21st Century Organization

Community 2.0 Brain - netWORK Mindset

Attending a four day conference and making sense of it for someone else is tricky at best.  Everyone attends with biases, assumptions, and expectations. Other than sharing time and space together it is a unique individual experience.

We ran our workshop on Social Capital: Glue for Sustainability at the Community 2.0 Conference in Las Vegas.  "Social capital" and "community" have a lot in common as they both are about building relationships and value is created from the knowledge embedded from emergent conversations.  Linked conversations through networks is our focus and a netWORKED mindset is our workshop subtitle.

But there were only two sessions at the conference over 4 days that focused in part or in whole on seeing organizations as networks - Patti Anklam's keynote and our workshop. Mapping the network of keynote presenters is my take on revealing the collective value of the conference.

Consider clicking here an experiment in a netWORKED mindset- a means to capture my experiences and our workshop. Using a dynamic network mind mapping and knowledge visualization tool by the brain technology, I have  written my conference notes and made links to  keynote speakers and our workshop.  There are web links to Flickr, Slideshare and presenter sites as well. This may take a few minutes to open, but worth a try.

netWORKED mindset tab will take you to our networked organizations wiki which is private.  If you want to see it, let us know so we can send an invitation.

Once in the CORE tab, click "of interest", then click "video" to hear how we bring networks of stakeholders together.

The Brain has an enterprise version for organization wide knowledge capture and interactivity (multiple individuals can author and edit), so the technology scales.  The personal version I used can be downloaded for 30 day free trial allowing multiple maps to be created. Uploading to your website for read only viewing is fairly straight forward with an FTP program.

The netWORKED brain is lots more fun and has plenty of options for use to create a "shared"  experience.  Let me know what you think.

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

Thinking about Open Network Business Models: Your Insights Invited

Victoria Axelrod (my 21stCenturyOrganization blogging colleague) and I are on deadline for Effective Executive, an India based business magazine published by ICFAI University Press. Working title of our piece is:

Open Net-Working Organizations - Co-generating Knowledge and Innovation

Our article explores themes we've blogged about here over the past 2 years, research for two recent Inside Knowledge Magazine articles ("Broadcasting Innovation: Organising to Connect Intelligence" and "Prediction Markets: Co-creating the Organisation", my Enterprise 2.0 Summit Hanover presentation, and our forthcoming Social Capital: Glue for Sustainability Workshop, May 5 in Las Vegas, following the Community 2.0 Conference. (As Victoria previously wrote please use code SPKRM2005 for a friends 20% discount if you can join us.)

We like to practice what we advocate so as our article is about open, networked, working we're sharing our article outline here and inviting fresh perspectives and contributions of interesting sources.  Our article focus reflects we are contributing to a special Effecutive Executive Knowledge Management edition.

Overview

"In a March 2007 "Long Live KM" online discussion through the AOK Group, Robert Buckman (described by Infoworld as "KM's father figure") wrote:

"Jerry, thank you for the kind words, but I never did try and manage knowledge. What I really tried to manage and nurture was a culture that would encourage and expand the flow of knowledge. It was because economic value could only be obtained in our environment when knowledge moved across the organization in response to a need."
~ Bob Buckman, March 6, 2007 AOK Yahoo Group Post

Two decades since Buckman's pioneering work to encourage and expand knowledge flow and innovation, taking a network view of organizations and using the tools of Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) facilitates creating open, collaborative organizational cultures. More importantly, an intentional open net-working approach aids understanding how "social capital value" is created in organizations through dynamic interactions and relationships between all of an organization's participants and stakeholders. Examples from our research and experience of organizations using new open network models to promote knowledge sharing, innovation and value creation are included.

While we will revisit open working models investigated in our Inside Knowledge articles:

• Qualcomm's Venture Fest using prediction markets
• The Bordeaux Energy Colloquium, a Think Tank Network,
• Executive to Executive Marketing Networks as implemented at Avaya
• Procter and Gamble's "Connect and Develop" and innovation marketplaces like Innocentive

we're also exploring approaches including:

• Boston Consulting Group's use of mapping tools to understand networks around patents and identify high potential talent. (Did they really just use Touchgraph as Manuel Lima suggests commenting on the Business Week article?)
• IBM's use of open network initiatives including sharing research with partners and clients. (Thanks to John Maloney for this paper find.)
• The innnovative and business critical collaborative knowledge sharing initiatives presented at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit, Hanover.

In writing about open network approaches we're alert to investigating when such models appear not to work effectively. Hence we're striving to understand what caused Boeing's decentralized 787 supply chain to become a critical factor in the company's high profile and costly aircraft delivery delays.

Yesterday discovering Robin Teigland's presentation on Slideshare, (displayed as a "Related Slideshow" to my Hanover presentation), I was reminded of the potential value that can be created through openness in knowledge sharing. This is especially so when you intentionally start by "looking around" as John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid encouraged in "The Social Life of Information", 2000.

Hence this blog post sharing our article themes and ideas. Any and all reactions to our focus and examples, insights into Boeing's supply chain issues, and or fresh insights and interesting open net-working business models are welcomed and appreciated.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Using a Wiki to Co-Create an Article: Paying Attention to Uluru

Thanks Chris Carfi for sharing our lessons learned using a wiki to co-create an article on "learning through participation and connected intelligence" for Knowledge Tree, the Australian Flexible Learning Framework ejournal.  (My June 29 post provides context.)

Working with co-authors Victoria Axelrod and Kiki Mulliner on this article was a privilege and the lessons learned Chris Carfi points to from our article submission was just the beginning.  Rich conversations happened throughout with my co-authors and the group of people we approached for insights, and others who found us during the writing process. See the Acknowledgements page in the wiki. My sincere thanks to all.

Those distant from the oldest continent may be unfamiliar with Uluru the world's second largest monolith, and World Heritage site in the heart of Australia. I'm fortunate to have visited, and driven the 9.4km circumference at dusk, marvelling at the landscape that is sacred to the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, the Aboriginal people of the area.

Photo Stuart Edwards 2006 Wikimedia Commons License

Uluru came to mind as we collaborated in the wiki and worked on the article.  Why? Because while Uluru impresses as it rises over a 1,000 feet above the desert plain, what's even more impressive is the unseen estimated two thirds lying below the ground.

I've participated in online email based Yahoo and Google groups and been conscious of the significant activity that happens behind the scenes in private exchanges.  I was paying close attention during our article writing collaboration because I realized our wiki "Recent Changes" made very transparent when we were, and were not active.

Being absent from the wiki was not a good indicator of whether or not work on the article was proceeding.  At times yes, it was, when we were travelling or engaged in other pursuits. But invisible through the wiki, especially as the deadline approached, was the flurry of email exchanges between the co-authors and the smart people in our networks we were tapping for insights, as well as phone calls, blog and Facebook activity. Not to forget the hours each co-author contributed to independent writing and editing to emerge the article.

We didn't track time devoted to each activity, or what part of our effort ultimately was most valuable for producing the article. However, if organizations are to increase proficiency in using collaborative tools like a wiki, based on our experience I seriously encourage paying close attention, gathering data to track the process, and allowing time to reflect on what worked and didn't.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

WICKED PROBLEMS 2.0

I met Jeff Conklin a few years ago when he did a presentation of dialogue mapping using the open source software Compendium developed in conjunction with Verizon - yes the telecommunications company.  Dialogue mapping enables a facilitator to track the iteration of conversations about complex problems or "wicked problems" as multiple speakers work through their understanding of the issue and derive an approach or design not necessarily a solution. 

As we all know, dialogues such as these generally do not flow in neat linear progression nor do they have "air tight" solutions. Complex problems have a way of morphing just when a few people think they have a break through in understanding the issue let alone a solution.  So we are mostly coming up with best case approximations of an approach over time.

Just communicating the difference between a linear approach compared to a non-linear is in itself a "wicked problem"!  I often find folks are so overschooled in  linear models or as Jeff depicts a stair step, cascade or "waterfall" solution that they can not imagine another way.

His diagram is masterful.  What takes place as we makes sense of a problem  is the back and forth pattern shown here as a designer works through an approach.

For a complete explanation of working through wicked problems using Compendium software, I highly recommend Wicked Problems and Social Complexity by Jeff Conklin of CogNexus Institute.

I tried the Compendium software in its early versions and am happy to report some very neat applications beyond that of dialogue mapping. ECOSENSUS is a project which is integrating a GIS (Geographical Information System) tool to support participatory environmental decision-making between UK researchers and Amerindians  in Guyana.  It could be more robust if it were a real time mash up with say Google Earth for topography and more realistic geographical data, but it gives you a good sense of the possibilities for a virtual collaborative discussion connected to geographic data.

Bear with the feature heavy  screencast of ECOSENSUS to see some of the benefits to using the Compendium software for projects with disparate stakeholder groups - school, community, environment, political or health care systems.

ECOSENSUS was co-developed by Simon Buckingham Shum who researches and teaches at the Knowledge Media Institute part of the Open University in the UK.  If you have been looking for for a group that have transcended the "dismal abyss" which lies between KM (knowledge management) and social media you will find KMI the bridge spanners.

There are free demos of Compendium which I recommend you explore for your own "wicked problems" or a the very least, read through Jeff Conklin's Wicked Problems and Social Complexity.

~ Victoria G. Axelrod

"Marketplaces of Mercenary Intelligences"

Here's an idea for your knowledge management woes - a knowledge marketplace.  We all know it will be sometime before we have a true semantic web so try the hidden collective mind inside the machine or Mechanical Turk from Amazon.

Jason Pontin,  editor in chief and publisher of Technology Review writes a good piece in the NY Times today Artificial Intelligence, With Help from Humans

Why do people work for such small amounts that Amazon pays?  What's the incentive?

“MTurk is a marketplace where folks who have work meet up with folks who want to do work,” according to Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO.

Imagine your organization operating as such a knowledge marketplace - seems like a clear cut incentive to me and the pay is higher!

~Victoria G. Axelrod

Two of my Networks & Healthy Risk Creation

Last week I traveled to Washington, DC to attend David Gurteen's Knowledge Cafe, his first U.S.-based one since July 2005. Dr. Richard Wexler, President-Elect of the NY State Psychological Association, joined me for the evening. 

Sitting at a table of government agency leaders who have major responsibilities for our environment, large segments of the populations, defense, and innovative technology was inspiring.  We explored how to create healthy risk while scanning for emerging opportunities all in the service of innovation.  The guest speaker Zeke Wolfberg, Director of the Knowledge Laboratory at the Defense Intelligence Agency challenged us to listen to different perspectives in a room with much power and experience.  My "take away" among other things was the gratification of hosting knowledge cafes here in New York City where ideas emerge through conversation and lead to action.

The next day while still in DC, I attended a two day long training for APA's nationally sponsored Psychologically Healthy Workplace Program.   A PHW workplace provides practices to facilitate employee involvement and communication.  I'd love to see organizations launch Knowledge Cafe on site to stimulate innovative thinking across the generational gaps.  Anyone feel the same way?

~ Dr. Suzanne Roff

A Boogie Brains Kind of Day: KM & Verna Allee on the Barter Economy & Earthrise

My daughter had an extraordinary kindergarten teacher whose goal every day was to make her students brains dance: "boogie".

It was a "boogie brains" day at my desk.  Amidst interesting project work multiple, curious and intriguing distractions:

1. The discussion on Jerry Ash's AOK email group on the past and future of "KM". 
Extraordinary for multiple reasons but mostly for the industry leaders it has attracted ranging from Hubert St. Onge, to Debra Armidon to Bob Buckman.

2. USA Today launching its new social network inspired site and encountering a not so positive reaction from members. No shortage of blog commentators including me who couldn't resist asking on Steve Rubel's blog if we know how much existing USA Today readers were involved in the redesign. User reaction suggests perhaps not enough!

3. Ross Dawson's interesting report filed at Auckland airport about teaching a Value Networks Workshop with Verna Allee.  Thanks Ross for sharing Verna's essential quote:

""We are in the middle of a huge barter economy,"..
~ Verna Allee

Reminded me of Verna Allee's similarly thought provoking observations about the "Earthrise" image and business models during another Jerry Ash AOK Star Series a year earlier:

"I love the "earthrise" image. Someone once asked me what catastrophic event would have to happen for managers to fully grasp the new principles and practices we have all been talking about. My belief is that the pivotal event actually happened years ago - when we saw the earth from space. We got it down to our toes as a species that we are all connected and interdependent not only with each other but with the earth herself. What we are now struggling with (in KM and other disciplines) is trying to reconcile our business and economic models with that new understanding.."

~ Verna Allee  (as reported in my blog post at that time)

Ross Dawson's post a reminder that the work on changing business models and mindsets is very much a work in progress.

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Gary Colet- The State of Knowledge Management in Russia

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’