underlining taxonomy infrastructure, which involves the requirements, and tools, will be essential to the ongoing success of the Knowledge Portal (KM System). When you think of what requirements are needed consider the following:

How easily and can categories added, edited, or deleted?
How easily and can relationship types and relationships between your knowledge and its associated content be defined, edited, or deleted?
Does a change propagate to all instances?
What users and their permissions need to be established on an ongoing basis?
Determine what assignment or modification of privileges to one or a group of items is needed?
Taxonomy Governance requirements (approval, new, change, etc. workflows that maybe needed or modified)
Metadata/Controlled Vocabulary requirements (assign attributes to a category, associate controlled vocabulary with metadata field, and thesaurus capabilities)

In determining what tools you should utilize to assist in managing your taxonomy infrastructure consider the following:

Tools that have Taxonomy Development capabilities, which include establishing user roles and permissions
Tools that have Taxonomy Maintenance capabilities, which include adding, editing, moving, and deleting items
Tools that have the ability to assign or modify privileges to one or a group of items
Tools that have Taxonomy Governance, which lends itself to the development and maintenance of workflows for knowledge content
Tools that have Metadata Controlled Vocabulary, which includes assigning attributes to a category and associating controlled vocabulary with metadata fields as well as Thesaurus capabilities
Tools that have custom reporting capabilities
Tools that have application integration APIs (WSDL, Scripts, etc.)

Below is a table containing some of the most widely used taxonomy/controlled vocabulary tools in currently use. I would encourage you to contact these vendors and also refer to the latest Gartner, and Forrester analysis before you decide to bring a vendor in for further discussion.

TAXONOMY TOOLS

Vendor

Taxonomy Tool

URL

Apelon

Apelon Distributed Terminology System (DTS)

http://www.apelon.com/Products/DTS/tabid/97/Default.aspx

Synaptica

Synaptica

http://www.synapticasoftware.com/

SAS

SAS Ontology Management

http://www.sas.com/text-analytics/ontology-management/index.html

SmartLogic

Semaphore Ontology Manager

http://www.smartlogic.com/home/products/semaphore-modules/ontology-manager/ontology-manager-overview

WorldMap

WordMap Designer

http://www.wordmap.com/

protege

protege

http://protege.stanford.edu/

Mondeca

Intelligent Topic Manager

http://www.mondeca.com/Products/ITM

idera

SharePoint Information Architect

http://www.idera.com/SharePoint/sharepoint-information-architect/

Anatomy of a KM Project - By Bruce Fransen (Guest Blogger)

2012-11-28T18:46:00.000-06:00

Doin’ Time* somewhere south of Normal…

Time = KM Time

Similarities between Knowledge Management (KM) and “other kind of time”

Confined to small space with other detainees…..

Most others don’t know what you do (or why)…

Time is not an enemy but a constant challenge…

Unable to leave until requirements are fulfilled…

Having done time, KMer will never be the same…

Are you doin’ time? We would like to hear from you….

Bruce Fransen

Knowledge Management Consultant

b_fransen@comcast.net

Power Directed

2012-09-29T14:47:00.001-05:00

If knowledge is power, than Knowledge management is “Power Directed”!

The essence of Knowledge Management comes through when we share what we know. When applied in its various forms (tacit and explicit) as well as in the specific types of knowledge (procedural, and propositional/declarative) it can have a lasting effect. The power being directed when leveraging knowledge management not only comes from sharing what we know but also from being experts in our chosen field. Being an expert in your field will distinguish you as a thought leader and key knowledge holder. These experts are to be utilized whenever possible and will be the catalyst for keeping order, providing effective decision making, and enabling organizations and its people to be successful.

If the recent NFL Referee strike and subsequent settlement taught us anything is that expertise counts and knowledge is power. In order to settle the NFL Referee strike that power (the referees knowledge and expertise) became the catalyst to drive the NFL Owners to come to an agreement.

In this season of political change throughout the world as seen through the Occupy Movement, and now the pending US Presidential elections, sharing knowledge and acting on this knowledge will influence the world for generations to come.

Briefing soldiers through lessons learned when one group returns from a mission to be replaced by another; when a parent teaches their children those “life lessons” from their experience; in the preparedness, response, and recovery by emergency personnel when a crisis or natural disaster strikes; in understanding what knowledge is needed to drive organizational decision making and response to customers; and when researchers combine what they know in order to discover cures and/or treatment to disease and sickness (I can go on and on!) are all examples of Power Directed! These examples illustrate the power of knowing and directing knowledge has the power to shape the world in which we live.

I am interested in hearing how you have directed your knowledge to make a positive change, provided an impact to your organization, and/or enhancing the knowledge of someone else to provide direction and/or to assist that person in making decisions. Remember, knowledge itself cannot not exhibit power until it is put to use.

KM applied to Disaster Response

2012-08-31T16:03:00.000-05:00

As the US begins to recover from the aftermath of hurricane Issac, I am reminded of how Knowledge Management (KM) can be used to respond to disasters such as these. The lack of response or the inadequate nature of the response has lead to a need to increase the effectiveness and efficiencies of first responders. Due to the nature of their work Disaster Response Teams (DRT), are usually first to arrive in a crisis situation. KM applied to DRT's, in particular first responders will enable the DRT's to arrive at the scene in a more timely manner, be equipped with the right knowledge of the situation and have the right tools and technology to execute their job, putting them in a position to save lives.
When a disaster occurs first responders often do not arrive in a timely manner, are not fully aware of the situation and are not fully equipped to handle the situation. Applying KM to DRT first responders will not only save the lives of the people in the community, but in many cases the response teams themselves. When fully knowledgeable of the situation they are responding to, the team will increase the confidence of the community by delivering a faster more efficient response, assuring the community that they will receive the help they need. Applying KM must begin with a comprehensive KM strategy that promotes a proactive stance and preparation before disaster strikes!
Knowledge management is not a "silver bullet", however I believe it will make a difference. As always I'm interested in receiving and responding to all comments on this post... be safe!

Creating a "Winning" NSF SBIR Proposal

2012-07-31T21:04:00.000-05:00

Today I had the pleasure of presenting "How to Produce a Winning NSF SBIR Phase I and Phase II Proposal". This webinar was conducted through the Principle Investigators Association. The webinar focused on what it takes to produce a viable National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I and Phase II proposal.

A synopsis of the webinar is as follows:

The primary objective of the NSF SBIR Phase I and Phase II Programs is to increase the incentive and opportunity for small firms to undertake cutting-edge, high-risk, high-quality scientific, engineering, or science research that would have a high-potential economic payoff if the research is successful. That’s pretty clear.

Unfortunately, producing SBIR Phase I and Phase II proposals isn’t as straightforward as we would like, and many scientists struggle with crafting an effective proposal. Some key questions scientists are faced with include: What level of detail should be included in a SBIR Phase I and Phase II proposal? What are the key differentiators the Review Panelist and Program Directors look for? How do timing, market dynamics and strength of personnel affect proposal outcomes? And, which category should my proposal be submitted under?

As proposals are reviewed, each reviewer focuses on the following:

1. Is the project innovative, is there enough revenue that will come from it to justify a potential return to the tax payer over time in jobs and taxes. Are there any great social benefits to be obtained that may reduce our concern for complete commercialization?

2. Is their significant risk in the project that would prevent copycats from jumping in? Are their barriers to entry or can any John or Jane Doe replicate the business with a few $100K? If so, then that would beg the questions as to why the government should invest a million.

3. Is the innovation sustainable with private sector funding after the project is complete? The government is reluctant to get into situations that require additional funding beyond the million for the company to begin commercialization. We are concerned that the company has the resources or capabilities to effectively commercialize.

To know more about the NSF SBIR Program click on the following link: NSF SBIR Solicitation. To obtain details about the webinar and/or your copy of the webinar contact the Principle Investigator Association by selecting: "How to Produce a Winning NSF SBIR Phase I and Phase II Proposal"

I look forward to your comments.

Knowledge Management in the Military

2012-06-30T20:04:00.000-05:00

Knowledge Management (KM) in the United States (US) Military has been implemented using a top down approach that is resonated through each branch, command, directorate, division, group, battalion, etc. The US Military has established a culture of KM that leverages its personnel, processes and systems to facilitate a consistent flow of knowledge and the mechanisms to execute and make decisions from this knowledge.

It is widely acknowledged that knowledge management (KM) strategy is a desired precursor to developing specific KM initiatives. The US Military has established KM Strategies from the top down in every branch. As this strategy is propagated and aligned through the organization it is often a difficult process due a variety of influences and constraints. These KM influences and constraints include understanding, conflicts with IT organizations, funding, technology usage and configuration, and outsourcing.

Each US Military branch works to overcome barriers to KM adoption. To this effort an establishment of processes and tools, which involves providing approaches and solutions for knowledge sharing has influenced a change in people’s habits. This change will drive values to move US Military organization culture father to overall KM adoption. In support of the US Military in its knowledge sharing efforts, Communities of Practice (CoP) have become an integral method of sharing and distributing knowledge across all branches of the military. In addition enterprise web search capabilities have been implemented to increase “findability” of key content, which is leverage for decision making at all levels of command.

Continuing KM Challenge of BRAC

The US Military has a KM challenge involving Base Realignment and Closures (BRAC). The BRAC specifically represents the challenge of capturing knowledge both tacit and explicit before it leaves a command from personnel shifts and loss due to a BRAC move. The US Military has already experienced this knowledge loss and unless steps are taken at least a year in advance of a BRAC move, this loss will continue to happen. The loss of knowledge has the potential to compromise mission activities and the soldier in theater. Leveraging the US Military’s ability to share knowledge through its established process and tools will help lessen the adverse impact of this knowledge loss. However, without process and tools to capture, catalog, and reuse knowledge, the US Military will be challenged to keep the various commands fully operational and effective long term for the solider in theater.

I am interested to hear from our men and women across the military, this includes active, inactive, reservist as well as civilian personnel who have worked or are currently working with KM. I would like you to share your thoughts about how you are utilizing KM and/or if you feel KM is/will be a benefit for you!

The Case for Developing an Enterprise Information Architecture

2012-06-01T15:05:00.001-05:00

If your organiation has the need to find pertinent content quickly, not return 1000's or 100's of rows of information during a search, leverage content to assist in making decisions and/or use content to guide customers, then your organization has a need for an Enterprise information Architecture!

Below is a brief description of the Enterprise Information Architecture document that is the primary mechanism to communicate the purpose, scope and organization of information within the enterprise:

Brief Description

The Enterprise Information Architecture is a business driven process that details the enterprise's information strategies, its extended information value chain, and the impact on technical architecture.

Purpose

The purpose of the Information Architecture document is to clearly capture the decisions concerning the data and their relationships that support the information infrastructure knowledge and content within the enterprise.

Scope

The information architecture represents the organization of information/content which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, Images, etc., to maximize the information’s usability, manageability and improve search capabilities. This document is a living document that will be modified to detail the decisions made during the content delivery process (audit, migration, creation, metadata tagging). This document presents a detailed Enterprise Information Model that describes the relationships of information, information sources, and is a key to metadata identification and repository site structure creation and taxonomy. This document will also include details concerning information business rules, records management, controlled vocabulary (glossary), information security and information governance.

The information model will:

Support the metadata that will be used to characterize the content
Support organization/taxonomy of content in knowledge repositories and document libraries
Support templates to use for creating content
Serves as the information structure enabling search and “findability”
Support how tools such as SharePoint, eGain, and SalesForce.com is organized into a hierarchy of landing pages, site collections and sub-sites
Support how the hierarchy is exposed in the site’s navigation features
Contributes to enterprise search engine optimization (SEO)

If your organization is considering implementing or has implemented an enterprise information architecture and/or enterprise information model I would like for you to share your experiences. Also, join me at the KM World Taxonomy Boot Camp in October in Washington DC later this year!

Aligning KM and ITIL Process

2012-04-30T23:57:00.000-05:00

Knowledge Management (KM) is taken hold in many organizations. The implementation of KM will depend on how the organization views and leverages its knowledge assets (people, process and technology). Processes such as the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) are recognizing the value of KM and incorporating its concepts within the ITIL framework. The alignment of ITIL and KM occurs specifically through its Problem Management and Service Management processes. This alignment emerges through ITIL’s latest version, ITIL v3.

Knowledge Management in ITIL v3 was added as a new central process. This one central process is responsible for providing knowledge to all other IT Service Management processes. In ITIL v3, KM becomes a requirement within the processes of Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operations and Continual Service Improvement. As indicated in ITIL Wiki, “ITIL Knowledge Management aims to gather, analyze, store and share knowledge and information within an organization. The primary purpose of Knowledge Management in ITIL is to improve efficiency by reducing the need to rediscover knowledge” (ITIL Wiki, 2012).

The Service Knowledge Management System (SKMS) serves as the mechanism to facilitate KM within ITIL. The SKMS as stated by ITIL “is the central repository of the data, information, and knowledge that the IT organization needs to manage the lifecycle of its services” (ITIL Wiki, 2012). However there are shortcomings of how KM has been integrated within the ITIL. These shortcomings have contributed to knowledge being defined inconsistently, which includes a lack of defined and measurable metrics. This identifies the fact that ITIL lacks a sufficient Knowledge Management Strategy. For Knowledge Management to work with ITIL v3 it must be integrated with industry recognized Knowledge Management Best Practices.

To mitigate these shortcomings the primary activity will be to provide a Knowledge Management Strategy. The focus of this strategy must be to identify and support the service management needs of the business and associated IT environments currently and one to three years out. Next step will be to create a historical repository of incidents to support the service desk and incident and problem management processes. This knowledge repository will be difficult to develop unless the organization has kept historical records of incidents. However if no historical information is available, it’s no time like the present to start this process and be sure to include incident/problem resolutions and associated fixes. In addition integrating KM into Incident, Event, Request, and Access Management as well as Problem, and Release and Deployment Management processes will be essential to establishing a consistent and structured problem solving framework, as well as environment of accountability and responsibility.

In addition to mitigating the shortcomings of ITIL as mention earlier, the following activities will contribute greatly to successfully integrate Knowledge Management into your ITIL process:

- Establish a culture of sharing and collaboration within your organization

- Establish a vision of what Knowledge Management means to your organization

- Establish how your organization will view and leverages its knowledge assets (people, process and technology)

- Develop and execute a change management process to support your organization through this alignment and to ensure adoption occurs across the enterprise.

For those who are utilizing ITIL and KM I would like to hear from you! Feel free to provide your comments.

Vendor	Taxonomy Tool	URL
Apelon	Apelon Distributed Terminology System (DTS)	http://www.apelon.com/Products/DTS/tabid/97/Default.aspx
Synaptica	Synaptica	http://www.synapticasoftware.com/
SAS	SAS Ontology Management	http://www.sas.com/text-analytics/ontology-management/index.html
SmartLogic	Semaphore Ontology Manager	http://www.smartlogic.com/home/products/semaphore-modules/ontology-manager/ontology-manager-overview
WorldMap	WordMap Designer	http://www.wordmap.com/
protege	protege	http://protege.stanford.edu/
Mondeca	Intelligent Topic Manager	http://www.mondeca.com/Products/ITM
idera	SharePoint Information Architect	http://www.idera.com/SharePoint/sharepoint-information-architect/