Personal Knowledge Management

© 2005 [email protected]

Meeting of Minds

Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)

Dave Pollard

KMWorld & Intranets 2005

© 2005 [email protected] of Minds

Confessions of a CKO: My Story


Why We Have to Try Harder to Make KM Work

The answers to critical business problems are out there Most time spent working with computers today is wasted time The Cost of Not Knowing is astronomical and growing The crowd is smarter than the experts, but no one is listening A crisis in confidence over corporate conduct is brewing Physical meetings are becoming too expensive We are moving towards a World of Ends

… So we need to find a better approach to KM


From know-what collection just-in-case…

acquire

store

disseminateaddvalue

synthe-size

connect canvass

apply

…to know-who connectionjust-in-time

PKM: The Model


From Contributing Know-What … to Harvesting Know-How

PKM: The Strategy

Users contribute best practicesto large central content repositories for re-use to reduce costs

Context-rich stories and conversations are automatically harvested from shared personal repositories to discover and learn

From Central Content Management … to Personal Content Management

Knowledge managers administer Intranets and create databases and websites for departments enterprise-wide

Individuals administer personal databases and websites and share them peer-to-peer

From Enterprise Application Training … to Personal Productivity Improvement

Classroom and CBT training and newsletters teach users how to make effective use of central K/T/L resources

Knowledge managers observe and advise individuals how to make more effective use of K/T/L resources on their desktop


PKM: A New Equation for Knowledge Management

Know-Who Canvassing & Connection +

Know-How Harvesting +

Personal Content Management +

Personal Productivity Improvement

= PKM


PKM’s Value Propositions

Capitalize on best available knowledge & experience Tap collective wisdom of employees & customers Facilitate more robust collaboration Improve the quality of decisions & assessments made Enhance agility and innovation Improve the effectiveness of knowledge workers

… A long way from KM’s value propositions of saving cost,saving time, and accelerating organizational learning !


Knowledge (Know-Who) Canvassing & Connection Process

Create simple process for network coordinators and others to use the Canvassing Lists & Templates to find people “who know about X” just-in-time

Establish and distribute Canvassing Lists (e-mail groups) and create and distribute Canvassing Templates

Identify & distribute Maps of Social Networks with appointed network coordinators

Create one-click methods to make it easy to connect with people once you’ve found them


Know-How Harvesting Process

Establish automated mechanism to regularly harvest and index this information centrally

Create folders on each employee’s hard drive for ‘shareable’ knowledge, and ‘save as’ and ‘copy’ processes that encourage people to keep knowledge in these folders; launch internal weblog program

Consider software that also automatically harvests content from e-mails

Also create RSS and other automated and just-in-time peer-to-peer searching mechanisms to access this knowledge


Personal Content Management Process

Develop RSS and other subscription and publication lists and processes for each Knowledge Worker

Work with each Knowledge Worker to develop a ‘personal filing cabinet’ taxonomy of their knowledge that works for them

Deploy Google Desktop or other desktop search tools

Develop Personal Knowledge Management processes for groups and individuals


Personal Productivity Improvement Process

Conduct one-hour face-to-face sessions: assist each Knowledge Worker to use knowledge & technology more effectively, answer questions, get immediate feedback.

Pre-interview each Knowledge Worker to understand their job, what knowledge they use and how they use it.

Pre-assemble file of possible improvement opportunities and ‘leave-behinds’.

Compile a list of observations & additional needs for senior management attention.


What Needs to Change to Get PKM Accepted?

Traditional Businesses

Tomorrow’s Businesses

What drives decision-making

Short-term profits Long-term resilience

How knowledge flows Top-down from ‘leadership’

Peer-to-peer through collaboration

What knowledge is most valued

‘Best practices’ Stories, ideas, advice

Where power resides In hierarchies In networks

What motivates people Promotion, raise Personal satisfaction

Management preoccupation

Inefficiency Ineffectiveness


The Greatest Challenge is not Technology or Content Scarcity: The 24 Dysfunctional Information Behaviours

Information Politics Shoot the Messenger Peer-to-Peer Preference Help Friends / Hurt Foes Cult of Leadership Louder Voices Anti-Stories Like-Mind Groupthink Cult of Expertise

Sense-Making Frame Dependency Info Overload Can’t Tell All We Know Preference for Images & Stories Different Ways of Learning JIT vs. JIC (Half-Life of Learning)

Information Unawareness Cost of Not Knowing Unawareness Unawareness of What Others We Meet

Know

Reward Systems From-Scratch Satisfaction Better Safe than Sorry Tragedy of the Commons Competing on the Curve Reward-Driven Behaviours Don’t Last No Reward for Sharing Fun vs Effectiveness Work-Arounds


Making Knowledge More Meaningful: Ten Interesting New Tools

Visualizations



Mind Maps and Concept Maps

EcoLanguage



Single Frame Presentations



Next Generation ‘Weblogs’

Open SpaceTechnology+ Next-gen Wikis



“Crowd” Canvassing Tools

Stories

Cultural Anthropology


For More Information…

Personal Knowledge Management - http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/stories/2003/05/02/businessPapersTableOfContents.html#06

MindMaps - http://www.innovationtools.com/resources/mindmapping.asp

Stories & Narrative, and Tools Dealing With Complexity - http://www.cynefin.net/kbase.php

The US Energy Visualization - http://eed.llnl.gov/flow/

The Wisdom of Crowds - http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/11/15.html

EcoLanguage - http://ecolanguage.net/

Open Space Technology - http://www.openspaceworld.org/wiki/wiki/wiki.cgi?AboutOpenSpace

Personal Knowledge Management

Business

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