Wrap-Up of Knowledge Management 2.0 Symposium

It was a great series of presentations at the Boston KM Forum Symposium: KM 2.0 – Real or Hype?.

All of presenters danced around the question of what is knowledge management 2.0 and the relationship between knowledge management and enterprise 2.0 . I expected that. There are so many different definitions for the two terms. (see Ray Sims collection of 57 Definitions of Knowledge Management). The relationship between the terms depends on how you define the terms.

As those of you have been reading my posts and publications know, I think Enterprise 2.0 and Knowledge Management belong together. (See Law Firm Knowledge Management 2.0; Tom Davenport also thinks so: Enterprise 2.0: The New, New Knowledge Management?) Knowledge Management and Enterprise 2.0 share similar goals, similar issues and similar tools.

Knowledge Management 2.0 is more personal focused. The tools are focused on helping the individual capture, find and categorize knowledge as part of their daily work. Knowledge management should not be about some central repository for you to deposit stuff for others to use. Knowledge management should be about a repository for you. That repository just happens to be easily accessible by others in the firm.

It was great to have some face-to-face time with Jessica Lipnack, Ray Sims, KellyPuffs, Lynda Moulton and Larry Chait. I also had a chance to meet some new people and hopefully grow some new connections. (Since a common theme from the symposium was connecting people with people.)

The agenda and links to my notes from each presentation:

Web 2.0 Tools for Knowledge Management - Mark Frydenberg, Senior Lecturer, Computer Information Systems Department, Bentley College

KM and Web 2.0 - A User’s Perspective - Ray Sims, formerly Director of Knowledge Management at Novell

Enterprise 2.0 = KM 2.0? - Dan Keldsen, Director, Market Intelligence, AIIM

Case Study: The Siemens BeFirst Portal - Jeff Cram, Co-Founder and Managing Director, and David Aponovich, Content Management Strategist, ISITE Design

Moving Beyond Web 2.0 Resistance - Jessica Lipnack, CEO and co-founder, NetAge Inc.

Wrap-up: KM 2.0 - Why We Should Care - Larry Chait, Chait & Associates

Wrap-up: KM 2.0 - Why We Should Care

Summary of Presentation
Boston Knowledge Management Forum Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge
What is KM 2.0? Is it real, or just vendor hype?

Larry Chait, Chait & Associates

He thinks Web 2.0 is a catchall for a set of user-driven applications and the philosophy behind them. He hates the 1.0 , 2.0 and 3.0 labels, but since everyone is using the terms he does also.

Larry has seen KM move from technology-centric (capture store and access) to people-centric (after action reviews and peer assists) to social computing.

He thinks "2.0" is a cliche, but there really is a big change happening in the way people are communicating and there are big changes happening in the tools.

The issue he sees is trying to reconcile official taxonomies and user-generated folksonomies.

Larry points out that the use of collaboration tools is driven more by culture than technology. The tools will not do anything by themselves. He also points out that different tools do different things well. You need a suite of tools to get things done.

Larry raises five caveats: delivering business value, ensuring privacy, governing behavior, managing personal time, and overcoming cultural barriers. (I had to call Larry out on this. This caveats apply to all new technologies. He pointed out that the bad things are all now easy to find. I countered that the good stuff is also much easier to find.)

Moving Beyond Web 2.0 Resistance

Summary of Presentation
Boston Knowledge Management Forum Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge
What is KM 2.0? Is it real, or just vendor hype?

Jessica Lipnack, CEO and co-founder, NetAge Inc.

Twenty years ago, an aspiring social network analyst asked us for the names of everyone in our database. He had a program that could link them up, he said, help them find one another, spark new connections. How intrusive, I thought. Who’d want that? Years later, he would go on to design one of the major social networking sites. I resisted and resisted – and then something happened: someone I trusted explained blogging to me, someone else invited me onto Facebook…and the rest is what brings me to Boston KM Forum. This talk will be about resistance to Web 2.0, even among people like myself who’ve been online forever, and what happens when that resistance gives way to powerful experiences.

Jessica got a round of applause for not using any PowerPoint slides.

People have lots of fear of the unknown. That resistance is hard to overcome. It is hard to have people confront their fears. Change is happening fast and people need to adapt to change. But people are generally reluctant to change.

Jessica went on to share some of the changes that are being instigated by General Caldwell. He thinks the army's mission is changing and the soldiers tools need to change. General Caldwell is an advocate of soldiers using Web 2.0 tools. This flies in the face of other people in the armed forces who are looking to block soldiers access to blog sites and Web 2.0 sites.

Jessica got intrigued by blogging when Bill Ives explained to her that his blog had become his personal knowledge tool.

Surprisingly, for a person focusing on networks, Jessica was reluctant to join sites like LinkedIn and Facebook. The comment she heard that there are ways to stay connected without picking up the phone.

She asks that we be very sympathetic to those who are resistant to change and resistant to web 2.0. Bring them friends and ways to get connected.

Case Study: The Siemens BeFirst Portal

Summary of Presentation at
Boston Knowledge Management Forum Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge.
What is KM 2.0? Is it real, or just vendor hype?

Jeff Cram, Co-Founder and Managing Director, and David Aponovich, Content Management Strategist, ISITE Design

The Siemens BeFirst Portal provides solid lessons in Enterprise 2.0/KM 2.0. Recognized as one of the best examples of how a large enterprise uses Web 2.0 principles in a business context, the portal connects 2,000 sales and marketing staff to collaborate, create, search and find corporate “approved” information assets and previously untapped “tribal knowledge.” The project was recognized by AIIM for its 2008 Carl B. Nelson Best Practice Awards; it was one of only three large-company projects nominated for recognition.

Jeff and David put on a show and tell for the enterprise 2.0 deployment that ISITE Design created for Siemens Communications Systems. They also plan to point out the mistakes as well as the successes in the project.

The company had thousands of sales and marketing people and their knowledge spread across the world and seven different languages. They need a way to share and a way to find the best knowledge and assets.

In planning the deployment they gave a lot of thought to the participants in the company. IN particular they found Forrester's ladder of participation by Charlene Li on social media to be a useful model. Rather than a business-to-employee model, they envisioned an employee-to-employee model. The vision was to capture the tribal knowledge, allowing employees to easily contribute and organize information.

They based the technology on Sitecore web content management, plus a Google search appliance and microsoft.net custom programming.

The platform has some high level taxonomy, largely focused on product lines. At the document level, there is an ability to rate and comment on the document. They also allow tagging of documents and other content. They found the need to identify content as HQ authorized content to separate it from user generated content.

They did some custom programming on top of the Google search to provide for faceting search. (Apparently the company had already purchased the Google search appliance.)

They found these cultural barriers to Enterprise 2.0

• How can I maintain control of the content
• How to convince stakeholders to give up control
• How to deal with different countries and languages
• How to ensure quality

The multiple country and language site posed some big challenges. They decide to have local country sites within the global site.

The other challenge (and big challenge for Enterprise 2.0) is reconciling a taxonomy with the folksonomy of user-generated content.

The more radical part of the project was the creation of the communities area. Anyone could create a community, make it open or closed and pull users in. These small communities and they information stored in them lived inside the larger portal. Therefore, the community content was also indexed as part of the larger portal.

Enterprise 2.0 = KM 2.0?

My Summary of the Presentation
Boston Knowledge Management Forum Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge
What is KM 2.0? Is it real, or just vendor hype?

Dan Keldsen, Director, Market Intelligence, AIIM (also of BizTechTalk)

AIIM’s first-quarter 2008 “Market IQ” on Enterprise 2.0 has just been completed, and a survey of 441 people revealed a subset who are having more success with Enterprise 2.0 than the general survey population. Does Enterprise 2.0 signify the birth of KM 2.0? We’ll examine some of the findings, and discuss the implications for new and old KM implementations.

Dan has threatened us with dozens of PowerPoint slides. (Dan plans to post his slides on SlideShare.) He also pitched his Enterprise 2.0 report from AIIM.

Dan used this definition of knowledge management: Leveraging the collective wisdom and experience to accelerate innovation and responsiveness. From Carl Frappalo, Executive Express Knowledge Management.

He notes that early knowledge management focused on technology and less on the culture and rewards. In some circles knowledge management has become a dirty word. But we are not quite dead yet. He also focused on the overuse of email and misuse of other technologies (and the money spent on them). Although knowledge management is not about technology. But knowledge management needs some technology to work well.

Dan proposes that we capture knowledge work as part of daily work, rather than capturing knowledge separately.

Dan shared some of the points from their Enterprise 2.0 Report. They found that knowledge management inclined group see the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 as more important to the success of the organization. The KM inclined are also early in the adoption and understanding of Enterprise 2.0.

Dan stopped short of stating whether he thought Enterprise 2.0 = Knowledge Management 2.0. (I think it is! See Law Firm Knowledge Management 2.0) (Tom Davenport thinks so also:
Enterprise 2.0: The New, New Knowledge Management?)

UPDATE: Dan posted about his presentation and published his slide deck: Enterprise 2.0 = Knowledge Management 2.0?

KM and Web 2.0 - A User’s Perspective

Presentation Summary From
Boston Knowledge Management Forum Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge
What is KM 2.0? Is it real, or just vendor hype?

Ray Sims, formerly Director of Knowledge Management at Novell (now of Deloitte)

This presentation begins by summarizing what Web 2.0 means from a behavioral (not tools) perspective and what that implies for the future of knowledge management. It then connects these ideas via an exploration of the business-driven use cases related to KM that most benefit from Web 2.0 behaviors and software application approaches. The presentation concludes with some general observations of where we are collectively in this journey and provides some prescriptive guidance for those on the path to knowledge management and Enterprise 2.0.

Ray started with a timeline of his adoption of Web 2.0 technology. He moved onto his definition of knowledge management and his post on 43 knowledge management definitions. (Now up to 57 definitions). He also pointed out the analysis of these knowledge management definitions by Stephen Bounds.

One of the trains of thoughts are that knowledge management exists at different levels. One level is the personal level; organizing knowledge for your own use. Another is at a team level; organizing for a small group. Then there is the enterprise level of knowledge management.

Ray also talked about the differences between knowledge as a flow and as artifact. (I posted about this a few weeks ago: Knowledge is an Artifact and a Flow and Wikis as a Knowledge Artifact and a Knowledge Flow.)

Ray concludes that Web 2.0 is "ideally situated to personal knowledge management and a personal learning environment." He sees the benefits of personal knowledge management as increasing knowledge in a chosen field. Writing and thinking about field should increase your knowledge and expertise. Using Web 2.0 helps you build your external network. (For enterprise 2.0 is should help you build your internal network.)

Ray believes wikis should be the THE tool as a default text and management tool. He thinks blogs are a great way to manage projects and provide status reports. For the projects he manages, Ray intends to ban project email. (Also see Luis Suarez's journey on not using email).

Ray sees the four greatest opportunities for Web 2.0 / E 2.0 through the knowledge management lens:

• Increased social capital
• Increased innovation
• Improved decision making
• Improved efficiency

Why improved efficiency? The increased transparency and openness makes things more findable. You can also leverage the power of the network, getting input from more people. There is also the raw speed. It is much faster to edit a wiki and share changes than editing a document and emailing it around.

Ray also peppered his presentation with the virtues of Twitter (Twitter@dougcornelius) (Twitter@rsims). Twitter is "his girlfriend of the moment."

UPDATE: Ray posted about his presentation and published his slidedeck: KM2.0 Presentation - Boston KM Forum.

Web 2.0 Tools for Knowledge Management

Presentation summary from
Boston Knowledge Management Forum Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge
What is KM 2.0? Is it real, or just vendor hype?

Mark Frydenberg, Senior Lecturer, Computer Information Systems Department, Bentley College

Recent years have seen a shift in how people have used the World Wide Web as it evolved from a tool for disseminating information and conducting business to a platform facilitating new ways of information sharing, collaboration, and communication in a digital age. A new vocabulary has emerged, as mashups, flickr, YouTube, del.icio.us, twitter, and WikiPedia have come to characterize the genre of interactive applications collectively known as Web 2.0. This session will provide an overview of Web 2.0 tools and concepts, and describe how they may be used to create, share, and manage knowledge.

Mark started off by showing a video, The Machine Is Using Us. Mark sees difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is that Web 1.0 is about linking documents and Web 2.0 is about linking people. Web 2.0 is more about applications than webpages.

Most of his presentation was an introduction of Web 2.0 technologies and websites.

It was interesting to see what he was making his students do as part of his classes. One thing I notices was that his students did not take full advantage of the tools. For example, he made his students collaborate using Google Docs to write a research paper. In one example it was clear that the student wrote the paper somewhere else and just pasted into the Google Doc. In another example, one student did all of the writing. I think we may be overestimating how proficient college students are with Web 2.0.

Mark was very interested in Mashups. One of the features of Web 2.0 is the ability to easily pull information from different sources. My personal mashup is my transactions map. This turns a list of the real estate transactions I have closed and converts it into a visual map display. (I have not updated it in a while.) There is also the lifestream I created in Yahoo Pipes.

One of the things that strikes me is the ability to view and find information in different ways. In looking at the list of subscribers to this blog, Feedburner shows over 40 different ways the subscribers grab and view the content. I see one of the keys of KM 2.0 is giving people the way to find information in a variety of different ways and view the information in a variety of ways.

UPDATE: Mark has posted his slides. Web 2.0 Tools for Knowledge Management

| View | Upload your own

Boston KM Forum Symposium: KM 2.0 – Real or Hype?

I am spending Wednesday at Bentley College for Boston Knowledge Management Forum Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge.

What is KM 2.0? Is it real, or just vendor hype? How does it relate to Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0? And – the bottom line – how does KM 2.0 help us to leverage knowledge?

The Agenda:

Web 2.0 Tools for Knowledge Management - Mark Frydenberg, Senior Lecturer, Computer Information Systems Department, Bentley College

KM and Web 2.0 - A User’s Perspective - Ray Sims, formerly Director of Knowledge Management at Novell

Enterprise 2.0 = KM 2.0? - Dan Keldsen, Director, Market Intelligence, AIIM

Case Study: The Siemens BeFirst Portal - Jeff Cram, Co-Founder and Managing Director, and David Aponovich, Content Management Strategist, ISITE Design

Moving Beyond Web 2.0 Resistance - Jessica Lipnack, CEO and co-founder, NetAge Inc.

Wrap-up: KM 2.0 - Why We Should Care - Larry Chait, Chait & Associates

When To Use A Blog and When To Use A Wiki

As we are working on deploying wikis and blogs inside The Firm, we have been working on ways to explain these tools. Most of the lawyers have heard the terms, but are not familiar with the tools.

One question that arises in the difference between a blog and a wiki. The distinction between the two becomes less clear inside the enterprise.

Mark Miller at endusersharepoint.com put it beautifully when he said:

Blogs are great when one person is trying to communicate to a team or group. Think of a blog as pushing out information from a single source to anyone who is willing to listen, “one-to-many”. The listener has the ability to participate in the communication through comments, but the main direction of the message is controlled by the person writing the blog posts. . .

By the very nature of wikis, many people will be adding content and that content can be consumed by any number of readers, “many-to-many”. At first, it seems like a free-for-all, but in an intranet situation, it is extremely useful for letting content experts participate by contributing in their area of expertise. In general, someone sets the basic beginning structure of the wiki by creating a table of contents and some starter pages. From there, user generated content drives the expansion of the wiki, based upon the needs of the participating audience.

Simple test: one or two people providing content, use a blog; many people providing content, use a wiki.

InnovAction Awards from 2007

In working on our application and entry for the InnovAction Award I looked back at the winners from 2007:

• Private Equity Matchmaker by Foley & Lardner LLC
• ClientShare RFP by Foley & Lardner LLC
• New Perimeter by DLA Piper US LLP
• XONEX™ by Balbi & Company Legal Centre