Library clips

This post continues on from my post, Knowledge as Interpreter - ASPE.

In that post I riffed off some bloggers on the concept of Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom (D-I-K-W) not being of a hierarchial nature, and rather a loop, where knowledge is required to turn data into information, and the sensemaking process turning information into knowledge…and if that knowledge created were to be exchanged (written down/conversation), it would be back to data or information, depending on who was looking at it.

I also prefered the verbs in the diagram, Analysing - Sensemaking - Pathfinding - Executing (ASPE).

NOTE: I just had a flash of physics then with my phrase, “…depending on who was looking at it”. In physics sometimes things exist only if you look at them, the same goes with information, where information only exists if the receiver has the current knowledge to see data as information.
In physics, if you don’t look at the thing it doesn’t exist…if you don’t have the knowledge to see the data as information, then the information doesn’t exist to you. Someone help me here…

Knowledge Management is an oxymoron?

An oxymoron is a phrase combining opposing or contradictory terms

I’m not going to define KM, but here are 43 knowledge management definitions - and counting… I like the idea that it’s not about a means to an end.

For me it’s a way to augment the way you work, which is in a more open networked environment, where your information is visible, creating more chance for connections (conversations), awareness, relationship and trust building, in turn creating more opportunity to develop shared context with others (which increases the chances of successful knowledge transfers, ie. the meaning in the message is transferred).
This way of working (leveraging the social capital), creates interdependencies between people which solidifies the success to keep working in this style.

Oops, did I just try to define it…perhaps describe it…

This is really information openess and connection, perhaps this practice is “knowledge sharing.”
I don’t say information sharing, as the intention is for your knowledge to be received as knowledge to someone else, rather than just information. So knowledge sharing is the intention, but sometimes information sharing may only occur, or worse.

Is someone who is in charge of this way of working, a Knowledge Manager or more a steward or facilitator who instills a culture of Knowledge sharing practices or style of working, where the aim is to create shared context?

If knowledge is not an object, and is more personal know-how and is used to make sense of signals we receive, then how is it possible to capture knowledge, or for that matter transfer knowledge?

Further to this, then there is no such thing as managing knowledge.

We can only manage information, whether you get intended or unintended meaning out of this information is up to the receiver.

If you get someone to store and tag a report into the repository, this is the role of information management.
If you get someone to write down their know-how and store and tag it into the repository, this is still information management.

Anecdote realise this and rather use the term “Better Information Managment”, and “Improved collaboration and learning”.

We have to admit we are stuck with the term “Knowledge Management”, and it will continue to be used even though it’s not exactly what happens…what’s in a name.

Information has no meaning

An Anecdote paper, Our take on how to talk about knowledge management, tells us:

“Knowledge is the stuff in people’s heads which enables them to do things.”, and:

“Information is certainly valuable, but it is inert; it does not cause things to happen.
As described by Polanyi and Prosch,[1] information (suchas a map), no matter how elaborate it is, cannot read itself; it requires the judgement of a skilled reader who will relate the map to the world through both cognitive and sensory means. Debra Amidon, in 1991,[2] asserted that information, in and of itself, is not useful until it is embodied in a person’s awareness and related to business imperatives.”

Oscar Berg has being talking about the nature of information, and how the value derived depends on who uses it.

This is the very message of the late Frank Miller’s seminal paper, I = 0 (Information has no intrinsic meaning), which I re-read lately.

Miller says:

“…we’ve been led to believe that information contains meaning - rather than just standing for, provoking or evoking meaning in others.”

“…knowledge is the uniquely human capability of making meaning from information…”

“…information is intrinsically meaningless on its own and remains so unless - and until - it is interpreted by human beings, within some context.”

“…information become knowledge? The answer: at the moment of its human interpretation (and not an instant before!)”

One of the best quotes is:

“But if we then take the step of ascribing intrinsic meaning to the information itself, we cross the boundary of rationality and enter a bizarre world where we assume that impersonal stimuli have minds of their own and can have their own meaning!”

He gets more esoteric by saying that if we didn’t have information, ie. no sensory input, then there is no knowledge to be created…without information (therefore no sensory input) how to we know we even exist. Let’s not get into this here, as we could discuss non-materials planes.

Re-reading this paper was a very different experience from when I first read it a couple of years ago. Since then I have read and experienced more of life, especially in KM and related fields, and with all this knowledge I have amassed I got 10 times more meaning (and ideas) out of this paper.
There must be a term for this, my different experience in reading this paper demonstrated what the content of the paper is about.

The nonsense of ‘knowledge management’ is a paper, by T D Wilson, that is along this same line of thought:

“…’knowledge’ (what I know) and ‘information’ (what I am able to convey about what I know)”

You can’t capture knowledge, and there is no such thing as explicit knowledge

Miller says:

“…knowledge was only ever tacit. Once we attempt to make knowledge (i.e., what we ‘know’) explicit, it reverts immediately to an ‘information’ state again and requires human intervention anew for sense to be made of it.”

“Knowledge is, after all, what we know. And what we know cannot be commodified.”

“Knowledge (ie ‘what we know’) is only ever ‘tacit’ and can never be ‘explicit’. It must never be thought of as a commodity to be captured, processed, stored, transmitted, managed etc.”

Wilson says:

“‘Explicit knowledge’, of course, is simply a synonym for ‘information’.”

“…’tacit knowledge’ involves the process of comprehension, a process which is, itself, little understood. Consequently, tacit knowledge is an inexpressible process that enables an assessment of phenomena in the course of becoming knowledgeable about the world. In what sense, then, can it be captured? The answer, of course, is that it cannot be ‘captured’ - it can only be demonstrated through our expressible knowledge and through our acts.”

This nullifies the concept that you can capture knowledge, as it’s not possible to capture meaning, the meaning is derived by the person encountering it, all the capturing we do is simply information management.

This makes Nonaka’s SECI model (turning tacit into explicit then back again) a bad model of KM, which is a pity because it was “the” model that has defined KM for a decade.

Dave Snowden has more on KM sins, which includes, knowledge as more a flow, rather than an explicit asset:

“…put all their effort into knowledge as a thing; making tacit knowledge explicit…”, instead:

“…focus on creating connectivity between people to allow knowledge to flow, rather than worrying about the knowledge itself. Get the channels right and that is most of the battle. Generally if people have a working relationship, ideally a trusted one then in the context of need they will help each other without the need for direction, structure or technology.”

This leads to Dave Snowden’s three heuristics. Wilson seems to be in the same school of thought:

“The fact is that we often do not know what we know: that we know something may only emerge when we need to employ the knowledge to accomplish something. Much of what we have learnt is apparently forgotten, but can emerge unexpectedly when needed, or even when not needed. In other words we seem to have very little control over ‘what we know’.”

Shared Context creates more chance of the intended message being understood

As I mentioned earlier I think Shared Context is at the heart of KM, when you are in a conversation you hope what you are saying is understood, ie. the receiver has understood your intended meaning.

Frank Miller explains that the reality of information not possessing an intact meaning, can be felt in mis-communications or mis-interpretations.

Why do some people understand one thing, and others another, or nothing at all?

It’s because we use our current knowledge to derive the meaning, the information itself can’t do it for us.

He says:

“…although information certainly stands for meaning, it is never meaning itself. Meaning is a mental thing and is only ever tacit, that is to say, ‘in us’. Identical information almost invariably provokes (or evokes) different meanings in each of us.”

“…it is not what the message does to the audience but what the audience does with the message that really matters.”

This reminds me of a paper by Nancy Dixon, on the onus role of the knowledge receiver to tease out the desired exchange…I’ll get round to posting about this later on (it’s such as great paper).

Wilson has a similar thing to say:

“‘Knowledge’ is defined as what we know: knowledge involves the mental processes of comprehension, understanding and learning that go on in the mind and only in the mind, however much they involve interaction with the world outside the mind, and interaction with others. Whenever we wish to express what we know, we can only do so by uttering messages of one kind or another - oral, written, graphic, gestural or even through ‘body language’. Such messages do not carry ‘knowledge’, they constitute ‘information’, which a knowing mind may assimilate, understand, comprehend and incorporate into its own knowledge structures.”

Web 2.0 helps build abstraction with people in far places

Apart from information having no intrinsic meaning, Frank Miller goes on to talk about a very important point, in that the web has enabled people to get a message to a global audience.

These days you don’t really know much about the people you are working with or communicating.
This becomes a problem, because there already is the potential problem with people you know well mis-interpreting your message (information), when you work with people you don’t really know this is going to increase the chances.

Miller says:

“Our knowledge - that is to say what we knew from our direct experiences - was closely akin to the knowledge of others with whom we necessarily lived our lives in close proximity.”

“The “information age” changed all that.”

“We can send information and provoke a response in almost anyone we wish anywhere on the planet, but we can never be sure - unless we know these people personally - how they are likely to interpret (ie what meaning they are likely to make of) the information they receive from us.”

“Successful communications depends on knowing others well enough or caring about others deeply enough (the tacit dimension) to imagine how they are likely to interpret the (explicit) messages we exchange with them.”

Dave Snowden often refers to a level of high abstraction, the level of; intellect, shared experiences, style, character, that is known between a group of people, the more chance they will derive the intended meaning from information exchanges.

Along with this, as mentioned again and again, is a high level of Shared context. This is how much we both know about the context surrounding this information eg. are we familiar with the source, the background it’s based on, the topic, etc…this frame of reference helps in deriving the intended knowledge from the information.

You are having a conversation with a piping engineer:

1. in another company
2. in another office in your company
3. in your office
4. in your office and in your team
5. in your office, in your team, and your close colleague

Obviously number 5 is the person you will have a greater level of trust, inter-dependencies, abstraction and shared context.

These are the the necessary aspects of a relationship for not only successful information transfer, but collaborating, creating, evolving new information and knowledge.

The 5 point list above is based on the offline world, if we include the online world of networks, blogs, communities, etc…then geography really doesn’t make a difference.
In an offline world we can still get to know a colleague in another office using the phone, IM, email, etc…but in a community and network we get to know lots more.

To reprise Frank Miller’s paper I’d say that web 2.0 has evolved to enable us to retain and create close relationships like we have in the physical world…we are still able to know people (geographically distant) well enough that the information signals are no more misinterpreted than they are with people in the same office.

In fact the web now allows us to know a lot about people that we don’t even know, if anything we can connect to more like minds, form new relationships, get to really know other people well.

Social tools like blogs mimic the offline world:

- we can informally and casually talk about stuff
- others can subscribe (these people really get to know your character)
- these people can leave comments and talk about you in their own blog posts
- you subscribe to them
- this all happens on a daily basis

There is no doubt that face to face, audio/visual helps evoke more understanding, but casual and informal blog posts also have this effect, and according to the listed points above, blogs enable people to discover each other and connect into a close relationship where you develop trust, high abstraction and shared context.

So if anything, the Read/Write Web has taken us to the “Knowledge Age”, where we can connect and get to know people, without even having to have a relationship.
This certainly helps in the enterprise as we have to deal with all sorts of people from all sorts of departments. If we can visit their profile, see their network, see the contributions (blog posts, etc…), we can get to know their character, where they fit, etc…we know more about them, which helps a more successful interaction with them.

Miller says:

“Only human beings have the capacity to construct meaning from information and to sense ‘meaning’ evolving in themselves and in others. Only human beings can compare interpretations with a view to achieving a shared purpose.”

“Information, no matter how elegantly processed and presented, is incapable - on its own - of achieving anything!”

We need to increase the chances that when we confront information (read/conversations) we are able to get as much meaning as possible. Both what the sender is intending to transfer, and the stuff the receiver gets out of it, including the stuff that the sender didn’t think of.
This is what participation and collaboration (wisdom of crowds) is all about.

So rather than Knowledge Management (mandating/capturing/storing) we need to be focusing on connecting people, so we can increase the chances of collaboration and sharing what they know, and within this create a culture where this sharing and collaboration is successful in transfering and receiving intended signals, ie. by creating opportunities to create informal communities, networking, develop high trust, inter-dependencies, shared context and high abstraction…most of this is from Dave Snowden.

What is the role of a Knowledge Manager?

For starters, we have discussed that “Knowledge Manager” is an inaccurate job description, and what they currently do is more inline with information management, and people management.

This is a quick list:

NOTE: collaboration tools and the like means not just setting up, but facilitating and coaching…knowing human behaviour

- smooth out bottlenecks in processes
- online storage and search (re-use)
- openness and visibility
- collaboration tools (do work)
- communities (share/learn)
- networks (connect/discover)
- communication and awareness (esp. cooperation across business units)
- autonomy (being able to hook up with the right people and tasks)
- techniques (AAR, Peer Review, Open Space, World Cafe, Narrative, AI, SNA, etc…)

As a result you get more self organisation, learning, innovation, transparency, autonomy and emergence.

There is nothing about managing knowledge in this list, it’s all about connecting people, creating conditions for conversation, enabling more sharing and collaboration to occur, people leveraging each others talent.

The role of a person responsible for all this seems more like a facilitator, coach, and Corporate Anthropologist.

This type of person needs to have a handle on more humanistic fields like: Cognitive science, Learning, Psychology, and social behaviour.

Corporate anthropologist (enabler/facilitator)

- observe the processes and people
- create conditions for smoother processes
- create conditions to be able to find people and content
- create conditions for people to tune into each other
- create conditions for people to have conversations
- create conditions for serendipity
- create conditions for people to successfully understand other people and their content
ie. information signal conveyed is easily understood, and the receiver interprets the intended meaning from the sender.

Perhaps the name “Knowledge Manager” seems more appropriate when seen as a person who manages and is responsible for instilling and sustaining effective knowledge sharing activies. This way they are not managing knowledge per se, instead managing the activities. This could also be seen as the role of the Chief Learning Officer, or a practice of the Organisational Performance unit.

Karl Sveiby’s thoughts are more on the activity:

“Knowledge Focus” or “Knowledge Creation” (Nonaka) are better terms, because they describe a mindset, which sees knowledge as activity not an object. A is a human vision, not a technological one.”

Mike Gotta’s thoughts on the KM activity:

“Not that KM is dead – but KM is additive to other endeavors and not and end in and of itself. If we anchor the discussion around improving a process or ensuring that we have the right competencies and skills within the workforce (e.g., as part of succession planning) or improving group interaction around R&D activities, then we are speaking the language of business and that will lead to the business case and metrics.”

Dennis Pearce (AOK) mentions leadership is less required when things learn from networks (p44. anecdote):

“I have been looking at organisational learning from a process, connectionist perspective. Other “things that learn” (brains and neural networks) don’t require leadership — they just learn as a result of their networked structure and processes. So if I can embed KM activities into the existing processes of an organisational network, people aren’t “doing KM,” they’re just doing their jobs, but the organisation is learning.”

Joe Firestone says that using or processing knowledge does not mean you are doing “knowledge management”:

“Knowledge use occurs whenever any agent makes a decision. It is part
of every business process.
§ Knowledge processing is knowledge production and knowledge
integration [1] [2], two distinct knowledge processes constituting the
Knowledge Life Cycle (KLC) [1][2].
§ Knowledge management is knowledge process management, that is,
the management of knowledge production, knowledge integration, he
KLC, and their immediate outcomes [3].”

Joes excellent paper includes theory on the 3 worlds of knowledge types, and lots more.

Wilson says:

“‘…knowledge management’ is an umbrella term for a variety of organizational activities, none of which are concerned with the management of knowledge. Those activities that are not concerned with the management of information are concerned with the management of work practices, in the expectation that changes in such areas as communication practice will enable information sharing.”

Anecdote have a set of objectives on KM activities or knowledge strategy, and more.

Dave Pollard stresses the importance of direct experience in the learning.

Visions of KM 2 is a great paper by Miguel Cornejo Castro, it describes the 3 KM activity components:

Process execution
- Repetitive methods
- Smoothing out bottlenecks
- I see blogs used as communications, wikis for workarounds

Project development (essentially a special type of process)
- Since projects are unique, finding people and conversation (tacit) are more helpful than generic explicit stuff (which mostly works fine for Process execution)
- I see blog fragments, conversation, and expert locators

Capability building
- Spans the knowledge of tools, processes (methodologies), and practice (experience with tasks)
- Learning and building know-how to increase effectiveness in processes and practice (projects/tasks)
- The whole social computing and enterprise 2.0 concept (a networked conversation enterprise, emergence, platforms)

This notion is described in Knowledge and Talent in a People-Ready Business.

Stan Garfield from HP covers a lot of the KM pulse on his blog, here are some posts on KM elements:

Benefits of KM
- Avoid redundant effort
- Avoid repeating mistakes
- Take advantage of existing expertise and experience
“If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive.”

Key Activities of KM
- Share, Innovate, Re-use, Collaborate, Learn

The Role of Management and Knowledge Management

KM Tips and Myths

Stan points to the brilliant insight and realism of Andrew Gents, The four paradoxes of KM:
- Tacit vs. Explicit
- Local vs. Global
- Open vs. Closed
- Quantity vs. Quality

End thoughts

Frank finishes by saying:

“…the importance increasingly being placed on accessibility to information is seriously out of balance with the importance that needs to be placed on interpretation and sharing of information, and that this imbalance needs urgent action to redress.”

Wilson finishes with:

“…these latter practices are predicated upon a Utopian idea of organizational culture in which the benefits of information exchange are shared by all, where individuals are given autonomy in the development of their expertise, and where ‘communities’ within the organization can determine how that expertise will be used.”

Now to catch up on complexity, narrative inquiry, sensemaking (situational awareness), self organisation….a good start is unblocking streams so knowledge can flow, a bit like acupuncture.

Related

K-flow
Tap into the social capital
Knowledge Sharing in the new KM
More on the new knowledge diffusion
Participation is the currency of the knowledge economy
KM 2.0 model

I came across a post on Knowledge Futures quoting Dave Snowden, about knowledge as an interpreter in the abililty to turn data into information. And then using a sensemaking process (making sense of this information/understanding it) which can create new knowledge to you.

This throws the hierarchy view of Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom as separate steps or levels, into more of a flux environment.

From the post on the role knowledge plays in data and information:

“…knowledge enables me to interpret information. If I acquire knowledge of management accounting then a chart of accounts informs me, if I have no such knowledge then it is data. Knowledge management this has, as one of its primary tasks the creation of sufficient shared knowledge to enable the use of information.”

From the post on Information Management and Knowledge Management:

“I do see utility in understanding the different between what it means to manage knowledge and what it means to manage information. I normally do that with a metaphor of the difference between using a london taxi (knowledge) and a map (information) to get around London. The map is data which has been structured to inform and if I share sufficient context with the map maker then it informs me and I can take action on it. I can also get a taxi where not only has the taxi driver internalised the map, but lots of other things as well. There is for example evidence of significant changes in the Hippocampus in London Taxi Drivers as a result of the two plus years of training they go through. Compete with a taxi driver (as a map user with a hire car) and you will loose. The map may get you there, but the assumption of shared context can be dangerous. I once used a map in New York and almost got mugged for exactly that reason. Its like the point on french cuisine - you may have the recipe but that is just a starting point it is not complete of itself.”

An object like a map is more static (unless it’s a wiki or a blog) so it only has set information, and depending on your know-how of maps, you will be able to read the map, and create new know-how and use it to get around town…the map is only information, it’s up to you to create the know-how (meaning).
The taxi driver is a dynamic information base that continually learns about the area the map represents. She contains lots of informal information that is not normally represented in maps, as that’s not really a maps job or purpose.

Shared Context

What Dave Snowden hones in on is that the shared context with the map is assumed. Shared context is one of the most important aspects of successful information transfer, it’s assumed that you know the context of your activity eg. an understanding of the topic, an understanding of how your team deals with this topic, establishing aspects of the topic. The more existing know-how you have on the information and its context, the more chance you have of successfully acquiring new knowledge and taking action accordingly.

Knowledge as interpreter

I really like knowledge as the interpreter, similar to what was said on Anecdote a couple of years ago, including this amazing diagram.

“Knowledge acts as an interpretant to turn data into information. The information we notice (we don’t notice all information channelled toward us), might create some level of dissonance (its surprises us or we ask ourselves, “What’s the story here?”) and if we care about resolving this dissonance we create knowledge. Knowledge is created through a sensemaking process.

But data to one person is someone else’s information. A commodities trader might stare at a computer screen of numbers which would look to most people as raw data. To the commodity trader, however, slight changes in the numbers conveys messages which act as information they might convert to knowledge (via sensemaking) and take action. Consequently, context is a key ingredient acting as an underlay to all three concepts of data, information and knowledge.”

Dave Snowden also has a similar diagram.

[ADDED 1/7/08: Joe Firestone’s paper, Key Issues in Knowledge Management, also deconstructs the Knowledge pyramid. This paper goes into a lot of theory related to this blog post.]

My stream of consciousness

You use your current knowledge or understanding to see data as information (not sure if you are actually turning data into information)

If you don’t possess the knowledge then all you see is data.

If you do possess the knowledge, you then make sense of this information in the sensemaking process where you may gain new knowledge (understanding).

I like how Anecdote say that the information you see may create a “dissonance” (kind of like you understand the information, but how does it relate to the whole), this is done by a sensemaking process, and “if successful” you have gained some knowledge…and perhaps take some action.

In theory, next time you are in this same exact situation (ceteris paribus), the level of dissonance would be non-existent, meaning there is no need for the sensmaking process and no new knowledge is created.
If this happened all the time you may feel you need a new job that is more stimulating and challenging.

Where there’s dissonance, there’s learning to be done…and knowledge gained.

Is it possible to never experience dissonance because you have reached nirvana?
I personally don’t think a highly evolved spiritual person, living in the now, means you have finished learning.

Experience as Interpreter

The above describes that you need knowledge in order to have the opportunity to create (discover/acquire) new knowledge.

But this can’t be right.

As a baby I may burn myself by touching a flame, as I have no knowledge that the flame will harm me.

How does this work, was the flame data to me, as I didn’t have the knowledge to be informed that it will burn me if I touch it?

And have I created new knowledge (not to put my hand near a flame again), all this without having knowledge to act as an interpreter to turn data into informatiom.

Since I could not turn data into information, then how could I possibly go forward in the cycle to use sensemaking to create new knowledge.

In this example rather than requiring knowledge to interpret data to information, an “experience” has become the interpreter.

I’d like to read about knowledge from an infant psychology perspective (if there is such a thing). Because if you have knowledge of nothing how do you ever start?

Etienne Wenger briefly mentions the need for social learning theory to connect with developmental theory.

[ADDED 1/7/08: Joe Firestone’s paper helps out here, on page 16 he says:

“…we are born with genetically encoded knowledge that enables us to interact with the external world and to learn…”

He desribes this as world 1 knowledge:

“…encoded structures in physical systems (such as genetic encoding in DNA) that allow those objects to adapt to an environment”]

Dissonance?

If a piece of data on a screen is flashing, “anyone” can notice that something has just happened to the data, it’s flashing, and if you possess the knowledge about what this signal means then it informs you, ie, it’s information to you…I guess it becomes knowledge if you can successfully interpret the meaning of the information.

Even though you know what this information means there is still a level of dissonance as you don’t yet know why it occured, you try to make sense of it and work out what’s going on, once you work it out, you have created new knowledge.

Structured to inform

Dave Snowden says “The map is data which has been structured to inform…”

He says:

“We have a mess of unstructured data to which we apply structure or interpretation in order to inform others, we put the data in context”

“If I structure data through process of abstraction and possibly codification then I create messages with which I seek to inform someone else. If that person understands the message they are informed; however if there is no shared context between message creator and message receiver then we are left with data, no information is created.”

A whole heap of random names means not much, but if the list is titled “customers aged 12-20″, then this becomes a structured message intended to inform.
If a person has shared context they will receive the message signal as information, ie. that these random names are people in an age bracket.

This does not imply that structured data equals information.

The data is structured or in an organised format, and whoever understands this organised data receives it as information.

Knowledge is the tool to achieve understanding and interpreting this process, but not only that, your knowledge has to have a shared context to receive the intending meaning.

Without the title these random names are just data, more precisely unstructured data.

According to the model in Dave Snowden’s post once you go through the sensemaking process, ie. you understand what the information means, eg. making inferences from comparing two lists you may work out that, “customers aged 12-20 tend to have more overdue books than customers aged 21-35″, then you can go through a path-finding process and take action.

The action you choose from your path-finding process could be sending a reminder out more often to customers aged 12-20.

Another Example

If someone gave me a project management schedule (eg. MS Project) it would be data to me as I don’t understand the technique and the symbols.

But if I was proficient in MS Project then it would be information as I can understand (interpret) this software.

But if I don’t share context with the author (know the person, history of the project, etc) I may have a hard time understanding (sensemaking) this information completely in order for it to become knowledge for me.

Conclusion

Knowledge is not a thing or object, it is what a person uses and creates.

Dave mentions that the knowledge management is about providing or creating conditions for shared context.
Shared context enables you to get to first base, which is being informed…to be able to use information, so we can take it to the second base in the sensemaking process.

I’m using a step process to explain, but really this happens more fluid or in a flux…all the steps mentioned could be happening at the same time.

Rather than the loop of Data - Information - Knowledge - Options - Actions being the main components, I’d rather think of what happens (based on Dave Snowdens diagram) as Analysing - Sensemaking - Pathfinding - Executing (ASPE)

To be continued…

KM 2.0 in writing

If you read this blog (and others) it’s clear that knowledge flow is the competitive edge.
The more we share know-how and collaborate, the more we are aware, and the more we can hook up with the right people.
The more open and transparent an environment, the more a range of voices can be heard and ideas evolve.

We are capitalising on opportunies by leveraging the social capital (connecting human assets), using the wisdom of crowds.

Connecting and conversing with people is how we work in the physical world and KM 2.0 is extending this to the online world.
People get things done by talking and learning with others, therefore the concept of codify and store isn’t really in tune with human nature.

If we get things done in the physical work by participating, connecting and conversing, it seems logical the this approach works in the online world…especially so for the current climate of remote working and virtual teams.
People already get work done using email, but this doesn’t quite mimic the benefits of the physical world (it lacks visibility and discovery). Rather, an ecosystem with online profiles, social networking, group conversations is similar to how we congregate, network, and discover in the physical world.

KM 2.0 in talking

Sometimes I feel explaining the concept is hard to absorb for some (it really has to be experienced), so perhaps weaving together some quotes is more articulate and succinct.

Some of my favourite excerpts on this concept are by Chris Fletcher, Rachel Happe, Larry Prusak, Ross Dawson, Michael Idinopulos, Don Tapscott, Jay Cross, JP Rangaswami, and Chuck Hollis.

KM 2.0 in pictures

Another idea is trying to capsulate the essence of a concept in a diagram.

NOTE: I’ve missed out some pieces in this picture, such as: bookmarks, rss, attention, personalisation.

Actually this is a diagram I made for our communities at work, so I guess it’s centred around this notion. I was driving home Chuck Hollis’s perspective of “creating conditions for conversation leads to collaboration”.

Collaboration is the enterprise nirvana as we have the best minds working together on a task, ie. there’s no other better people that could work together on this task. They know about each other from participating (being visible) and discussing, so maybe participation, emergence, and conversation (which leads to collaboration) is the nirvana…that is the ecosystem that enables collaboration (between the best experts) to occur.

CLICK IMAGE FOR FULL VIEW

A while back I mentioned that I like the idea that after a conference, conference-call, presentation, meeting, workshop, etc…you can continue the conversations online.

For a big conference like the Web 2.0 Expo, they used CrowdVine as a social networking tool…I’ve posted about it before. And of course this same tool can be used to continue the conversation once the conference is over. Vyew is another tool that saves your conference in a book where you can continue to collaborate and discuss asynchronously, it also has a widget so this book can be embedded anywhere.
Stewart Mader suggests a wiki rather than a conference showbag.

What I found in my last conference call is that most of what we talked about in the call can also be done online, in our community page, when we are not present at the same time (asynchronous).

These are three types of things we did in the conference call, that cover blogs, forums, and wikis:

1. News, and status around the globe from each team member [BLOG]

Each team member had a turn to update the team on their status

- why do this in the conference call, when we can subscribe to the group status blog, or each others personal blogs
- any conversation can be carried out in the comments
- all can read and/or take part in conversations on their own time
- this saves time on the call to do other stuff
- to recall something just go to the blog archive

This is put nicely from the wiki perspective by the Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein case study:

“The teleconference used to be one and a half hours long, with much time wasted on bringing people up to speed on the week’s events. Now team members update themselves on the wiki, and that part of the teleconference takes five to ten minutes.

The rest of the teleconference is used for ideas generation, being innovative, talking about problems and looking at solutions, which is what the meeting should be about. It shouldn’t be about updating people as to what’s happened, but thinking about our clients and how we can service them.”

2. Discussion about issues people had since the last call [FORUM]

The team was asked if there was anything to discuss.

This is what a conference call is all about…conversation.

But, we should not wait for a conference call to discuss things, why not use the community forums everyday.

3. Brainstormed an idea for better usability for one of our systems [WIKI]

What we basically did was come up with a list for things to appear in a drop down menu, that would cover all reasons when a user logs a support call.

It was good to do this synchronously as we could discuss whilst we made the list, nothing beats this.

But I’m sure we could of started this list in a wiki, and used the comments for discussion, and then perhaps join the conference call to finalise our list.

Summary

I realised in one meeting that we covered the use of 3 of the most important social tools.

Why do we need so many meetings, when we can be collaborating and conversing perpetually?

The more we use social tools, the shorter our meetings can be.

Nothing beats synchronous group chats to discuss out issues, but we can sometimes do most of this discussion, updates, and collaboration online, and call a short meeting to finalise and action our findings.

Next time I talk about social tools adoption, I can tell people you are doing it anyway, only this is doing the same thing when we are not all in the same room.

We can still collaborate, discuss, update when we are not in the same room.

The fact is people are fine to physically participate in informing their status and what they’ve been up to, discuss issues, and collaborate…but when it comes to doing this online they feel weird being social (open and visibility). Instead they use email as it’s more closed and private, and they do all three things with email (status, discuss, collaborate) that they do in person at a meeting, it’s like email is their asynchronous voice.

Part of the adoption process is to help people get over the awkwardness of being social online, we have to guide them by informing them social tools are not extra work, it’s what you are doing anyway.

Rough Example 1

“In a meeting you share your status, well here is a blog to do the exact same thing…you can even share any experiences, or whatever you like here.” (Above-the-Flow)

“In a meeting you take part in discussions, well here is a forum to do the exact same thing.”

“In a meeting we collaborate and brainstorm, well here is a wiki to do the exact same thing.”

“Email is for private correspondence, whereas these three tools above are the online version for what we do in meetings.”

“An easy way to think about it, is if it’s not private information, then a community tool can be used. The next step is to work out whether you need a blog, forum or wiki.”

“Please use these three tools when the context of what you want to do is about, status/experience, discussion, or collaboration.”

“These social tools will live in a community website, which assimilates our meeting room, this allows us to still communicate and work together when we are not in meetings.”

Using the approach above we are introducing social tools not for the heck of it, or as a knowledge sharing drive, etc…
We are introducing them to solve issues specific issues, that way people will be more serious about them, and these are issues that effect the whole enterprise.

If the reason of introducing social tools was-we need to collaborate more, and share knowledge-people are going to say “yeah, I’ve heard that before”, “I’m not sharing what I know” (power/trust), and “I haven’t got time”.

Instead if we put it across as solving particular issues, it is received in a more welcoming way, as it’s like we are going to deploy tools that we help them with their problems…it doesn’t come across like we want something out of them as much.

Rough Example 2

“The company is experiencing email stress, as part of this company-wide problem we are introducing communities and social tools in order to relieve this email overload.”

“The company is also wanting to save money on global conference calls, and save people’s time by making these calls shorter and less frequent by using community tools.”

“Within a community will be status diaries, discussion forums, and group brainstorming pages.
Please use these tools in replacement of less time spent in meeting, and please don’t use email if you want to have a group discussion, brainstrorm/collaborate or tell others about your status…instead use the correct community tool.”

“Our introduction of communities are intended to help tackle two serious issues in our enterprise that effect everyone: email and meeting overload. Please use communities for any of these three types of action, rather than email or having yet another meeting.”

“These are two serious issues affecting everyone in the company, and if we don’t all do the right thing, we won’t be able to overcome our issues. The company is one big group, and if a few seeds ignore this message, it will spoil the intentions and dynamics of the group. So remember your behaviour is going to affect the whole.”

“As part of this initiative we will be looking at recognising people and groups that use communities, we feel there will be self recognition anyway. We will also look into this as being incorporated into our company aims, and job performance reviews.”

“To kick all this off I introduce the whole office to the “Office community”, the only communication via email will be a notification to visit an entry at the “Office community”.”

“Business units, interest groups, and task rooms will be set up on request in order to use community tools to get your work done.”

I’m more for a viral bottom-up approach, but even so at some stage you may want to get the message out to the whole company. Perhaps have it in your back pocket in case the bottom-up approach isn’t quite working as expected.

This office-wide approach has to be repeated to staff within their own teams, community leaders will be champions, facilitators, role models…

From the above example I did not once mention: social, enterprise 2.0, web 2.0, knowledge sharing, collaboration (oops, I did mention this), we need to capitialise on opportunities for competitive advantage, getting stuff out of people’s heads, blogs, wikis…
Instead I raised issues like email overload and shorter/less meetings (time) that can be alleviated using social tools.

The sell is about not doing anything extra, it’s only offering substitute tools, it’s focused on specific problems, and it hopes to come across as doing people a favour to help them work less frustrated.

To finish up here’s an excerpt by JP Rangaswami in relation to Facebook, but to me it covers what social tools and the use of communities are all about, this is the engagement we are trying to achieve…social productivity by leveraging the social capital:

“…you’ve taken what happened at the water cooler or at the coffee shop and made it persistent, made it shareable, made it teachable, made it learnable […] Now we have the ability to actually understand what these relationships are, how information and decision making migrates horizontally, laterally through an organization, rather than through the published hierarchies, how people really work, and what people do as part of that work […] to look at the flows that matter rather than the flows of the politics”

In a past post I talked about Re-purposing email, and after that I was going to give some examples, but I got sidetracked on what blogs an enterprise would have when it would come to communications, see Enterprise blog channels for communications.

If these examples seem universal, then perhaps we can start a “Re-purposing email wiki”…I’m sure Luis Suarez would agree.

Emails are not just about communications, sometimes they are about collanoration, tasks, sharing tips, etc…

This post is not just focusing on communication type blog posts, in fact it’s not focusing on blogs at all. It’s going through example emails and proposing how that email could be re-purposed.

What I have done is listed the email under the social tool it could of been delivered in.
Any notes have been denoted by an (*).

BLOG (team/project/personal/office-wide/community)

Announce

To:OFFICE-WIDE
From:IT
A new security patch on 25-12-07 will be implemented when you login, please let the PC do it’s thing

* This is an easy one, the general IT Office blog

To:OFFICE TEAM LEADS
From:Training Lead
We are running courses, on Access database training, please ask your team members if they are interested.

* All my boss would have to do is publish a blog post on our Team blog pointing to the post on the Corporate Training blog
- this would work as she would be subscribed to the CorporateTraining blog, and we would be subscribed to the Team blog
- in fact if I came across the training blog post (if I had access), I could potentially know before she even told me

To:TEAM and 2 other closely related teams
From: TEAM LEADER
A new banner and overview sheet has been included in our toolkit.
Please let others know.

* Perhaps this could be posted to our Team External blog, where we publish stuff that other team leads can see
- since our team and other team leads subscribe to this blog we will all be in the know
- each team lead can then let their members know by posting a brief blog post on their Team blogs, pointing to our TeamExternal blog.

To:OFFICE-WIDE
From:IT
There is now a colour printer in the office

* This is an easy one, the general IT Office blog

To:OFFICE-WIDE
From:Admin
Please welcome the new global manager for “social software” (hehe)

* This is an easy one, the general Office blog

To:PROJECT TEAM
From: A Project unit manager
The new project workspace has been set up at this URL.
Here is the getting started overview.

* This is an easy one, the general Project blog

To:TEAM
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
Here are the usage statistics for December

* This could be published on the Team blog
- then again this may be of no value to the Development team, or another sub-team, this is what lead me to my post on mesh blogs

To:OFFICE-WIDE
From:Admin
The trains are on strike this afternoon, you will need to make alternate arrangements

* This is an easy one, the general Office blog

To:OFFICE-WIDE
From:Admin
A staff member was mentioned in the national newspaper today for a job well done on one of our projects

* This is an easy one, the general Office blog

To:PROJECT TEAM
From: A Project unit manager
Our main repository does not support media files, please assist clients by using this alternative

* This is an easy one, the general Project blog

Status

To:OFFICE-WIDE
From:IT
We are having problems with internet access, we are speaking to our providers to resolve this

* This is an easy one, the general IT Office blog

To:OFFICE-WIDE
From:IT
The internet is now working

* This is an easy one, the general IT Office blog

Work

To:SUB-TEAM
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
If anyone is interested, here is a workaround to this problem

* Perhaps this could be posted to a Sub-Team blog,
- other sub-teams in the team can subscribe if they like

To:SUB-TEAM
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
The solution to this issue was a setting in Outlook

* Perhaps this could be posted to a Sub-Team blog,
- other sub-teams in the team can subscribe if they like

To:TEAM
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
I’m finding I’m learning a lot about our industry in Africa from my work on this deliverable….

* Perhaps this could be posted to a Sub-Team blog or personal blog
- others can subscribe if they like

FORUM (team/project/personal/office-wide/community)

Question

To:OFFICE-WIDE
From:Admin
We are looking for someone to offer their expertise on….

* Perhaps this could posted in a few community forums
- this way the whole office is not spammed

To:TEAM
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
Does anyone know how to do this excel formula…

* Perhaps this could posted to your team forum
- otherwise search for an excel or Office tips community that may have an excel wiki or excel blog

To:TEAM
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
Where can I find a file for our team logo?

* Perhaps this could posted to your team forum
- or IM blast a portion of your network

To:TEAM
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
What do people think of Windows Vista, what are your experiences?

* Perhaps this could posted to your team forum, or a community forum, it depends which audience you want to ask

To:TEAM
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
Where would I find information on…

* Perhaps this could posted to your team forum, or a community forum, it depends which audience you want to ask

To:PROJECT TEAM
From:1 PROJECT TEAM MEMBER
Does anyone want to car pool, I live outer eastern suburbs?

* Perhaps this could posted to the project forum, or the office forum, it depends which audience you want to ask
- or IM blast a portion of your network

IM

To:WORKER
From:WORKER
Can I use the Adobe writer on your computer?

* This is a quick question that can easily be done in IM, rather than an email in each inbox

To:WORKER
From:WORKER
I forgot to ask you was it cold when you were just outside…I’m about to go out.

* This is a quick question that can easily be done in IM, rather than an email in each inbox

To:WORKER
From:WORKER
The conference is about to start, where are you?

* This is a quick question that can easily be done in IM, rather than an email in each inbox

To:WORKER
From:WORKER
Are you free for a chat, I have 3 others that are free now.

* This is a quick question that can easily be done in IM, rather than an email in each inbox

WIKI

Collaborate

To:4 TEAM MEMBERS
From:TEAM LEADER
Can you all make a list of issues and email them to me and I will put them in one big list

* This could be a wiki task, see my post

To:4 TEAM MEMBERS
From:WORKER
Can you all review this attachment and send me the changes

* This could be a wiki task

To:4 TEAM MEMBERS
From:WORKER
Sorry, here’s another addition to the meeting agenda

* This could easily be added to the meeting agenda wikipage without emailing people

Knowledgebase

To:7 TEAM MEMBERS
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
If anyone is interested, here is a workaround to this problem

* This could easily be added to the solutions wiki
- or perhaps Tips and Tricks blog

To:7 TEAM MEMBERS
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
I can’t find the documentation on…where is it kept

* This wouldn’t happen if there was a centralised team wiki or a wiki that lists documents in the repository
- otherwise ask the question in the team forums

To:7 TEAM MEMBERS
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
When you load this in the database remember to change this element as the template is not yet fixed.
This is not documented in the procedures.

* This is a reply-email to someone who didn’t need to send the email request if there was a Workarounds wiki or blog
- otherwise ask the question in the team forums

Event

To:7 TEAM MEMBERS
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
I can’t find the email for when that workshop is taking place

* This wouldn’t happen if there was an Event wiki
- otherwise ask the question in the forums

To:TEAM
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
The workshop is kicking off today.
Here is the agenda.
This person cannot make it.
I will further email you the presentation attachments

* This wouldn’t happen if there was an Event wiki, with a wiki blog
- perhaps a community could be set-up for the workshop

Task

To: SUB-TEAM
From: 1 TEAM MEMBER
Could everyone please sign off that the new features have been tested and work

* This could be a wiki task, and perhaps posted on the wiki task blog
- rather than once person sending out an email to about 10 people with an attachment
- then each person sending back an email to say they have actioned it

To:7 TEAM MEMBERS
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
The test server will be going down for 3 days to be patched.
I will let you know the moment it is back up

* This could perhaps be posted on the wiki task blog
- or if it’s part of a bigger picture like a project where the wiki and blog could be in a community

To:3 TEAM MEMBERS
From:1 TEAM MEMBER
I am currently at stage 3 of my report, I’m now doing field research for stage 4.
Tomorrow I will fly to China, and need to find accomodation.
I will meet with client and let you know of the results.

* This could perhaps be posted on the wiki task blog
- or if it’s part of a bigger picture like a project where the wiki and blog could be in a community

To: SUB TEAM
From: TEAM LEADER
A new advanced editing feature will be rolled-out on 25-12-07
Please test this and report back.

* This could perhaps be posted on the wiki task blog
- or if it’s part of a bigger picture like a project where the wiki and blog could be in a community

To:3 TEAM MEMBERS
From:1 TEAM MEMBER

The server has been set up and the program installed, you can now proceed.
I had issues with the subscription module, so it’s not installed yet

* This could perhaps be posted on the wiki task blog
- or if it’s part of a bigger picture like a project where the wiki and blog could be in a community
- only members of this community will be subscribed saving other team members not having to be spammed
- so in fact this example is more a project communication, rather than a team communication
- I think it’s important that quick short-lived communities are set up to achieve tasks

To:1 TEAM MEMBER
From: TEAM LEADER
Can you please do this task, and report back and then contact Bill do take it onwards.

* This could perhaps be posted on the wiki task blog
- or if it’s part of a bigger picture like a project where the wiki and blog could be in a community
- just have to put up with other subscribers of the blog getting this post that is only intended for one person

To:1 TEAM MEMBER
From: TEAM LEADER
Can you please update the appendix on this report

* This could perhaps be posted on the wiki task blog
- or if it’s part of a bigger picture like a project where the wiki and blog could be in a community
- just have to put up with other subscribers of the blog getting this post that is only intended for one person

I’m finding with a lot of these tasks a more focused tool like Activities from Lotus Connections would be more appropriate.
Or a commuity or wiki that has social networking so you can message a member in the inbox of that wiki task, rather than your email inbox.
This way the task request is not separate from the task itself, you would only get a notification in your email inbox or perhaps a dashboard to alert you of your task.
It’s also bringing to mind Foldera…but then again there are heaps of task, workflow type tools.

The ultimate scenario is for a team to have a community site that includes:
- sub-communities
- social networking
- blogs
- forums
- wikis
- IM
- tasks

All your work and communications are together. The idea is not to have stuff in your email related to where the work lives, it should all be open and together…no siloes and no people out of the loop.

What actually is the email inbox?

It can be the latest private correspondence, news, questions, announcements, conversations, document collaboration, tasks, notifications etc…

This is a lot of different types of content coming into the one stream, where it’s hard to sort out priority, and also hard to organise what you’ve done, what the status is on what your doing, and where to find what your working on.

My post, Instead of sending an email…, poses that a better way is to receive this content in context
eg. IM for quick questions, forums for discussion, blogs for know-how and communications, wikis for collaboration, RSS for notifications, etc…

Now you have various places to go to do your work…email can be used for one-to-one private correspondence and for invite links
eg. you are invited to collaborate on this wiki, here is the link

Instead of getting an email about project status, a new forum topic, I check my RSS Reader where I subscribe to blogs and forums.

This has split my email inbox stream into various other services, and most of the time I can reply or take part within these other services.

And of course this content is in the open for all to benefit from, for conversation to evolve the content, and I can discover people, connect and learn.

Email stress is something that is relevant to everyone, but what are people doing about it besides re-appropriating content elsewhere as I have suggested above?

There are lots of ways to be productive to keep your inbox down, but this is still putting up with the firehose problem, you are just putting up with the problem by implementing a nifty method to deal with it. Why should you have to deal with it, why not treat the cause?

A comment I left on one of my blog posts, referncing Jack Vinson, is that the real issue is the “input problem”. Email is just a tool, it’s the way we are using it, that’s stressing us. What has to happen is a policy, rule, social norm on group behaviour using emails. If you tell Bill to use a blog or IM sometimes instead of email, then you don’t need to solve your inbox problem as Bill is doing it for you, by re-purposing the content in the first place.

We don’t use RSS Readers at my work, we are using email to subscribe to blogs and forums. This is OK as you can post replies and comments from within your email, you can even post a forum topic and blog post via email…people like this.
We are in the open, having conversations, discovering people, creating serendipity, which is doing the right thing as we are leveraging the social capital, creating a corporate memory, creating conditions for emergence, etc…
We are starting to collaborate with wikis.
NOTE: this is not enterprise wide, we are in pilot mode

Even though I still have the problem of all this stuff (notifications) coming into my inbox, at least it doesn’t live in my inbox, at least I’m not actioning stuff as a new email. Once I read the email I delete it, as I know where the content lives.

One other benefit I forsee is that when people get the hang of blogs, I won’t be pushed so much stuff anymore, I can choose to subscribe by email. We already have an issue with a flooded inbox with stuff that’s relevant, last thing I want is occupational spam.

Another option over the RSS Reader subscription model is to have profiles and be able to network by subscribing to people:
- your profile
- what your subscriptions are doing

Luis Suarez’s email detox posts and podcasts (and another) are a perfect example of this re-purposing email for both personal well being and social benefit.

One thing that stuck in my mind is when Luis said he was sick of answering the same question all the time.
- he would rather answer a question once in a community forum or blog post where it is visible, and allow people to search or be pointed to it
- if the question was asked in public perhaps others could see it and answer it if Luis was unavailable, or didn’t know the amswer himself

This is similar to our support database where people log calls…if I can’t answer a call or I’m absent at least someone else can see it in the cue.
When people email a call, I have been instructed to ask them to log the call, please.

Luis is proposing this concept to any sort of question, just search the blogs or forums, if no luck then choose a forum to ask the question, or ask your network.

He is also doing what I do with support calls that are emailed to me, he is letting people know that what they just emailed him could of been done by IM, or a forum topic, or a blog post, or a wiki, etc…and he is letting them know by using this social tool to deliver the message.

Since our community pilot I have been doing the same.
Everytime I get an email that is an announcement I remind that person that they could have blogged it.
Everytime I get an email that is a question or discussion query I remind that person that they could have posted a forum topic.
Everytime I get an email that requires a more synchronous feel I ring that person or answer using IM.
Everytime I get and email that asks to collaborate on something I inform that person that we can use a wiki.

My intention is that once all community leaders discipline their members, they will hopefully re-habitualise (is that a word?) people into using the right tool for the right job.

Another thing that came across is that “email detox” is a great selling term to get people social online. Email stress affects everyone, and a process/program to help with that is a great disguise for getting social tools adopted. It will soon be realised that email detox is just a by product of social tools, and the real benefit is being connected.

What if you want to annouce something and some people you want to reach don’t subscribe to the blog?

Firstly if it’s a team blog, perhaps you could subscribe the group email to the blog.
But sometimes a team announcement may affect another party, in a past post I suggested that if you can post a blog my email, just include these other people in the address bar as well.
The end of the email can contain a link to the blog homepage so these people are aware that the content is archived, and not siloed.

How do I share links with people?

If I want to share a link with a friend that is not private correspondence, how do I do it?
- and what if she doesn’t subscribe to my bookmarks, or what if I haven’t bookmarked this link anyway, but I just want to tell them about it

This is what I like about the Facebook comment wall…I can share a link with one person, but it’s public.
- others can see it when they visit that page
- others will be aware of this via their News feed.

What about if I want to share a link or an email someone sent me, with three other people?

I wonder what Luis does for this type of communication.

Wiki idea

I’m thinking perhaps we should do something similar to Andrew McAfee’s latest post with example scenarios of when a social tool would be beneficial.

Perhaps we can create a wiki for re-purposing email examples:
- blog
- forum
- wiki
- IM
- tasks

And also have wikipages for each wikipage above, example:
Blog
- status
- announcement
- news
- etc…

I have started going through my current inbox and am filing emails in re-purposing folders.

I’m finding that I don’t know where to file some emails…maybe we can have a wikipage for emails that we don’t know how they could be re-purposed. This is especially happening with task type emails.

If a task is to request the team to sign off on the latest server upgrade testing, then a blog post is OK.

But what if the task is just for me to carry out something on my own and report back…I guess this is where something like the Activities module of Lotus Connections is the right social tool.

In some cases a task request may be a question to me and cc:’d to two people in another team. In this case the requestee has perhaps spoken to these two people and has said I’ll email John and cc: you.
I really think that on-the-fly forums are essential, as not all work is done within a team or community. Sometimes you are cross-collaborating so you want to have a quick task and discussion space quickly set-up rather than resort to email.
Or maybe the task could be a wikipage and the comments can be used for discussion.

I’ll perhaps do a follow-up post with some examples of the type of content we could include in a “re-purposing email wiki”

Related

Wiki for gathering a list, and the need for comments and notifications
Blogs can solve cross-departmental communication silos
Email is not the centre of my universe!
Email needs to know it’s place
Enterprise email and blog processes

Request

I was sent an email today along with 5 other people.

The email read something like, “Can everyone please email me a list of issues with [our system] and then [this person] will go through all the emails make a list in a document.”

This just screamed wiki to me.

This was an In-the-Flow collaborative process that could put email to shame.

I emailed Reply-to-All with a request to use a wiki, a good idea I thought, especially since we are piloting wikis.

I got the go ahead to create a wiki…”but hurry because we need this quick.”

Right on, a wiki is hawaiian for “quick” (a private laugh with myself at the time)

I created a wiki

I listed all my issues on the wiki index page.

Then I published a wikipage for each issue.

I had to go to a meeting so I left a note on the wiki index page that I would be back at 2.30pm.

When I got back I noticed some others had made contributions.

Someone made a contribution by Reply-to-All to the initial email.
They said that my contributions to the wiki covered what they would of contributed, but they also wanted to ask a question and also add one item to the list…so they sent an email instead of contributing to the wiki
I took the essence of it and put it on the wiki on their behalf…we need to discipline people out of old habits.

At this point I’m feeling that the lack of a comments module on the wiki is making our collaboration only half successful, as whatever the object is; a document, a wiki, you need to converse about this object, and you want this inhouse next to the object.

When I was finished, I left a note at the end of the index page

“John - I have finished all my contributions”

Later on I remembered another issue, so I whacked it in.

Then I discovered another issue and added it.

I decided to look at recent changes and noticed someone left a comment within a wikipage I created
(our wiki doesn’t have comments, instead at the end of a wikipage we are creating a line and under that line we can write comments/notes)

Later on I was with a colleague and noticed they were emailing the person in charge about a wikipage, ie. they were leaving a comment.
I suggested they still put it in the wiki in our workaround comments thread, and also email the person that way you are pinging that person, and other users of the wiki can visit and notice your contributions.

Again, I’m finding comments 50% of what makes a wiki work.

What we feel we really need

Comments
-The wiki use case was creating a communal list, so scratching a linear comment thread at the end of each actual wikipage was OK, but if the wikipage was something more presentable like a communal glossary then we don’t really want comments scratchings on the actual page, we’d rather a comments module.

Notifications
-If we do scratch a comment on an actual wikipage, we want to be notified by email (or RSS)
- and what about subscribing to the page itself it see if anyone has made changes to a page (you can go to the recent changes page, but having this as a delivered notification digest would be good)

eg. Wikispaces

Notifications for whole wiki
- Edits and Discussions
- Edits Only
- Discussions Only

Notifications for a wikipage
- Page Edits
- Page Discussion

What I liked about using wikis

It was never too late to add issues.
If I emailed my contributions, I would of had to email another two times for my two extra contributions.

I also didn’t have to email that I was in a meeting and I would resume my contributions at a later time.
And again I didn’t need to email that I was finished.
The person who left a comment/note on the wikipage I created didn’t have to email me, as he wrote it in the wiki.

I also discovered issues others contributed.
Which I would have not seen if we did not use a wiki, as they would have emailed it to the person in charge.

Yeah, no crap emails!

I just visit the wiki to see the progress and conversations.

In the ideal wiki I’d also be able to be notified of new edits and comments.

No need for the person in charge to spend time compiling all the emails, deleting the duplicates, and cutting ‘n pasting a list into a document.

The wiki is used for the process and is also the finished product, you can even export to another file type.

Yeah for wikis!
Yeah for no unnecessary emails!
Yeah for collaboration!
Yeah for visibility!
Yeah for conversations!
Yeah for notifications!
Yeah for a central home!
Yeah for transparency!
Yeah for simplicity!
Yeah for a ready-made end product!
Yeah for wikis!

UPDATE: I just realised I experienced the classic CommonCraft Wikis in Plain English

There’s a few related memes at the moment on learning and familiarising yourself in a new environment or situation, this also applies to methods used in find things and getting things done in your current environment.

Not talking just explicit stuff, but tacit stuff like:

- “didn’t you know, when that happens, you gotta use this workaround”

- “goto Jill, I know she is in IT, but she knows more than anyone about travel medicine”

- “that sort of informal information is stored on this spreadsheet kept in this share drive in this folder, it would be good if we could have it on the Intranet”

Examples

• A new employee getting to know the place, the right people and information to get their job done

- Stewart Mader - using wikis
- Dave Snowden - finding stories via a social networking quest
- Shawn Callahan - social learning

• Working with a new team
• Mergers and Acquisitions

- Dennis McDonald - blogs and social networks
- Thomas Vander Wal- social bookmarks, blogs and wikis

• Finding the right person, and the right information

- Gia Lyons - expert locator, blogs, bookmarks, social networks (Lotus Connections)

This post shows the great value in tapping into the social capital to find the right person and information.
It describes two forms of social behaviour: Lurk-n-Learn, and Connect-n-Collaborate.
Check out the examples in how you get things done, how you find stuff, discover, collaborate, etc…

There are a few screencasts on Lotus Connections, this one I think exemplifies the great power of finding the right people and information based on a participation culture in a social ecosystem…also check out Lotus Greenhouse.

More from Gia:

“You can also include Atlas for Lotus Connections, an add-on asset not included in the license, that does the following:

Visualize and analyze social networks in an organization
Identify the shortest social path to reach someone
Find expertise across extended networks
Visualize and manage personal networks”

Social tools empower the individual to discover and make sense of all the people in our company, without them, each person is losing opportunity in finding a person or their content in helping them get things done. We’ve all heard of re-inventing the wheel syndrome, or, after the fact (”didn’t you know so and so, are an expert who could of helped you”).

Lotus Connections is more than a directory, every person has a profile page, on that page you can read about:

- who they are
- who they report to
- project they have worked on
- communities they are in
- keywords they have tagged themselves with (expert tags)
- keywords others have tagged them with (expert tags)
- latest blog posts, bookmarks
- contact details

Scenario

You are after an expert in the new technologies in “nuclear reactor design” who know’s the Russian language:

- look up the keyword tag “nuclear” in the expert locator (profiles)
- you find 7 people, and 2 communities about the topic “nuclear”
(it also displays related tags like “decomissioning”, “uranium”)
- you look into each of these 7 profiles and notice 1 of them speak Russian
- you look at their bookmarks (web-pages they have saved, probably when they were researching stuff)
- you look at their blog and see that their latest posts are about new technologies on this topic
(this person is not only an expert, but is up-to-date on the latest methods)
- while you are there you can visit the 2 communities to see discussions, blogs, forums, documents, etc…
(perhaps you may find useful information and people in these communities)

All this without having to be linked by hierarchy or a team, or limited to just the people you know or your office location, or having to broadcast an email…accidental collision some say.

Now every person in the enterprise can find people they need to get things done by leveraging the social capital, this is sure to get the best person for the job, cut down your cycle time, and save you money…no more lost opportunities just because we couldn’t “see through” our organisation.

Not only is Profiles an expert locator, but it connects to the other social components of Lotus Connections, we can find out more about a person: websites they save (bookmarks), what they are up to (blog), communities they are enagaging with, etc…

I guess you can say that profile pages lead to social networks (something Lotus Connections will absorb with its Beehive product), which is how the millennial generation get things done (they really don’t use email, they find it too static).

For a more business perspective check out this presentation, The Business Value Of IBM Social Software.
Contrast this social way of getting things done compared to an Intranet, email and a Document Management System, which environment would you choose

I opened my RSS Reader today and read a couple of articles in relation to collaboration, how it differs to emergence, and whether a collaborative culture is a pre-requisite for companies to use social tools.
If you want a summary of the essence of this post read, Enterprise 2.0 culture.

Personal InfoCloud

COLLABORATION

Thomas Vanderwal illustrates that collaboration is about individuals coming together to contribute their bit to an object, “…but it done so with everybody working together to build one understanding.”

The following gets to the heart of it:

“The depth and of understanding is flattened - if the object is a picture of a sunset, once it is annotated as being a sunset there is no value in many others making the same statement. Quite often a wiki page on a subject is used as an example of a collaborative effort.”

The value and aim:

“The collaborative understanding has value as it allows for capturing consensus and usually aims at completeness.”

COLLECTIVE

A collective is where “the individual’s voices and annotations are held separate as each individual is working as an individual.”

I really like that he used the term “Collective” rather than a relationship term like “Networks”, for a review see a comparison and a clarification.

The following gets to the heart of it:

“The individuals annotations and contributions can be aggregated or collected (a helpful connection is the collective is based on collecting) and surfaced as an aggregate.”

The Value and aim:

“The ability for anybody and everybody to tag and annotate and object and have their perspective captured is a very strong value for each individual who has hopes of refinding the object in their own perspective and context, as well as having others whom have similar understanding find the same object.”

The above is in relation to social bookmarking and folksonomies, but anything can be tagged. A blogosphere can be examined by tags where people are writing their own individual stuff, but in aggregate, perhaps by a tag cloud, we can see emerging patterns of things that are being talked about a lot or a little, and this analysis can bring like people together, and help with decision making.

This succinct difference I get is, collaboration is everyone adding a perspective to the same object, whereas a collective is acting on their own, but when we aggregate the collective information we get value out of seeing potential emerging patterns and the value of serendipity and discovery such as browsing tags or users, or searching to see similar stuff…plus we act like a hive where we do some gardening on tag terms evolving a less amibguous and tidy folksonomy, acting like there is a group agenda when really there isn’t, it’s moreso a collective intelligence.

Transparent Office

Michael Indinopulos states that, “Culture is a destination on the collaboration journey, not a prerequisite for taking the first step.”

He goes on to say that non-collaborative cultures may be introduced to a collaborative social tool such as a wiki, as a way to get things done, “…to streamline and simplify existing business interactions within existing organizational silos.”

From using a social tool the culture may begin to manifest or grow:

“What tends to happen then, often quite organically, is that the members of the wiki start interacting in new and different ways enabled by the wiki. Then the wiki is discovered by colleagues in other groups who work with participants of the wiki and want to be connected to the network. As they join in, the wiki starts generating new interaction patterns and norms that cut across organizational silos. Voila! You now have cultural change, as workers collaborate in new ways with their colleagues across organizational silos.”

He has described in an earlier post ( which I covered), the above scenario demonstrating an in-the-flow process of use of a wiki (social tools)…this means using social tools to complement and perhaps to substitute currents tools that are used to get things done.

What is harder is above-the-flow where in indeed we need a social culture as this involves people sharing personal insight, ie. participating and contributing your experiences, thoughts, opinions, reviews (thinking out loud, work in progress). All this stuff is related to your job experience, but in the end if you don’t participate in the Above-the-Flow scenario, you can still get your tasks done.
This means Above-the-Flow really requires a social organisational culture, and we all know the benefits of sharing personal know-how…we get to tap into the expertise of the workplace, a kind of collective intelligence or hi