My trip was in order to spend a fascinating 2 days in Moscow with fellow speakers Jerry Ash, Chris Collison and Richard Cross at the very first Knowledge Management conference in Russia. Attendees were all private sector organizations (now I think about it, where were the public sector?), about half of whom also presented on their knowledge management activities. The question I know you want answered is “what is happening in knowledge management in Russia?” Based on what I heard, the answer is “a lot”. But before you get excited, here’s the rub. As so often, Knowledge Management means apples to me and pears to you. So we heard about Russian companies doing good stuff with Information Management (lots), Document Management, e-learning solutions, quality control processes, ontologies and databases (lots), all described as ‘knowledge management’. Jerry raised the point in his presentation that these were wide of the knowledge ecology described by Chris Collison the previous day. Now who are Jerry and I to say our interpretations are right?
Well, history tells us that the ‘90s experience in the West of software vendors rebranding their database products as ‘KM Solutions’, and not delivering the promised collaborative nirvana, did many of us a disservice. There is a distinct danger of these worthy endeavours again being labeled as ‘Knowledge Management’, but not delivering for Russia. Before I left, I had an intense discussion with the conference organizers about this.
Now the good bit. There were 3 organisations, ServerStal (steel), Oracle (unsurprisingly) and i-Free (mobile telecoms) who were doing interesting stuff in a fascinating, complex, changing business environment.
I think Richard Cross is familiar with SeverStal from his Xerox Russia days and will probably write more knowledgeably about them elsewhere. I thought their efforts to connect people and expertise were moving in the right direction. I do find it interesting that 3 very large steel producers (Corus, Tata and SeverStal) are all actively trying to manage their knowledge. I should look into whether there is an industry causal link.
i-Free were the stars of the show for me. i-Free is a young mobile telecoms software company, of about 260 people, headed by a charismatic Kirill Petrov. Their turnover is doubling annually and intriguingly they have offices in Russia, Mexico and Brazil. Whilst they had all the technology enablers you would expect of such an enterprise (wikis, internal blogs, early Sharepoint 2007 adopters etc), it was their knowledge incentivisation programme which grabbed my attention. ‘Freeshkas’ are an internal currency, developed to reward collaboration and other examples of behaviours that the company value. They operate as an internal bank, but with accounts visible to all. Freeshkas can be exchanged for goods or shared with others for collaborative work. I’ve always been skeptical of direct reward for knowledge creation or re-use, but this model bears closer examination.
Something I heard from several of the Russian speakers, probably a throw-back to Soviet preoccupation with measurement, was the need for metrics. The challenge I threw out was the need to measure outcomes, not output (think healthy diets v tractor production). Interestingly, a few speakers suggested that a dictat from senior management (I paraphrase) “you will share your knowledge” was appropriate. For a nanosecond I actually considered whether this might work, given the very different culture in Russia. Nonsense of course.
Some other reflections, all superficial, based on spending just a couple of days at the conference:
- Big on knowledge management strategies, roles & definitions but not on execution.
- There is still a focus on information management in isolation to the context in which it is used and by whom for what
- I suspect that company hierarchy and deference to senior management still appear to be big cultural influencers in Russian organizations. This will be a big challenge for anyone attempting to create a free-flowing knowledge environment in a Russian organization.
Finally, a reflection on the knowledge management heuristic that it is better to talk to an expert (a Moscow Subway passenger) than rely on codified knowledge (a Moscow Metro Map). Having gone on a self-guided tour* of the architectural wonders of the Moscow Metro, I got good and lost. Not reading Cyrillic script, I asked a gentleman for directions. He authoritatively directed me in what turned out to be completely the wrong direction.
Please visit my Moscow photo collection on Flickr to share my travels.
*Lonely Planet Moscow City Guide; Underground Odyssey, P117.
© Gary Colet, 2006
NOTE: Gary Colet, Evolutionary Consulting, is a Facilitator for the Knowledge and Innovation Network, part of Warwick Business School. Gary's knowledge management experience includes responsibility for the Knowledge Network at Marks & Spencer, development of a knowledge retention strategy for the business, as well as virtual teamworking and portals. Gary was seconded to the UK Cabinet Office as the private sector representative on a major Government projects review. Gary’s current interests are in ‘gaining and retaining management buy-in to managing knowledge assets’ and ‘Knowledge Retention & Transfer’
