The platform chosen had to have an easy access and easy to use, & allow ppl to attach documents; it had to have a training application, as well as a way to relay and highlight new, hot information – and threads for discussions.  The wiki supports 20 ppl working in the call centre that are responding to the requests of more than 250,000 ppl.  Wow.

The answer? the wiki — a commercial wiki was free, with access controlled via the internet.  It met all the criteria, plus it could be customized by any call centre to meet its unique needs.  Usage can be tracked and refinements made based on experiece.  It has been an easy access into the 2.0 environment for people that don’t text on their phones, probably haven’t heard of Twitter and are dubious of Facebook. The disadvantage has been security, but no classified information has been put on the wiki; like other government agencies, wikis are making their way into their internal intranets — they are looking at using Sharepoint, and they’ve seen a significant shift in the attitude towards collaborative tools like this in the past year.  Another disadvantage was that there is currently no way for the wiki to interact with their crm; this will be a huge step forward for knowledge sharing when this connection can happen.

What have they learned?

- That if they ask ppl what they need on the wiki, those same ppl will then use the wiki

- they did start with content they already had, and then began enhancing that content that may be outside the standard environment — that “tribal knowledge”

- that after a while, ppl will start to ask for content to be added to the wiki

- that a “gate keeper” works in some environments, like the navy

- that giving the wiki prominence as the authoritative source works in engaging ppl

- having a signle authority to review and manage content frequently is critical

- all 20 ppl in the call centre will be engaged in the upkeep

- “even the most resistant will embrace

the wiki when they see how easy it is, and how

it helps them do their job.”

The wiki allowed them to have a son in Iraq r

espond to his family that he was “ok” within 45 minutes of them hearing on the news that his unit had come under fire.  That works.

TRIZ is founded by a Russian scientist — the practitioners of TRIZ will say it’s the greatest method out there. It relies on a semantics-based technology which has the logic built in.  While listening to Kiho, I checked out TRIZ on wikipedia – TRIZ is the theory of solving inventor’s problems” or “The theory of inventor’s problem solving”. It was developed by a Soviet engineer and researcher Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues starting in 1946. It has been evolving ever since.

Interesting – I’m going to follow-up with Kiho after today’s sessions to get a better understanding.

Kiho Sohn overview of innovation process at KMWorld 2009

So what? Well, the issues today that clients want help with require a very broad perspective & broad network; yet ppl won’t net work at work & express their opinions if they don’t feel safe to do so. I picture ppl on a highwire with a “net” to save them if they fall off.  Is that a metaphor for net working on the wire, or wireless, as the case may be?

“Ambient Awareness” Gordon says, is really the need to have some sense of what else is out there in order to connect when needed. That’s net working. Email is still the #1 social collaborative tool in all organizations — I’d say beyond organizations too, but I may be wrong.  Team collaboration spaces have only a 14% adoption rate — and that’s for all age groups.  why? these spaces are obviously not how ppl want to work together & connect. Do you fight email? If email is “where knowledge goes to die” then how is it a collaboration tool? Because everyone uses it……..

The alternative is to get a tool that does “everything”; what would that be? He used a wonderful metaphor of a swiss army knife – that does many things, just nothing really well. Social media is just the same. Social or shared messaging or micro blogging within the organization helps build ambient awareness  – commenting back & forth on each others comments – but it doesn’t really do anything very well. Social media within the enterprise may work the same as it does outside the firm, but the consequences are very different; how it differs depends very much on leadership & the culture they want to create.

Next steps? First, figure out where your organization is — who, in your organization is interested in this capability & where you are in terms of a relationship with them.  Next, you need to map out who you need to connect with — you can’t do this alone, & you’ll need friends in legal, technology, etc.  Finally, you need to have some sort of strategy for moving this forward. Just as in chess, you need a strategy & you need to adapt that strategy depending on what happens.  Move & adapt, move & adapt. Strategy isn’t easy — & is about making decisions in the face of uncertainty.  Social media is uncertain for organizations – & although it may still be at the swiss army knife stage, not doing anythings really well, it is in it’s early stages, and organizations need to start to deal with it.

Microblogging tools he mentioned are: www,present.ly, www.yapper.com and www.status.net

So, in 2005 they began to formalize their approach, and then, as is so often the case, a senior vp asked if new hires were being made aware of a case where a bank had failed in 2000.  That’s how it happens, isn’t it? A senior voice asks the right question.

Kathy & Tracy tell a good story — and that’s the approach they adopted with LL: they tell stories; they involved as many ppl as possible in interviews, with a facilitator to guide the process (using appreciative approach – yeah!), ask the questions & probe a bit; the interviews are recorded & the project managers set the context for the situation being discussed.  They not only talk about the problems encountered, but the solutions used – or what they wish they’d used –& then on-going follow-up and advice to future teams.

They also created some Balance Scorecard metrics.  That’s a lot! phew! Developing the process took them about 6 months & introduced the process at a department meeting to about 150 ppl with a senior vp endorsing it. The vp used the analogy of fire fighters — that they need to look at planning to prevent fires & how best to manage fires when they do break out.

This approach has been used for the past 3 yrs; they put the LL into the learning management system so they could track usage & embed these into existing training curriculum.  Now all new hires take the LL as part of their training when they start work. They are also tested on their understanding so that if their scores aren’t as expected someone sits with them to help increase understanding.  Their strategic objective is to accelerate the learning curve for new hires into bank examiner roles.

They are now engaging subject matter experts to help them create their “legacies”  – in some cases these are video-taped. And they are using km champions to identify situations to explore, with real examples to reinforce the concepts.  People remember the stories – don’t we all?

The other part to their LL is aligning with business imperatives; they faced a dilemma of more than twice the normal number of new examiners who had to go thru the 3 yr training program.  And, the bank had a high risk of extensive knowledge capital loss with many examiners leaving; 40% of their staff (much higher than other banks) had less than 5 yrs experience.

They developed an online simulation with all the main players — from the chief examiner as the coach, right through to the bank board members (all fictitious).  So the avatars talk to the learner, while the text runs on the side simultaneously.  It has built in decision paths, so as soon as the learner chooses, the coach can respond.  COOL.  And the learner can select a variety of coaching videos as they go along from REAL people, not avatars — but from those more experienced within the bank. COOL COOL.

This learning approach gives a wealth of experiences to the learners that may not come up in their real work during the first 3 years. They are also finding it not only leverages & reuses the knowledge in the bank, but increases retention because it is interesting & relevant for the learners. “Tell me how you handled an angry bank manager?” resonates for new hires — they want to hear other people’s experiences. The new hires on on the road 70-80% of their time, so they are trying to put some of this into podcasts. It’s not replacing the whole LL process, but leveraging it & enhancing it. What’s different about their approach?

- it’s embedded in exisiting business processes & usage is tracked throguh the LMS

- it puts real examples in real context for them – & it’s interesting for the learners – combines people who have “been there, done that” with avatars – story telling brings results

The content is in small pieces, so changes or edits can be made to small pieces & not the whole program. They use commercial products to do the simulation and for their LMS.

I love Charlene’s slide of 4 focus areas surrounding the client: enterprise strategy, customer strategy, leadership & management, innovation & practices.  Her tips, which I think apply more broadly than just tech planning:

* Leaders must let go of control but not relinquish command, create sandbox convenants to allow risk taking, creat a culture of sharing & model it

* organizations must connect to customers on their own terms, develop internal processes to connect with customers in real time, integrate the customer voice across the whole enterprise

* enterprises must allow all units to pilot new technologies & processes, design process scenarios around user roles, invest in innovation

* to innovate, organizations must fail fast & fail smart, inject fresh external thinking, enable safe places where mistakes and learning is encouraged.

I am sure you will enjoy her presentation on Wednesday November 18 in San Jose at KMWorld 2009. In the meantime, on the KMWorld 2009 conference blog yesterday I pointed to a podcast of Charlene Li. Check it out too!

A-Space is an environment in which analysts collaboratively create new meaning out of the diverse ideas and perspectives they collectively bring to an issue. Through this collaboration, analysts have the potential to break through long held assumptions to provide new ways of thinking about complex problems.

Networked relationships on A-Space provide a stream of cognitively diverse information without the costly time investment that maintaining strong ties requires.

A-Space is reinforcing the value of asking questions of colleagues, providing analysts the means to uncover flaws in their own data and reasoning.

A-Space is providing analysts a set of new practices to: 1) build cross agency networks, 2) gain situational awareness, and 3) hold discussions of interpretation, that operate in parallel with the normal production process. These new practices constitute an emerging model that provides a level of cognitive diversity not previously available.

The non-hierarchal nature of A-Space, results in analysts feeling that it is okay to offer their thinking even if it is not completely formed or thought through, increasing the speed of product development by eliminating faulty hypotheses early on and quickly settling on those that are viable.

Check out the links to research and more details on Dixon’s blog and hear her talk more about this at KMWorld 2009.