A Compound of Alchymie

Knowledge Work and Investors in People (IiP)

I’m interested in knowledge work as a subset of knowledge management.  Knowledge management implies a command and control model while knowledge work implies an approach that puts people (knowledge workers) at its core. On this theme there was an interesting piece in the Guardian on 13th November by Nick Pandya. It briefly covered the launch of the new ‘Investors in People’ (IiP) standard which aims to improve the role managers have in training and development and also to encourage employers to involve staff in the corporate decision-making process. Research, conducted recently amongst 700 senior managers on behalf of Investors in People, shows that 75% of senior managers believe effective development of employees will be vital to the future productivity of their organisations, but that only one in three actually put people development at the top of their list when faced with competing priorities, such as new technology, knowledge of competitors and research and development . But unless I'm missing something here all these so called competing priorities are actually people issues - it's just that from a conventional management viewpoint they don't appear to be - at least not directly.

The new IiP standard is criticised however by John Seddon of Vanguard Consulting, a consultant who has adapted the principles behind Toyota’s production system for service organisations. He says:

“The IiP standard is based on the flawed assumption that people make a difference [wait there’s more…]. The new standard amounts to no more than doing the wrong thing righter [sic]. The fact is 95% or more of performance issues are governed by the system, the way work is designed and managed – people can’t make a significant contribution if their system won’t let them.”

This is especially true of knowledge work. Today’s knowledge workers are frequently stifled by the restrictive environments in which they have to operate – and no amount of persuasion will make people share their knowledge when the work system is so badly flawed. IiP, new or old, essentially fiddles with the old world view of employees - what we need is a totally new approach to leveraging the potential of our greatest asset – our people. The potential rewards are enormous. There is an enormous latent ‘knowledge potential’ in our organisations – if we can look at work in new ways then we can unleash this potential and make businesses more productive and help people feel more valued. Hopefully IiP will eventually see this and then it really will deserve it's title.

ExLink: Investors in People
ExLink: Vanguard Consulting

The New KM

This evening I ordered ‘Key Issues in the New Knowledge Management’ by Mark McElroy and Joseph Firestone which I came across in a discussion on KnowledgeBoard. Looking on Amazon I see that the introductory chapter deals head-on with the issue of a definition of KM and also investigates the crossover between KM and IM. Quote from the Amazon synopsis - "how you define knowledge determines how you manage it" – naturally! Should be an interesting read – I will review it in a future entry. Anybody else read this book? Unusually there are no reviews on Amazon.co.uk.

Review of KM Europe 2004, Amsterdam

Just back online after a very inspiring trip to the Knowledge Management Europe 2004 Conference in Amsterdam. As with any conference the sessions varied from really great to really poor but on balance I got quite a lot from the sessions I attended and my fellow participants this year were a really interesting bunch of people from all over the world (including South Africa, Canada, India, Austria, The Netherlands, Germany, Russia, France and Australia).

Highlights included a far ranging opening keynote which was nominally entitled ‘Knowledge Navigation’ – a high speed tour through the intellectual capital landscape by the self-proclaimed grandfather of intellectual capital himself - Leif Edvinsson. I recorded his words in a ConceptMap (which I will make available from this weblog) but many of the areas covered simply weren’t joined-up very much, so my map is a little chaotic. Some key words and phrases from his talk included ‘insourcing’, ‘innovation ecology’, ‘psychologically supportive design’ and ‘brainstilling’ (as opposed to brainstorming). Claudia Schmitz – an ex SKA colleague and energetic KM consultant in Germany summed up his approach by saying “He’s a jumper.” I couldn’t have put it more succinctly myself.

Karl Wiig also spoke on ‘People-Focused KM’ – sadly I missed his keynote but did get the opportunity to speak with him and get a signed copy of his latest book ‘People-Focused Knowledge Management’ – review to follow once I’ve got through it – I’m afraid that it’s quite intense but there is a lot of original thinking in there so I will persevere.

At the ECLO event we had an interesting presentation on ‘Return on Thinking’ from Ruud Bolsius and one on ‘Personal Knowledge Management’ (or PKM) facilitated by KnowledgeBoard. As far as PKM is concerned no one was clear exactly what it meant but we had an interesting Open Space session trying to create some sort of shared view as to what it could be. The results from the session will be shared via a ‘wiki’ – a sort of group developed web site. I’ll link to it as soon as it hits the web.

‘The Vendors’ were promoting their usual systems approach to KM and it just made me more certain that most of what people are now calling KM is actually IM in a shiny new suit. Of course the acid test depends upon your definition of exactly what knowledge is but I’m increasingly behind the idea that knowledge resides in people’s heads and nowhere else. I’m on the look-out for a knowledge litmus test that I can use whenever I come across IM being positioned as KM. My first step will be to have a sign made containing the words ‘NOT KM’ that I can hold up at conferences whenever I see IM masquerading as KM. Luckily for me I’m interested in IM too so it was good to see some useful tools from people like Addept and OpenText (who’s ‘KM’ solution had high praise from Siemens). Google were also there to promote their ‘Google Search Appliance’ – basically a ‘yellow black-box’ that brings Google strength searches to your organisation – for a price (but I’ve forgotten what the price was). Hardly KM though? Comments anyone?

Away from the conference Amsterdam had its usual easygoing vibe. It’s not always the smartest looking of cities but like my home town Dublin it has a great feel and is a tremendously cosmopolitan place. And the Dutch have wonderfully open minds – if only they could export some of that freethinking to the UK along with the Heineken!

Plans for KM Europe, Amsterdam 2004

Next Monday (8th November) sees the start of the principal KM conference in Europe.

I will be there together with at least four of my colleagues from the European Knowledge Group. EKG was formed at the beginning of 2004 by an enthusiastic group of ex Sveiby Knowledge Associates – me included. I first came across SKA at an earlier KM Europe Conference in London in 2002 and loved the experiential learning tools which had been developed by Karl-Erik Sveiby and Celemi. I’m still a big fan of the tools and simulations - they provide a welcome contrast to much of the consultant speak that often surrounds KM. If you work in KM – or in some sort of knowledge capacity – you should try Apples & Oranges or Tango.

Anyway, I’m expecting lots of consultant speak next week plus an avalanche of new KM tools and systems from the technologists. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not caught up in the polarisation of KM. I believe that KM needs approaches that balance people and technology elements, but like most KM practitioners I worry that those new to KM often get sold a technical solution way before they have the capability to use it (and I don’t mean knowing which keys to press). It’s a little like my 15 year old son learning to drive in a Ferrari F60! As a technologist myself though I will be interested to see what new technical advances have been made with search algorithms, expert locators and knowledge aggregators – I’ll report back on the latest in KM ICT after the conference.

As far as the input from consultants and academics goes I guess that social network analysis and complexity theory (Dave Snowden’s new baby) will feature – especially as they represent such ideal topics for the people-centric KM camp. Storytelling is still around. Karl-Erik Sveiby is focussing on collaboration as well as presenting his KMAP tool. Personal KM (or PKM as it’s now been labelled) may be discussed – Karl Wiig is talking about People-Focussed KM – I guess as opposed to Organisation Focussed KM - or EKM as I saw it called on KnowledgeBoard recently (with, I assume, the ‘E’ representing ‘enterprise’). One wonders how many KMs we’ll end up with.

Refreshingly, my recommendation for the three days doesn’t have KM or even knowledge in the title at all. It’s the ECLO (European Consortium for the Learning Organisation) micro-event on Wednesday 10th. I literally stumbled across their event at last year’s conference and was richly rewarded with some genuinely insightful viewpoints on learning within organisations. Quirky maybe, but lots of food for thought and a great break from all that techno KM (or should I introduce a new label - TKM).

ExLink: KM Europe 2004
ExLink: European Knowledge Group
ExLink: ECLO

Spend less time on the M25

I'm interested in collaborative technologies and specifically those that enable us to work a lot smarter. I've spent enough time on the M25 (London's Orbital Motorway for those who haven't actually experienced it) to think about how much better things could be if we moved information, knowledge and ideas around without always moving the people. I'm also a passionate photographer and love experimenting with new creative approaches to photography so expect to see some more of my photos in this weblog. Separate photoblog coming soon (but don't hold your breath).

From a fellow 'Knowledge Activist'

Some interesting things are highlighted in today’s newletter from a fellow knowledge activist - David Gurteen.

I’ve come across David at many KM events – may even possibly have introduced myself – but you know what these events are like, you get back home with a pocketful of business cards and a real person is reduced to a 85 x 55 mm memory! If only business cards could talk – if only you could take them out for a walk or down to the pub (there’s a new media solution somewhere there but I don’t want to go there just now). Anyway, you can find out more about David by checking out his comprehensive web site – for now, let’s get back to the point.

In his e-mail David picks up on an interesting web site called ‘ChangeThis’. In a nutshell, “We're on a mission to spread important ideas and change minds.” Not too tough a challenge then! Also, “ChangeThis is a vehicle not a publisher.” ChangeThis packages and promotes ‘manifestos’ via the site. Manifestos are published by both well known people (like Tom Peters) or not very well known people – like you and me. If you have a manifesto you can submit a proposal – and if the Editorial Board decide it’s good, and the people want it (by voting for it) – it gets published in a very neat PDF layout.

David likes ‘Do Less’ by Set Godin (I do too) but for a really serious read try ‘A Physics of Ideas’ by Nova Spivack, a manifesto on information overload. Don’t go there now though – you’ll waste the rest of the day. It’s cost me half my morning!

David also picks up on the ‘Personal KM’ workshop being hosted by KnowledgeBoard at KM Europe this year (8-10th Nov). It’s something he is interested and I am too – especially after I read Mick Cope’s book a couple of years ago ‘Know your value?’. I’m at KM Europe so will post an entry upon my return – or may even try finding an internet café somewhere in deepest Amsterdam between the ‘kamers’ and the ‘coffee houses’.

in case you ever do read this david im not sure that the ee cummings approach to writing style will be welcomed in all quarters eat shoots and leaves anyone [sic. punctuation omitted for effect]

ExLink: www.changethis.com
ExLink: www.gurteen.com

TangoNet - A Knowledge Business Simulation

Last week I co-facilitated a ‘knowledge business simulation’ for a diverse group of MBA students at the University of Greenwich. Members of the group represented at least 10 different nations with a good proportion from Africa and Asia. We used a PC based simulation called TangoNet. It’s an online version of the excellent board based Tango simulation which was developed by Celemi over 10 years ago. My colleague from the European Knowledge Group, Graham Fernee has been using this simulation for a while but with an all new version (Version 2.0) about to be launched interest in the product is beginning to grow – helped especially by a renewed investment of energy and cash by its co-creator, one of the founding fathers of knowledge management, Karl-Erik Sveiby.

Most of the MBA students had only basic awareness of knowledge management (KM) but by the end of the 6 hour session they were enthusiastically using terms such as knowledge flows, intangible assets, and knowhow capital. Since TangoNet lets you run a realistic knowledge business in a safe environment most of the students enjoyed the opportunity to test their business management skills against the computer and against each other. Feedback from the session has been excellent – and I believe that it provides a superb opportunity to explore some of the underlying issues that make or break successful knowledge businesses. I’ll re-visit TangoNet and also its big brother Tango again in this weblog so please stay tuned.

ExLink: www.tangonet.se
ExLink: www.ekgroup.co.uk