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Recently I have been talking about how to have less messy, more transparent, open, diverse, and recorded (by default) conversations. In particular conversations that move across silos or involve multiple departments.

My first post was about bridging the enterprise gap, and my second post was about no longer having to report back to base (and some background).

I will quickly review those two posts and add a third scenario of the usual spontaneous email conversations that span many levels of hierarchy and departments.

Top down communication and conversation - cut through hierarchy and across groups

The former was about a communication made to leads in different units who were then responsible to pass the communication down the chain. And you know what happens, people react to the communications and the same conversation is had in multiple spots.

The commenters have to wait for leads (if the leads choose to do so) to get their message up the chain and then back down.

Middle managers as communication reps or agents can often be a blockage; wouldn’t it be good to communicate straight with the source (this is more timely, engaging, empowering…and less frustrating for workers). The other point is that rather than each group missing out on clone discussions happening elsewhere, the inter-departmental conversation can happen in one space…yeah for collaboration, cooperation, and awareness…and of course all of this being documented by default.

My suggestion was a blog post, which is like writing an email, only on an online page. If some intended recipients don’t subscribe to the blog, then the author can send them a link to the post.

The recipients (the leads) simply pass on the link to their people, and anyone can post in the central spot for a discussion that cuts through and involves many levels of the hierarchy…a flat discussion perhaps.
What enterprise tools could learn from Facebook Notes (which is like blogging) is to be able to tag people, which is basically like putting their name in the To: field of an email. Sure you have subscribers, but if you really want to alert them then tag them, and also tag others that may not subscribe (which is kind of a tweak to the Facebook Note functionality)

I guess this can also be done in a microblogging network. People who follow you will get your communication, but so they don’t miss it in their stream you may want to @mention them, and also @mention some others that may not follow you.

SUMMARY

Blogging

• Shift Context - people like communicating by email as they simply visit their inbox and click new message. This is less convenient with blogging as you have to shift context ie. browse for the group space (CoP), then the blog…people are too busy and there is no time to do this (unless you can email a post…but most often people haven’t added a blog’s address in their email personal contacts)
• Awareness opportunity - non-subscribers probably won’t come across this post unless in a search result or random browsing
• Recipients - are email subscribers, and non-subscribers are sent a link (prone to inbox interruption and flooding, unless you can opt-out of the conversation thread)…don’t bring RSS into this as people just want one dashboard, and an RSS Reader is just not as productive as email (The plot thickens….microblogging is much more similar to both email and an RSS Reader)
• Future use - good in hindsight as all info about this topic is in one spot

Microblogging

• Shift Context - you don’t have to shift context at all (you don’t have to browse to the place where you want to post), instead like email it’s done from the one window
• Awareness opportunity - anyone in the network might see it
• Recipients - have been @mentioned or notified, but others can also be aware by following people (and choose to pay attention or ignore posts in their stream ie. no inbox interruption and flooding)
• Future use - but in hindsight where does this communication live (you could use #hashtag I guess)…or like all good facilitators you take the best bits from raw conversations and list them in a wiki (linking back to those conversations)…this is related to the "Practice" part of a Community of Practice

Combination

• Future use - blog about it so it lives in a solidified place
• Awareness opportunity - from an easy click on the blog post footer you can post a link to your blog post in the microblogging network
• Recipients - no inbox interruption and flooding (make sure commenting and subscribing is turned off on the blog, as these two things happen in the microblogging network. Microblogging posts about the blog post are displayed on the blog post via a plug-in. Perhaps you can comment via the blog post, but the box you are typing in is really a window into the microblogging platform).

An observation for this context could be…it’s like microblogging is the new blogging and blogging is the new document.

As it happens awareness rather than reporting progress back to base

The latter post was about using microblogging and #hashtags to do task work so that communications a task member has with a non-task member is visible to other task members as it happens…voiding the need for the task member to report progress back to base.

Spontaneous conversations across levels of hierarchy and departments

A similar communication, and all too familiar one is as follows:

WorkerA from UnitA emails LeadA about an issue with UnitB’s system. LeadA emails LeadB from UnitB about the issue (whilst WorkerA is not in the loop.) LeadA forgot to include LeadC in the email so one is sent (whilst WorkerA and LeadB aren’t in the loop that LeadC has been contacted) LeadB then emails one of their workers, WorkerB (whilst WorkerA, LeadA and LeadC are not in the loop.) WorkerB emails WorkerB2 about some troubleshooting and cc: LeadB (whilst WorkerA, LeadA, and LeadC are not in the loop.) WorkerB2 then emails WorkerC in UnitC for some help but forgets to cc: LeadB and WorkerB (whilst WorkerA, LeadA and LeadC are not in the loop.) Meanwhile WorkerA has also thought to email WorkerC2 (with no-one else in the to or cc field) in UnitC about the issue […at this stage all three people in UnitC know about the issue from different people in different email chains] Then WorkerC2 emails LeadC to let them know (with no-one in the to or cc field), but LeadC already knows as Lead A emailed them earlier (but may not know the latest) Meanwhile WorkerA2 has emailed WorkerA as they also ran into the same issue but found some more interesting detail (with no-one else in the to or cc field). WorkerA replies to WorkerA2 with an attachment of the original email they sent to LeadA (and includes LeadA, and WorkerC2 in the cc field to mention some additional insight picked up by WorkerA2) WorkerC2 emails WorkerC about the interesting detail found by WorkerA2 (and cc LeadC) WorkerA2 emails WorkerC (with no-one else in the to or cc field)…but WorkerC already knows the new found detail LeadA then emails LeadB and LeadC about this additional info (with no-one else in the to or cc field)…but LeadC already knows about the new found detail LeadB then emails their people WorkerB and B2…it turns out UnitB have been out of the loop for a while …and so on.

These fictional scenario’s are hard to contrive. It would be more interesting to do some ethnographic work!!

I have drawn a map, but am not sure if it’s helpful.

As you can see the conversations get’s messy, and each unit is having closed conversations amongst themselves, and then at particular points emails cross units. Most of the time the frontline people (UnitA) who need to find some workaround to this issue are waiting for their lead to get back to them. But because they are out of the loop they start emailing around to others to find a solution.

Wouldn’t this all be easier if the question was posted in a forum and all comments could be centralised so everyone is in the loop.

Perhaps, but that means everyone needs to be a member of the forum (in order to have "write" access)…do they know which group space it’s in, are they subscribed to it.

Further to this; are people from UnitA interested in the techie stuff that people from UnitB and UnitC are talking about. Yes it’s good they can be aware, but the n-extra emails they don’t understand is not fun.
eg.refer to point 4. - When LeadB emails WorkerB; WorkerA, LeadA and LeadC are not cc: as it may be of a technical nature.
Maybe it’s best to leave things how they currently are, and wait for a communication that makes sense to UnitA. Perhaps, but it’s frustrating waiting and being out of the loop…collaborating in one spot is more engaging and clean, and is recorded for future use.

If only we could be aware as it happens (rather than waiting to be updated or asking people) without being interrupted or piling up our inbox with emails we don’t understand.

Another option is microblogging!

Let’s try it…

WorkerA writes a status update and @mentions LeadA (even though LeadA follows WorkerA a @mention is used in case the post was not noticed in the stream) - WorkerA2 follows WorkerA so is in the loop LeadA comments on this post and @mentions LeadB (WorkerA is kept in the loop as they are auto-notified about the comment) - WorkerA2 follows LeadA so is in the loop, but decides to add this post to their Watchlist just incase they miss any new comments made by people they follow, and to also be in the loop of comments made by people they don’t follow…if WorkerA2 made a comment then they wouldn’t need to add the post to their Watchlist as they would then be auto-notified of new comments. But since they don’t plan to get involved at this point in time they find the Watchlist feature handy. - LeadB decides to add this post to their Watchlist for the same reason WorkerD (a new comer to our example) follows WorkerA and saw this post so decided to leave a comment @mentioning WorkerC2 (WorkerA, are LeadA are kept in the loop as they are auto-notified about the comment) (WorkerA2 and LeadB are kept in the loop as they have added this post to their Watchlist) WorkerA2 mentions some additional info about the issue (WorkerC2, WorkerA, and LeadA are kept in the loop as they are auto-notified about the comment) (LeadB is kept in the loop as they have added this post to their Watchlist) WorkerC2 leaves a comment saying the issue is fixed (WorkerA2, WorkerA, and LeadA are kept in the loop as they are auto-notified about the comment) (LeadB is kept in the loop as they have added this post to their Watchlist)

In this example…

WorkerA2 was aware of what’s happening much earlier.

Workers A listened mostly and didn’t have to find out on their own what’s going on or wait for a communication

WorkerD defied what would happen in email as they were ambiently aware and knew WorkerC2 was the person to fix it (this circumvented the need for UnitB to get involved, yet they could be ambiently aware of what was happening).

LeadA had minimal involvement and LeadB didn’t see the need to get involved, and people who didn’t even need to get involved at all were WorkersB, B2,C and LeadC
(all these people were aware as they follow people involved, and may have added the post to a Watchlist)

The difference here is: flat transparent conversations, timely (quicker turnaround), adapt to changes, visibility, everyone can be in the loop, not frustrating, no need to channel the solutions through the hierarchy…

The point is that these are spontaneous conversations that span many units and pre-defined group spaces just don’t cut it. Group spaces can have a hard time in the context of ad-hoc task work as the space needs to be prescriptive (created upfront in anticipation), and people need to become members. Which means you have to join before content can be communicated to you…waiting, waiting for you to join as I need to tell you something…email doesn’t have this issue as you simply push it to people.

Network interactions are more transient, and only exist as long as they need to (just like email conversations).

Another obstacle is you have to shift context to use them depending on the topic of your conversation, whereas email is the same familiar window.

Microblogging has the visibility of group spaces, but the ease of use of email.

Signal and Noise

Microblogging works really well on the web for discovery, awareness, research, communication, coordination…how does this transpose into the enterprise.

Yes, it’s good to be ambiently aware so we can be in the loop. When you are aware, you are more mindful and can act more appropriately knowing the bigger picture.

But how do I decipher the ambient information (good to know) from the essential information (must know)?

This is a good point raised by Mary Abraham on her TMI post (which I also talked about in my facelift post)

Must know - typical emails you currently get from your lead, co-workers and people in other teams you are working with on tasks
Good to know - ambient awareness (which by serendipity you may discover stuff you "must know" but don’t, as you weren’t in the email chain…both within and outside of your team

In my example above I mentioned a few times that even though a person followed another, they still @mentioned them so you get that email-like push feeling that you know it has been brought to their attention.

When you are working on a task and have commented on a post, you don’t need to be @mentioned a second time as you automatically get notified

So with the help of @mentions and notifications we can still be alerted like email

In addition what we need to be able to do is add a post to a Watchlist so you can go back to it and have a look at the history to refresh yourself
(just like going to an email that’s a couple of weeks old in your inbox and reading the email chain)

Maybe we could even flag items in our Watchlist so they standout, and even group them into a manageable folder or tag page

And fourthly we need to be able to follow #hashtags so we can be in the loop of new posts about the same task

That covers the posting and receiving, and also covers organising access to posts you have been involved in.

To this we can also add other filtering aspects like group spaces, list aggregations, search streams…

I wonder if anyone has experienced being able to have a controlled email-like experience (making sure people get your message, and that you can find and read past messages) in a microblogging platform, but at the same time be immersed in the ambient awareness of microblogging that we all know so well. The point is; can we make sure the essential stuff (must know) doesn’t get mixed and lost in the stream (amongst the good to know)?

I think with good design this is achievable with features like @mention, auto-notifications, watchlists, flagging, tagging and #hashtags…and I haven’t mentioned private messages.

My previous posts have indirectly been on "know-why."

They are about working on tasks in an open way where anyone can go along for the ride and see all the context and workings out to a solution…which as a by-product of this methodology is documented for future findings.

I just thought of a good metaphor for the concept of know-why.

By looking at the scoreboard of a sports match you "know-what" has happened but you don’t really get a sense of why it turned out like that (the know-why).

If you watch a re-run of the match you will then understand all the micro-decisions each player made, and how the team worked together.

There are also other complexities like: morale, a man short, a fight broke-out, a few players on the team have been in a bad light in the media recently, a team has new players that need to get into the groove…and complexities we don’t even know about (a player having a rough family patch, hidden rivalry between team mates, a player ate some bad food, whatever….)

Understanding all this context and what led up to the final score gives you more of an understanding on the "why" which helps you make a more informed decision on your next action.

Representation

This is also important when looking back at the past. Will reading a report give you a complete picture of all the complexities mentioned above that all contributed to the whole? I doubt it. But reading back on multiple stories and raw blog fragments will. Raw information has all the peripheral information that may not seem important to include in a report. It isn’t the job of a report to be a video recorder, a report has an aim or agenda (it has a narrative) as does a novel (it’s what you choose to say). What I like about blog fragments and conversations is we can piece together our own understanding or narrative from the raw artifacts that are always available (we don’t just want formal representations, we want raw information to make our own). Further to this a raw fragment can be found and re-mixed for a completely different subject matter.

Imagine if the coach for some reason was not able to watch the match (undergoing surgery or something). He/she is not interested in just the final score, rather they are interested in how it came to be (what went wrong, what went right), and to learn from that and move on with an understanding. It’s much harder to improve by just knowing the score alone, as it can only tell you so much (close to even result, a team got it’s ass kicked, it was level all the way until the last 20 minutes, etc…)

Reflection

This is the whole notion of AAR and Lessons Learned, where we talk about the brain work, the conversations and decisions the led to the final results. This is what sports coaching is all about, improving yourself and the team for the next game, learning and using that. This may relate well to business units in organisations (especially if measured on collaboration and group output), but not so much for projects. Why? Well project teams don’t have a thirsty motivation to improve as the team is only temporary (unlike a business unit). Once the project is over people move on to another. Yes you take away your individual lessons, but there is less drive to do this in open anecdote circles as your care factor drops due to you moving on to working with a bunch of new people on a new project. Lessons Learned is important for the organisation as a whole and project managers, but I’m not sure workers see it as an investment or of innate importance as the entity they are improving is about to disband.

At the least if we can document as we go using social computing, then these artifacts will be left behind. And I think this is what a sports coach does, besides reviewing the match, and training to improve performance, they are on the sidelines watching a match unfold and manipulate the conditions for an intended better result. This doesn’t always happen in the workplace, often a manager requests you to report as a representation or interpretation of your conversations and brainwork, rather than seeing and interacting with you as it unfolds, which was the point of my previous post.

Social computing environments are engaging from the "What’s In It For Me" factor, which perhaps is the intrinsic motivation that will help glean improvements from temporary units like projects.

What can we say about knowledge management (KM) in relation to this?

Sure we need end products, but the real juice is in the connections, conversations and context that went into these end products. We can better understand these end products when we have access (during and after) to the workings-out and people. Just like the coach back from surgery (or anyone else) can watch a re-run of the match, or the coach at the game can make decisions as the play is happening.

Is it important for managers to eavesdrop and interact on the workings-out on your path to your end-product so they can facilitate the work? If so, we can now do this in the most ambient way.

John Hagel talks about Stocks and Flows, and that we have to move from a stockpiling culture to a flow culture, where it’s important to connect to fragments in context. From these intersections our new conversations based on earlier fragments becomes a process of knowledge creation, which is simply a by-product of doing work.

"…the real value is in creating new knowledge, rather than simply "managing" existing knowledge. In this fast moving world, what we know - our "stocks" of knowledge - depreciate faster than they used to. So we’ve got to keep creating" "Most of us, as individuals, know this. That’s why we’re not keen to spend time entering our latest document into a knowledge management system. We know we’re better off engaging in the interactions and collaborations that create new knowledge about how to get things done.new knowledge in order to keep pace." "Knowledge management systems desperately try to persuade participants to invest time and effort to contribute existing knowledge with the vague and long-term promise that they themselves might eventually derive value from the contributions of others. In contrast, creation spaces focus on providing immediate value to participants in terms of helping them tackle difficult performance challenges while at the same time reducing the effort required to capture and disseminate the knowledge created."

This is KM for free, as we are creating conditions for "flow" based on how humans behave to get things done, rather than explicitly warehousing end products on the shelf hoping someone comes across them, blows the dust off them, and uses them before their expiry date. Only to find it only has hints of usability (if you dare read the 50 page document hoping to find relevancy to your context in the first place). Your next move is to find the author to re-frame this information into a workable context. When doing this you are not documenting these conversations as they happen (knowledge creation) so all people get in the end is your end product, the cycle goes on. In comes social computing….

John Hagel then talks about stocks and flows in relation to written information compared to observation, experience and conversation. Which is what is special about social computing as it’s a written form that is alive; getting as close as possible to offline interactions and learning.

"…think of tacit knowledge as the "know how" rather than the "know what." Imagine trying to perform brain surgery after having read all the books you can find on the subject. The books are the explicit knowledge telling you what to do but knowing how to perform this kind of surgery critically depends on an extended apprenticeship process in which tacit knowledge gets communicated through observation and then by participating on the periphery of these operations. Accessing this kind of knowledge typically requires long-term trust-based relationships. And, in times of rapid change, tacit knowledge becomes increasingly valuable: because it’s the newest knowledge, it’s the most helpful in dealing with the latest changes in a fast-moving business landscape.

Then he alludes to the ecosystem and symbiotic relationships…self-generating, self-organising, self-regulating. Something you get by facilitating conditions and monitoring the system to do it’s own thing rather than a managed approach:

"We can’t participate effectively in flows of knowledge–at least not for long–without contributing knowledge of our own. This occurs because participants in these knowledge flows don’t want free riding "takers"; they want to develop relationships with people and institutions that can contribute knowledge of their own. This is a huge hurdle for most executives who were trained to guard their knowledge carefully. Yet if they remain "takers" they will find themselves rapidly marginalized. Knowledge flows tend to concentrate among participants who are sharing with, and learning from, each other."

Above I have talked about KM embedded in doing work. Not having this is a loss, as from a KM perspective the workings-out are more valuable than the end product. KM of the past has known this but the right tools weren’t available so people were asked to write reports. Which is kind of like watching a two minute sports review of the match, which mostly show the goal scoring…the nature of this format leaves out content and context, and can also have their own agendas.

KM has been branded from a library science / information management side of managing and organising end products. But I think if social computing existed back in the day, then KM would of had the right tools for their aims. But it’s not just the tools, KM like anything else of the past has been approached with a scientific management style, whereas social computing is more about facilitating conditions, less about plans and targeted outcomes, and more about nurturing, experimenting, and emergence…not to say it can’t be incorporated to flavour business processes.

Capturing output is not KM

Let’s finish with reviewing an experience shared by Yigal Chamish, who says:

"knowledge is for action, not for warehousing"

Simon Bostock adds to this:

"You cant "manage" knowledge in a traditional sense. Its contextual, it resides in stories, its only valuable when it "flow" not when its stored, it cant be measured and its always, but always, Just In Time."

David Tebbutt has left a valuable comment on Yigals post:

"No doubt the outcomes could be captured and archived as useful information, especially if it were tagged adequately and made easy to find. But this is more content, or information management, not KM. Were the people (in the interests of cutting travel, CO2 emissions, whatever) able to cooperate through social tools, tele-presence, or whatever, this too would be part of the "management" role that of creating the right environment for knowledge sharing to flourish."

Anyway what was Yigals post about?

Yigal talks about a group of Europeans who were invited to a herb farm in Ethiopia to explain to them the process of growing herbs and sending them to Europe. Out of conversation the issue of dealing with (eliminating) insects that damage the herb crops was raised. This was not on the agenda but its a common interest. What ensued was lots of discussion, each sharing stories and experiences. This was not planned or led, it surfaced naturally, and is the makings of a Community of Practice…naturally forming at time of need.

Social computing can mimic this type of exchange. Conversations are no way limited to the offline world. Whether they form into a community or not is not important, what is, is that the people are able to find each other and the conversation is able to take place. These are conditions for sense-making, and helping each other at time of need. It’s all documented so the conversation has longevity and reach to new people, and this whole process creates new knowledge and leaves behind artifacts that can be found and become pieces of new conversations and knowledge creation processes, and the flux goes on.

Yigal makes an important point:

"I can only imagine trying to pump this new contextual knowledge and warehouse it in a form stored in a database."

Conclusion

Charles Jennings (via Harold Jarche) gives us a nice way to conclude:

"…we need to move away from a focus on knowledge transfer and acquisition, an approach rooted in Plato’s academy…we are moving to the world of the sons of Socrates, where dialogue and guidance are key competencies. It is a world where the capability to find information and turn it into knowledge at the point-of-need provides the key competitive advantage, where knowing the right people to ask the right questions of is more likely to lead to success than any amount of internally-held knowledge and skill."

This is a follow-up to my post Enterprise microblogging needs a facelift to rival email.

In that post I talked about adding an item in the stream to your Watchlist

• This way you can keep in the loop about a conversation without you having to be a poster or a commenter

I also talked about communally grouping items via contributors tagging them with a hashtag

• This way you can keep in the loop about the greater task that is generating all these items

Differences

• You are not being cc:ed, rather you "pull" the content to you (filtering your own information)
  • you can be @mentioned which is like the to: or cc: field
    • but this won’t happen in every post and comment, so it’s up to people to add it to their Watchlist
• The sender has an understanding of who needs to be involved in a conversation, but this is not always apparent at the start of a task, and there are plenty of people on the edges who need to be consulted that emerge
  • Now anyone can find a conversation, add it to their Watchlist, get involved

Deeper than In-the-flow and Above-the-flow

A while back a defining post was made on the difference between working Above-the-Flow (volunteering to share information and experiences based on engagement, trust, audience, reciprocity), and In-the-Flow (communicating and asking questions about tasks using social tools rather than email…doing what you are already doing in new tools).

Well what I want to describe here is going deeper than In-the-Flow…to the artifacts of the activity itself.

Example

We have a web conference about a task that involves people across teams.

We set up a group space.

We use this group space to ask the task team questions.

We use this group space to communicate our individual progress to the task members.

Why do I have to go to a blog to describe to other task members about my progress?

Let me explain…

An action item that came up in the initial meeting was for a member of the task to contact someone in IT to find out where we can host our database.

Once he found this out, he communicated back to the task members by fowarding his email conversation with the IT guy

OR

By blogging about this email conversation he had.

But you kind of feel silly blogging about something when you can just easily fwd it…it’s just easier.

Yes blogging it stores it for all to see, and keeps the conversation centralised…but it needs to feel natural. One positive step is to forward your email to the blogs email address, this way further comments about this is centralised around the blog post.

Deep In-the-Flow (Embedded In-the-Activity)

There is a better way…

Why report your progress by updating task members about it (whether in email or a blog)…

when instead they can see your conversation as it happens.

MICROBLOGGING AND HASHTAGS

Watch what happens when all task members follow the hashtag for this task:

Task Member B’s filtered stream of #DMS_dev Hi @ITguy we are looking for a place to host our new server…blah blah blah…#DMS_dev Posted by TaskMemberA Comments expanded ITguy - No probs we have room in our data centre in Australia TaskMemberC - When do you think this may happen ITguy - We will have a meeting tomorrow so can give you a date TaskMemberA - do you have a goto person that we can liase with ITguy - just got out of a meeting and @ITguysfriend will do the hands on work, no date yet ITguysfriend - I’m travelling soon, so it would be good to do this ASAP

Notice here how Task Member A does not have to write a blog post or forward an email to Task Member B or any of the other task members.

Why? Because all the task members are following the hashtag.

Task Member A is no longer the middleman to report the conversations he/she is having at the edges when doing their part of the task. They don’t have to forward an email or report progress as everyone can already know "as it happens."

ie. when on a task we don’t just converse with task members, we need to speak to random others in the organisation to get information from, authorise, or simply consult with as part of a task member doing their bit of the task

All task members (and anyone else) can now see the conversations each member is having with both task members and with indirect task members they need to consult with.

Indirect task members such as @ITguy can get involved at anytime without having to go through a task member; as long as they use the hashtag all task members will be in the loop.

What I’m getting to is you don’t need to report status or progress, as everyone can already see the conversations you are having.

Traditionally, if I were to report back to the group the progress of my task I would examine all my email conversations and write an email or a blog post on my progress…kind of like a real informal reporting. Or I would upload my emails which no-one will read.

But now people can have access to the artifacts without me having to forward them, or without me having to report about them.

This is a major difference between a closed system like email and an open microblogging system with the use of hashtags.

To reiterate the two main theme’s here:

1. People can now see the raw conversation as it happens, you no-longer have to report back to base…as people at base are privy to your conversation as it unfolds.

2. As a task member I am no longer a middleman in interpreting and communicating the progress of my part of the task, as you can see what I’m doing. Plus other task members can interact with the people on the edges (indirect task members) on the details of my part of the task.

Where it doesn’t apply

I’ve made clear that this works as a replacement to email, but when doing your part of a task you may have phone and face-to-face conversations with 3rd parties…in that case you do have to write a status update reporting your progress

Work products Deep In-the-Flow (Embedded In-the-Activity)

Aside from open conversations with both members of the task and people on the edges that are consulted about various parts of the task; we also have output documents eg. deliverables and supporting materials.

We no longer have to communicate (email or write a blog post) to people that we have just added a document related to our task. We simply do this at the time of adding the document.

The Activity stream of the microblogging app will suck in items added to the Document Management System (DMS) via an API

Task Member A is adding a document to the old DMS Click here to browse and and Add the document. Click here to add a description: Here’s the information sheet about our server #DMS_dev I thought I’d better @mention you @ITguysfriend as pushing this to you may get to you quicker as I recall you are travelling soon Posted by TaskMemberA CLICK TO SUBMIT

If we take another look at the hashtag stream we will see that the act of adding this document and a description has resulted in posting a new item into the stream (see the 5th post down)

Task Member B’s filtered stream of #DMS_dev Hi @ITguy we are looking for a place to host our new server…blah blah blah…#DMS_dev Posted by TaskMemberA [Expand Comments] Hey @Qualityguy I need you to sign off on this paper work…basically it says…blah blah blah…#DSM_dev Posted by TaskMemberC [Expand Comments] [Link to Document] Hey main members of this task, what do you think we can call the new DMS, any ideas #DSM_dev Hey @Marketingguy are you able to come up with a brand logo for our new product, I gave you background to this task on your voicemail…also see linked document #DSM_dev Posted by TaskMemberB [Expand Comments] [Link to Document] Here’s the information sheet about our server #DMS_dev I thought I’d better @mention you @ITguysfriend as pushing this to you may get to you quicker as I recall you are travelling soon Posted by TaskMemberA [Link to Document] Comments Expanded ITguysfriend - just about to hop on a plane, sorry, will login when I land ITguy - that’s OK I’m gonna get @ITguysotherfriend to do this if she has time ITguysotherfriend - no probs, I’ve added this to my watchlist and read up on other related posts in this hashtag, so I’m all up to speed TaskMemberC - is Thursday OK ITguy - I’ll be in the office on Friday so we’ll do it then ITguysotherfriend - OK with me TaskMemberC - great ITguysfriend - just landed, good to see it’s all sorted

Summary

This post focuses on a sweet spot in performing tasks.

Why?

It’s as easy as email.

You don’t have to set up a group space.

All you need to do is use microblogging (utlising Watchlists and Hashtags)

But the real focus of this post is about what happens on the edges.

All people on a task go off and do their bit and either report back on progress via email or a blog. They are the middleman between the task members and people on the edges who they are consulting with in doing the task.

Now we don’t have to report back, as task members (and anyone for that matter) can see the the raw conversations with people on the edges as it happens. Both other task members and people on the edges can interact without having to go through a particular task member.

Related

This is taking my ambient awareness post to proper task use, and brings back into fashion Jim McGee’s post on the loss of observable work.

Paula Thornton talks about artifacts of work, and this is exactly what I’m tackling:

"Conversations are artifacts of work. Do not confuse artifacts of work with work products. Work products often miss much of the “real work” that occurred. Any evidence of “real work” qualifies as an artifact. KM tended to focus on “work products” (often most closely aligned with ‘the explicit’). But the goal was never to document the “implicit” (as was often postulated), but simply to make it observable by others."

This post is not so much the difference between conversations and the end product (deliverable), but more so how the conversations happen, and how we don’t have to report progress on our daily work on achieving our task.

Well let me clear that up, sure if I’m doing my own brainwork I will report my results, but if I’m having conversations with people that I need to consult with to achieve my task, well then I don’t have to report that this took place, as other task members already know, due to me using the task channel (defined by assigning a hashtag) to converse with people on the edges…all without them having to be part of an official group space.

OK, here’s the solution upfront. You can read the rest of this post to know why this needs to happen.

SOLUTION

Requirements More than 140 characters (like Yammer and Socialtext Signals) Inline comments; also posts in their own right (like Yammer and Socialtext Signals)

Request Add a post to your Watchlist like an RSS Reader but subscribing at the post level Imagine rather than "favouriting/liking" a post, you are actually subscribing to it This way you can be notified of any new comments about a post Tag posts in your Watchlist a tagcloud/list would be accessible in the left hand pane of the microblogging app list preferred posts from your Watchlist in the left hand pane for one click access see it turn bold-which signifies new content-and displays a number-which signifies the number of new comments in that post Follow a Hashtag like saving Twitter search queries in your sidebar but more like an RSS Reader subscribing to a tag Click on it to view as a stream Reason for this feature is to catch new posts (and comments on those posts) on the same topic or task accessible from the left hand pane of the client and turns bold-which signifies new content-and displays a number-which signifies the number of new posts and comments in existing posts These requests are necessary to catch posts and comments that stream by that are important to you.

Microblogging in the enterprise is a different context from the consumer web; people are doing real work and need to be able to catch important posts in the stream. It’s not about just dipping into the stream and having a swim, it’s not just about following interests, it’s more about my boss, or people from a task I’m on, have posted a few things and I can’t afford to let them stream by unnoticed, I need the notification/subscription/follow mechanisms set up so I don’t miss anything essential.

This doesn’t happen in email, you don’t have difficulty sorting out the spam and the friendly email from the task type email…you don’t really miss seeing an email from your boss. This needs to be the same in enterprise microblogging; but it’s not as easy as email as the stream is much more a firehose than the email inbox.

Mary Abraham has talked about TMI (Too Much Information), and how do I differentiate the "good to know" stuff (it’s great to be aware of what’s happening in the organisation), from the "essential to know" (what’s the latest update I have to action today).

This brings up the need for enterprise microblogging to get a facelift by including a way to catch information that is essential to you…basically it needs a couple of simple features and functions.

READ ON

Not long ago I posted on how we do knowledge work via email because it’s easy, but we suffer later as it’s messy…and we miss out on these conversations living in a central place where others can be aware (and for possible diverse input), and later can be searched.

I explained the alternative in using a blog or forum. Which is OK, but it’s simply not in our flow to jump to a group space to communicate, especially when some of the people you want to communicate to are not subscribed to your blog.

At the moment if I need to have a conversation with a random group of people I use email (this is my ad-hoc tool)…I may even add an attachment if we need to do more than just converse. I’m not about to set up a group space for a conversation that may last a week or even a moment…it’s way too much effort.

Hence, no adoption of social computing tools for ad-hoc work. If we do get this design right, then not only will we get adoption for activity based work, but also for learning and sharing sites like online communities, online team spaces, etc..

It’s not just email; if I need to grab some relevant parties or have a discussion about a task we email or phone each other, and then get a room, or go to someone’s desk and have that chat. I want to be able to assemble this way using social tools, where there is not so much a group space, but a conversation space…kind of like a Twitter hashtag conversation, or a Yammer threaded post.

Group spaces (like CoPs) require facilitation to keep them active and you have to shift context to use them depending on the topic of your conversation, whereas network interactions are more transient, and only exist as long as they need to (just like email conversations).

Keith Swenson shares his pain:

"The solution is to make a shared “room” where all the toys can be shared equally within a group. That is the solution that many approaches have taken, and it is not difficult. But someone still has to set up the room in advance, in anticipation of the need to share, and most people will not take this step. It is just easier to send the documents as an attachment and force the work onto everyone else. In groups that I work with, even making the room available to people, they rarely get used."

What I’m alluding to here is the need not for a group space, but simply an ad-hoc conversation space…and networks, not groups is the answer.

In comes microblogging…

Here’s a fictional example…

@bob @sarah @jason @neil @brad @sally @jeff @denali @arielle @peter as you know the development of our new DMS has been on hold due to low resources. Well now there is an initiative happening that needs the use of a new DMS to store its documents, so they will sponsor it’s development…blah blah blah…please tell your people Posted by John Tropea Comments Bob - do you have a new roadmap? Sally - what’s the deadline? John - the deadline is August 31st, and a roadmap will be shared soon Neil - what is the initiative you are alluding to, and how far will they sponsor it’s development Jim - hey guys just came across this conversation as I follow John. We are running a global Quality initiative and need somewhere to keep our output, so we are sponsoring the new DMS John - apologies Jim, I forgot to @mention you in the original, come to think of it I forgot to add in our IT representative, hey @abby join in the conversation. Jody - Neil told me about this resurrection, congrats guys Abby - Hey guys, we ordered the new servers yesterday John - Thx Jody, yes we are indeed very happy about this Samantha - Hey guys, I’m from the DMS team, we are looking for some work for our intern, could they possibly get involved

So far so good, this is the type of thing you can do on Yammer as it has inline comments (and maybe Twitter soon via Twitoaster)

But the issue we have here is with notifications (which I will tackle further down in this post)

What new capabilities does microblogging bring to the table

Others can read this open conversation in the stream and be aware and get involved (diverse input…possible clashes with other tasks or what other teams are doing can be revealed as conversations are in the open to be found):

• whereas in email it’s just the recipients and people who have been forwarded the email
• microblogging makes for more chance of collaboration and awareness to better align and cooperate with other units

The recipients in the original post can re-post (retweet) the post including an @mention to other people so they are aware of it, or to get involved…or alternatively can leave a comment that includes @mention to others.

The recipients can re-post (retweet) the post to their group space (eg. as happens in Yammer group or Socialtext Signals) so their team can see the raw conversation, if they have not already seen it stream by anyway in the public stream

• what I like about this is that people down the hierarchy can see the raw conversation, not some filtered re-interpreted conversation. And of course if the post has failed to reach them via their manager, there is a chance they will still see it as it’s online in the stream for anyone to see

The conversation is in one location and not messy like email, no-one is left out of the loop, new comers can join and see the past conversation…it’s searchable

And of course it’s essential that posts have a comments thread, and more than 140 characters to post content.

But what’s missing here…

NOTIFICATIONS

If we follow the Facebook model… John is getting notifications that people are commenting on his post Bob, Sally, Neil, Jim, Jody, Abby and Samantha are also getting notifications as they have left a comment… BUT, they are only being notified of comments that have come after their comment. So they have to catch up reading on the earlier comments, unless they have already seen them stream by (remember comments are threaded, but are also a post in their own right) Sarah, Jason, Brad, Denali, Arielle, and Peter ARE NOT being notified of any comments Until microblogging can duplicate this uniqueness of email, it will not be as useful to do actual back and forth work

FILING/BOOKMARKING (FAVOURITE/LIKE)

When we have this typical conversation in email; people will individually file this conversation in a folder. This way they can find it later.

In microblogging we can favourite/like the post of this conversation so we can come back to it later, but we also need to be able to tag these favourites so there is more context to help us find them later.

And we need these tagged favourites browsable in a tagcloud/or a list on the left of our microblogging app, just like we have our email folders in the left-hand pane.

But we also need to be able to list some posts from within our favourites so we can see them right there in our left-hand pane.

Maybe they are not called favourite/like, perhaps Watchlist is better.

WATCHLIST

Ok, I think I just solved our notification issue… What’s required is a Watchlist feature. The recipients of the original post can click the Watchlist link on the footer of the post (it will also ask them to tag it ). This will put the post in a tag in their tagcloud, and also list it under the tagcloud so at a glance they can see the current important conversations they are following. When a new comment is added to a post that they have in their Watchlist it will become bold with the number of new comments. See what’s happening here, a Watchlist is catching something for you that you may miss streaming by. Kind of like an RSS reader, but at the post level. If the conversation becomes old, they can then remove it from their Watchlist and later find it in their tagcloud if they need it

MICROBLOGGING APP

An important aspect is that the microblogging app becomes the new email…so there is a battle here.

Similar to the screenshot I linked to in my previous post, perhaps microblogging can be integrated into the email client, and perhaps it’s no longer an email client, perhaps email is just a feature of Inbox 2.0.

The microblogging private message feature can perhaps replace email.

So why do we still need email?

We still need to email with people that don’t have access to the microblogging system. Our clients, vendors, friends, family, local shops, etc don’t have access. What I’m saying is different microblogging platforms don’t connect via a protocol like email does.

What about groups?

Earlier I mentioned microblogging groups, all this means is that you are not posting in the public stream, instead that post just appears in the group stream. And to catch these posts you just have a group tab to see them.

This is a great way to filter the firehose to see stuff that’s important to you…but often a task I’m in doesn’t really involve my whole team, instead it’s me and a handful of others from various teams, so the group stream doesn’t help here, instead we ad-hoc groups need a hashtag stream to filter the firehose (which I will tackle further down in this post)

Tag based forum

So what’s happening here? What is Twitter or Yammer? It’s conversations, but not confined to groups, instead it’s one massive group, but moreso a crowd as not everyone knows each other, just like you don’t know everyone in your workplace or suburb you live in.

So really it’s not a group, it’s a network.

Which kind of makes it like a giant forum, or a giant blog.

At work we have groups (CoPs) and each one has forums and blogs.

So to have conversations about a topic you need to visit the right forum/blog in the right group, and further to this you need to be a member, and you have to be a subscriber.

What if the appropriate topic doesn’t exist yet; I’m not about to create a forum and get people to subscribe…further to this they also have to become a member of the group space that they may not want to do.

For the sake of being open, this is way more difficult than email.

And if all we are having is one conversation I don’t want to subscribe to a forum and get further content that I don’t want to read.

And as mentioned earlier I want an ad-hoc conversation that doesn’t warrant the setting up of a space…you don’t have to do this in email.

Over 4 years ago I posted on Tag-based forum networks (I wonder if the idea for Twitter came from these sites)

It’s basically the idea of microblogging where a question about any topic can be asked, and the question is tagged, and further similar questions can be tagged the same so these questions can be collected into a browseable space.

Which brings us back to our fiactional example…

Collecting posts in the stream that are about the same task

The fictional example in this post is perfect for one off conversations, more appropriate than email and more designed to how we behave over having to go to a group space. This is not about groups, it’s about ad-hoc conversations.

Now what happens, is that the conversation stream on that post can get really long and cover lots of questions, which really should be their own posts.

What I mean is; what if this one-off ad-hoc conversation is part of a bigger task that requires many conversations on various items pertaining to the task. You’d hope that you could collect all these conversations into one browseable space.

To follow our example John needs to ask a question or give an update about the task. So again he has to @mention various people in a new post. This time he might @mention only a couple of people as the question or update is more contextual.

But what results is that unless all the recipients from the 1st question see this new post in the public stream they won’t be aware of progress…it’s not essential they see it otherwise John would have @mentioned them, but still the same they may want to be aware as they are part of the greater task. And for all John knows maybe it turns out it is essential for someone else to see it…that’s the beauty of these tools in that the it circumvents the sender having the power as they cannot always know who needs to know what.

Again people who see this post can tag it in their inbox and also add it to their watchlist so they can follow the conversation…keeping all the items about the task in a bucket.

The issue increases…

If people that are not @mentioned want to be in the loop about this task they have to catch these posts coming through the stream, there’s a good chance they are gonna miss them. What if you go on vacation for a few days. Are you gonna go through thousands of posts, add to your watchlist and tag them. How are you gonna differentiate the posts in the stream that are important to you.

So everyone will be doing the same thing, picking out these posts and personally tagging them to their collection.

See what’s happening here, we end up using microblogging just like email. Sure it’s open so you may catch these items race through the stream, but we need a way for the system to keep everyone in the loop on every conversation about the task, even if you it’s not your part of the task, it’s still good to be in the know of the greater picture. And further to this, in the future we want to look back at all the conversations about that particular task.

In come hashtags…

In our example the 2nd post could have a hashtag #DMS_dev, and then perhaps the 1st post could be re-edited to add this tag as well.

Then anyone can follow this hashtag, which is listed in your microblogging app sidebar

When there is a new post within this hashtag, the hashtag in your left-hand pane would go bold and display the number of new posts. The same would happen if there was a comment on an existing post. Just click the hastag to access the new content.

In this scenario what you could do is remove the 1st question off your Watchlist and remove it from your personal tag cloud. As now you are following the hashtag stream which is accessible via your hashtag list or cloud.

A hashtag stream would actually be similar in a way to a group stream, but it’s post-created rather than pre-created.

NOTE: When you think of it following a hashtag would be similar to saving a Twitter search query in your sidebar, but more like an RSS Reader subscribing to a tag

So there you have it…

• a way to follow ad-hoc conversations (using a Watchlist)
• a way to follow many conversations about the same task (following a Hashtag)

This design has the uniqueness and ease of email in ad-hoc conversations, but the benefits of the awareness and emergence of microblogging

I haven’t played much with Google Wave or Socialwok (I guess 9cays can be included), but these may be the closest tools to my thinking…it’s not about groups, it’s about the conversation, and similar conversations can be channeled into a unique tag that becomes a type of group space (or channel) on-the-fly.

Perhaps ActionBase is worth a mention:

"A task oriented email client will behave like a wiki document in the sense that once you send it out, any response, question or comment made by recipients or yourself, will all happen on the same email entry… all the relevant information under a single line item - THIS IS COLLABORATIVE EMAIL. In ActionBase we call this email - ActionMail. ActionMail is the next generation of work email which is task oriented rather than message oriented."

Output

Oh yeah, where is all the output, where is the documentation for the task kept.

This could be kept anywhere it doesn’t matter. But somehow the Hashtag page needs to be able to store links to where stuff is kept.

Pull

But there still is one big difference to email, this is mostly still a "pull" system where you add posts to your Watchlist, or follow Hashtags in order to be updated about new content.

Sure it starts off as "push" for some by way of @mentions, but then it becomes "pull" if you need or want to be further updated of new content without having to constantly @mention.

For others unrelated to the conversation it’s all "pull" for them as they were not @mentioned in the original post.

In saying this:

…if you publish the post or have left a comment then you will be pushed notifications by the system, but if you haven’t done one of these things and it’s pertinent that you are aware, then you better add it to your Watchlist, or follow the Hashtag.

Yeah, but no…

In the first part of the fictional example I mentioned that the lack of notifications means some people that were @mentioned in the original post won’t receive further comments unless they make a comment…hence my idea to pull it to yourself via a Watchlist.

Facebook have a private message feature where you can have a group conversation and all involved received comments by default (you don’t have to leave a comment to be notified of new ones). This is less messy than email but is still closed like email

End thoughts

I can only imagine so much, but without using such a system I won’t know if it’s too complicated. At the moment there are all these possible streams/filters:

• Public
• My network (people I follow)
• Various group streams
• @mention
• Hash tags I follow
• Watchlist (comments in a post I follow)
• Notifications (comments on my posts, and on posts I have commented on)

Mark Gould has a great post which has picked up on a thread in one of the LinkedIn forums on the "Pulling" and "Pushing" of information. Mark’s post also covers some blog discussion on the difference between sharing and communication, which I may add to in another post.

Nick Milton says in a blog post:

"…there is no point in creating a culture of sharing, if you have no culture of re-use. Pull is a far more powerful driver for Knowledge Management than Push, and I would always look to create a culture of knowledge seeking before creating a culture of knowledge sharing."

Firstly, we don’t create a knowledge sharing culture, we help create conditions so this happens!

I agree that the organisation needs to be open to helping others. Our best kind of Communities of Practice at work are the "Support" type. People ask questions, and others respond, discussion ensues, and usually the person who asked the question can take something away and move on…great sense-making via people to get things done at work. Plus everyone else on the thread got to learn for free.

In the future our CoPs at work will be complemented by a social network, which amplifies sense-making even more.

This perspective also reminds me of Nancy Dixon’s article "Does your organisation have an asking problem"

But I don’t entirely agree with Nicks statement, as it’s too black and white.

Plus when someone shares something it may not result in a direct action for me, but it may make something more clear for me, or give me a better outlook on something…this is an implicit type of value (even though I’m not actioning what I have learnt into something explicit).

Both "Push" and "Pull" are important!

As I mentioned, "Pull" to respond and help is crucial for people to do their work, but also "Push" allows an organisation to share what they are doing, their experiences, process…so we can be smarter and more capable people, and so the organisation can be more adaptable, agile and resilient.

Yes, response to questions are great, but we also need "Push"…in the future I may not need to ask the question if it’s already been shared kindly elsewhere. This happens a lot in our tips and tricks blogs at work.

Or put another way, when I need to make a decision in the future, some of those past blog post/comment fragments may come together to aid me in my decision.

This may happen unconsiously…I have subscribed to those people that "Pushed" those blog posts, perhaps conversed with them to make sense of them personally, and now I have absorbed them, and they become building blocks that come together when I make decisions.

As for blogging…even though it’s "Push", it also creates "Pull"…as people ask questions in the comments, and converse via trackbacks.

When "Push" is done with socially interactive tools, you get knowledge creation that keeps going, you get a worthwhileness as people can actually probe and internalise this shared information into personal knowledge. Now that’s KM!

A company that doesn’t have continual dialogue is stale and will not innovate, or have an edge.

Supply as stockpile or flow

Nick says:

"…sharing (“push”) is done at the expense of seeking (“pull”). The risk is you create supply, with no demand."

I guess this is a way to look at it from a market point-of-view, where modern marketing was the answer to deal with over supply. In the context of this post, it’s about motivating people to seek available information.

This is true if sharing is based on conscription, or not within an ecosystem…this is the non-interactive document-centric warehousing approach.

But what about blogging experiences and asking questions in a social network…this has more of an equilibrium, or yin and yang of share and seek.

What has been shared, quickly induces dialogue and at that point does it’s job of KM. People connecting, re-contextualising, learning…this is "Pull", because of "Push".

Hmmm, "the risk is you create supply, with no demand."
Google doesn’t know what I’m gonna ask today, but when I do I am led to a place where there is an answer, or where I can connect and interact with others to put that information into my context.

Or better still, I’m not gonna ask today as I remember someone blogging about it in the past, so I know what to do.

So the question here is not whether "push" is efficient or not, it’s they way the information is pushed.

Conscription to a database lacks motivation, context, is static, etc…see my post on KM in context.

Whereas pushing via a blog may induce more knowledge creation, it’s not static at all. I blog about an experience:

• people learn about it as they are subscribed
• others leave comments
• a conversation ensues
• this enables people to clarify, probe, re-frame
• so this information object (the blog post), creates some type of personal knowledge for people as they have been able to sense-make via conversations

When you "Push" via a social tool people can interact with that information object so it may become personal knowledge to them.
The fact I push a blog post, has allowed opportunity for knowledge creation n-fold.

If we only shared in response to "Pull", then we would never be innovative or grow…we wouldn’t have an edge. In life there is stuff we don’t know about, and when we hear about this stuff it excites us and becomes usable (today or tomorrow), we like these gifts. Without this we hear a lot of “if only you had told me that when I was doing that task”…” we didn’t know you guys were using that method, that seems more efficient and effective”

Push is not a servant to Pull

Nick says:

"Knowledge Push is inefficient and wasteful if there is no Pull, whether the push is done through blogs…"

I really don’t understand this comment. It’s seems too perfect and engineered, if not impossible.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to control "Push" in order for people to just push what’s needed…for how do we know what we need…we are living in times where we need to adapt and be resilient to a fast paced constantly changing environment.

We can’t control what business topics and experiences people blog about, they blog on their own terms, we are lucky that they share at all…so we have to be happy.
We cannot conscript people to blog only when it’s 100% usable now and will be re-used immediately…we are dealing with people here, not robots…people don’t like the big brother feel…people blog because there is an intrinsic motivation, not because they are told to.

Otherwise this is going back to old KM conscripting methods, but only with new tools…it’s useless anyway as it goes against the ethos of these new tools.

It’s about engagement, not knowledge sharing

People blog because connecting and dialogue is what we are about, we are social creatures…it fills this need.

Blogs smash silos, nurture transparency and flatter organisational conversations. People can be heard and have impact….your bosses boss, or a boss in another team can hear what you have to say…see my post, we are more than our job title describes. Blogs are great for talent retention, and being recognised…these are all intrinsic motivators.

Therefore it’s more than just knowledge sharing, it’s about people connecting and being fulfilled at work…therefore you cannot control the "Push".

When people "Push", we are always learning, and building capacity…next time when we are in a decision-making situation we may draw on those blog posts that floated past our radar.
The more "Push" the more smarter we become, and the more capable and quicker the organisation is able to respond to change.

Andrew Gent’s post on learning and capacity seems to fit in here:

"So just as the goal of college is to teach capabilities, not specific skills; the goal of KM is to facilitate knowledge development and transfer, not solely to apply knowledge to the product pipeline."

"Push" is good, but mostly when it’s social pushing like blogging.

Clarification on blogging as Just-in-Case

In the LinkedIn thread I refered to blogging as Just-in-Time, rather than Just-in-Case, and Nick picked me up on this saying that it was Just-in-Case/Storing/Push. He also acknowledges that it’s different to past KM sharing methods, alluding to its inbuilt intrinsic motivation, and that it can be interacted with (a dynamic, living, manifesting object).

He is partially correct, maybe "Just-in-Time" wasn’t the correct word, but I don’t think "Just-in-Case" is either. I meant to refer to the immediacy of blogging…an event happens, or is happening and we can blog with great recall right now. Let’s worry later about whether this can be formalised or distilled into something more proper. What’s important right now is we can use blogs to capture something as it happens, then have some dialogue. Later on the result of all this can be woven back into good practice.

Thanks to Mark Gould for a pithy insight:

"I don’t blog here, nor do I encourage the same kind of activity at work because someone might find the content useful in the future. I do it, and encourage it, because the activity itself is useful in this moment. It is neither just-in-case nor just-in-time: it just is."

To refer back to an earlier part of this post, it’s the feeling of connection you have at work and with your peers, and the feeling of sense-making and expression. The effectiveness of the KM concept of "Push" and "Pull" comes second.

Mark also refers to Patrick Lambe where he alludes to sharing is bigger than itself, the more you participate, the more you are connected. To me this means whether all sharing is useful or not right now doesn’t matter as it’s the aggregation of sharing and participation that gets you connected. And being connected is everything:

"We do have an evolved mechanism for achieving such deep knowledge results: this is the performance you can expect from a well-networked person who can sustain relatively close relationships with friends, colleagues and peers, and can perform as well as request deep knowledge services of this kind."

Mark also differentiates the re-use aspect in reference to types of knowledge:

"My suspicion is that organisations that rely especially highly on personal, unique, knowledge (or intellectual capital) should be a lot more relaxed about this than Nick suggests. His view may be more relevant in organisations where repetitive processes generate much more value."
 

Nick makes a good point:

"The people who blog (and I include myself in this) are the ones who want to be heard, and that’s not always the same as “the ones who need to be heard”. Knowledge often resides in the quietest people."

I don’t know the answer to this other than facilitating conditions and guidance for quiet people to feel safe and comfortable. Knowledge sharing is a voluntary act, just as opening your mouth and speaking is.

KM in action

At work we have a Tips and Tricks blog for the Document Management team.

When I was working on that team I was trouble shooting a problem for someone, and as a result came up with a tip on how to browse the system via email.

I thought I’d better write this down somewhere so I don’t forget (memory management), and to also share it with others…so I blogged it.

This generated conversation, as to why this was the case.

The fact that I blogged it both offered a tip, and also initiated a discussion.

Subscribers to the blog were thankful of my post as they too had come across this issue.

Subscribers to this blog sometimes use tips straight away, and sometimes it’s good to know for the future, and sometimes it creates conversation that leads somewhere else.

Subscribers of the blog are happy to subscribe to these small fragments (blog posts).

If I were to give them a months worth of posts they would not have the time to read them, but they have time to digest fragments as they happen.

In this scenario I’m pushing a blog post as it happened, as it turned out it was of great help to others, and created new discussion paths.

Forget "Push or "Pull", connecting is key

I cannot predict if my "Push" will be "Pulled", that’s just how it is.

And this is what I think Mark Gould referred to when he wrote:

"The key thing in all of this, for me, is that whether we talk of knowledge sharing, transfer, or management, it only has value if it can result in action: new knowledge generation; new products; ideas; thoughts. But I think that action is more likely if we are open-minded about where it might arise. If we try and  predict where it may be, and from which interactions it might come, I think it  is most probable that no useful action and value will result in the long term."

As quoted by Patrick Lambe earlier, this is only the half of it. The more you share the more you are connecting and building relationships and trust, and this is mighty important. And the third element is that I’m a satisfied and engaged knowledge worker in a connected and networked environment.

Jack Vinson has also picked up on this conversation. I like the comment by Jamie Hatch:

"…making sure that knowledge is not just ‘captured’ but that we do something with it"

I think there is more chance of this happening when the capturing is not considered capturing, but rather people sense-making and sharing/communicating…and when this is done with the right tools, that are within a networked environment. To me "Push and Pull" are more relationship based than isolated concepts, I can’t approach one without the other creeping in.

Jack points to a great post from Ross Dawson, who reviews another post by Nick Bilton which gives a nice tone to the focus of this post.

It refers to serendipity and network filtering…as I do my work, since you are subscribed to me, I’m filtering information for you, and vice versa. Everyone is getting mutual benefit from everyone else. We all become more capable and smarter people.

Ross Dawson uses some terms that used to seem futuristic, but are becoming more common place: collective intelligence, global brain.

Forget "Push or "Pull", context is key

David Weinberger, Valis Krebs, Patrick Lambe and Steve Barth talk about not "Push" (sharing) or "Pull" (seeking), but more about making the infomation make sense at a personal level:

David Weinberger says:

"But the real problem with the information being provided to us in our businesses is that, for all the facts and ideas, we still have no idea what we’re talking about. We don’t understand what’s going on in our business, our market, and our world.

In fact, it’d be right to say that we already *know* way too much. KM isn’t about helping us to know more. It’s about helping us to understand. Knowledge without understanding is like, well, information.”

So, how do we understand things? From the first accidental wiener roast on a prehistoric savannah, we’ve understood things by telling stories. It’s through stories that we understand how the world works"

Valdis Krebs says:

"The new advantage is context — how internal and external content is interpreted, combined, made sense of, and converted to end product. Creating competitive context requires social capital, the ability to find, utilize and combine the skills, knowledge and experience of others."

Patrick Lambe says:

“the internalisation problem is how the represented knowledge can be re-contextualised so that it makes sense within the recipients own world view”

Steve Barth talks about indigenous knowledge, and focusing on relationships and context rather then knowledge commodification:

"…more focus on studying the connections between elements of the natural environment and the human community than on discrete things themselves. As such, the focus on relationships rather than reification is more in line with complexity and systems theories than taxonomical or hierarchical approaches of traditional science. It’s a direct contrast, too, to the (fictional) objectivity of scientific observation and experimentation."

"Incorporating indigenous knowledge into development efforts leverages a number of its strengths. It demonstrates respect for those involved by focusing on their needs, resources, responsibilities and experience; it facilitates local adaptation of technologies and techniques instead of forcing untailored adoption; it supplements—rather than supplants—local theory and practice; and it improves the collective awareness and sense-making necessary to make adjustments as a project proceeds."

"…neo-indigenistas" (his term for those who would save indigenous knowledge by removing it from the wild) are being hypocritical when they advocate for gathering it into civilized central repositories. Disconnecting knowledge from its source, in terms of people and places, will remove from that knowledge the very context which infuses it with life. Because indigenous knowledge is continuously generated and renewed in the living practices of people, archiving in isolation from practice removes its ongoing relevance…."

KM made simple

Finishing off. I’m a real fan of the simple KM perspective by Gia Lyons, Richard Dennison. They allude to "Push and Pull" as part of the same symbiotic strategy.

Gia Lyons says:

"The whole point of social software, from the perspective of retaining corporate wisdom, is to make a wisdom holder’s surface knowledge available to a general population, so that other people can do the following:

Be aware that this knowledge exists in the organization, and who has it. This is a huge pre-cursor to effective collaboration – knowing people exist, and knowing what they know. In social network science terms, the goal is to increase your organizational network’s density, which means more awareness / connections between more people, and to reduce distance, which means fewer network “nodes” between two people, based on trusted relationships – you can’t call Kevin Bacon directly, for example, until you ask a guy you know who knows his agent to get you an appointment.

Determine with whom they should collaborate, if they even need to. The irony of social software is that many may never need to collaborate with you if you share your surface knowledge. And an added benefit is that if you ever do need to collaborate with that person, you’ve accelerated that effort beyond the “dumb question” stage. You can get to the really good stuff faster.

Begin a trusted relationship with someone. This is done by “talking” to them in a forum, a blog, commenting on their document, etc., in hopes that in the future, you can boldly call them and ask for their tacit wisdom."

Richard Dennison says:

"If we could achieve three things, I think we will have made more progress in the field of KM than we’ve ever managed before. Those things are:

• expose in the network who people are and what they are interested in/working on/thinking about …
• provide a way to search through the above and then offer a simple mechanism to connect like-minded people together in networks a
• automatically expose the activities of individuals to those in their networks through activity streams.
  
  That’s it … simples!

Well … possibly not as simple as it sounds … but achievable at least."

In the end I partially agree with Nick saying that "Pull" is important otherwise what’s the use of sharing. But like conversation you just don’t know what’s gonna happen, what’s important is that you are having it, the opportunities, and the chance to probe for clarity…and that you feel connected and engaged. Within a networked environment the Pushing and Pulling of raw fragments as they happen, as opposed to a database full of static documents, is synergised. I think of it more as conversation, and conversation is work and knowledge creation.