Communities of Practice Resources
Found this via the NLH KM website .? It’s a bit dated, but a lot of the info in there is still good.? From the site:
“The materials on this site are some of those originally developed in the course of helping a client roll out a company-wide knowledge management (KM) initiative.? The materials here have been adapted for more general audiences.”
Check it out: Communities of Practice Resources
Knowledge Management Resources and Events
I’ve just added a resources section to the site as a way to better organize all of the KM-related websites I have accumulated.? As much as I love trying to navigate through my bookmarks and (often) guessing if I’ve found the right link, this is a much better way to organize all of my resources.
The best part is that anyone can add or suggest at new listing or even category of resources.? So if you scan the resources area and see any KM related blogs, communities, publications or whatever else that I may be missing, please feel free to add a listing/category.? Try to think of it as your own KM reference library as well – I’m sure there are plenty of great sites floating out there on the web that I’m missing.? Whenever I find something new (or new to me) I’ll try to have it featured on the front page of the resources area.
I’ve also added an event calendar section as well.? There are always so many great events (KM and other) happening all over the world and even right here in Chicagoland that I’d like to keep better track of – hopefully this will help out in that area.? Similar to the resources area, I know I don’t know all of the great events happening out there so please feel free to add any meetings, forums, conferences or events that you think are related to KM, training, learning, HRD etc. that I or other readers of this site might be interested in.
Intranet Innovation Awards
The results are in and I’m proud to say that Perkins Eastman were given a Gold award for our Practice Area Communities (PACs) as well as a commendable entry mention for pushing intranet news via Blackberry to staff (helps to keep those road warriors connected).
If you’d like to take a glimpse at our now award-winning PACs you can take a peek over here. To quote from the Step Two website:
“The PACs provide a wealth of knowledge, both explicit knowledge that has been codified as well as tacit knowledge exchange in real-time. Providing staff with multiple formats for knowledge sharing and continuous learning, they are provided additional means to innovate and consistently deliver award-winning projects.”
And if you’d like to order the entire report you can do that here.?
Congrats to my fellow KRT (Knowledge Resource Team) members – go team!
Knowledge Community Toolkit
I stumbled upon this at the AIA (American Institute of Architects) website the other day and, while focused on developing CoP in architecture, I think that there is enough in here of value that I thought I would share here. From the AIA website:
“The AIA has compiled an assortment of documents which will help with the establishment of knowledge communities at the state or local level. These vary from a how-to document on holding roundtables to an advertisement template for groups to use in marketing their events.”
A few of the documents may be helpful for those in the beginning stages of developing a CoP, but I think some of the unique marketing materials that are shared (flyer, flash presentation) are certainly things that can be re-imagined within the organizational context of most CoP facilitators. So, how inviting does that Outlook invite you just sent for your next CoP meeting look when compared next to some of these marketing materials? My guess is that something like this might help to drive some excitement and awareness back into those meetings.
I haven’t seen any studies around this, but it’d be interesting to see if CoP with a sustained branding/marketing campaign have higher visibility, participation and engagement within an organization than CoP without. My gut says yes, but I just wonder if there would be a statistically significant difference between the groups.
Presenting Reality in KM
How many times have you read a case study or heard one presented about KM where the participation, engagement, top management support, resources, and overall success of the KM initiative are all 100% and perfect? And how many times do you actually believe it when you hear it?
There is certainly value to be gained from the great successes that organizations experience with KM, but there is also a great amount of value to be gained from learning about the challenges, struggles and complete flops that some organizations have experienced around their KM initiatives.? Usually these insights are only shared informally by presenters after the actual presentation, but wouldn’t it be great if these stories and lessons were presented alongside of the success stories?? In KM we so often encourage those others to share both the good and bad in lessons learned sessions, it just seems that if we talk the talk, as KM practitioners, we should also walk the walk, no?
Doug Cornelius recently posted about a Law Firm KM conference that seems to open things up for this possibility, while keeping things somewhat anonymous for obvious reasons.? It would be great if more KM conferences, or even just components of the conference, were set up like how Doug describes:
“You may have noticed that the names of the presenters and their organizations do not appear in my posts. One tenet of the New York Large Law Firm Knowledge Management Group and its Toronto counterpart is to keep them limited to actual KM practitioners in law firms. The reason is to keep the groups candid and forth-coming. Something the members agree would be harder to do if clients, consultants or others were part of the group. In an open session we would need to present a rosy picture and only focus on the positives. We would hate for our frank discussions to cast any negative light on our law firms.”
Or, maybe it’s just cognitive dissonance that keeps some folks from presenting those negatives, as Dave Snowden suggests …
The Bob Hope Deal and KM
I was recently in a discussion with a few folks about the impending retirement of boomers and what this means from a KM viewpoint, a familiar discussion to most working in KM, I’m sure.? The context of the discussion was centered on organizations that still offer early retirement to some of their most knowledgeable staff and why this is such a bad idea.? The thought occurred to me that this is exactly what is happening over at NBC with Jay Leno.
NBC was in such a rush to bring Conan O’Brien to The Tonight Show that they didn’t stop to think about what happens after that - Leno can still do pretty much anything he wants, including hoping over to a rival network.? Eek.? The idea that NBC hopes will keep Leno around is to offer him the “Bob Hope deal” – where he sticks with the network getting to do whatever he wants.?
So, for those retiring boomers out there who are going to be taking all of that knowledge with them, can offering them the “Bob Hope deal” be an option?? Instead of full-retirement, how about offering some of those knowledge workers the chance to work when they want to on innovative or pet projects that they select?? The focused passion of knowledge workers in semi-retirement seems like something almost too good to pass up for both parties.? Emeritus status is common in academia, and far less so in business, but I have seen the title floating around in some companies.? How come this isn’t more common?? Will this designation happen more frequently as organizations look to find ways to cope with some of their most knowledgeable workers leaving??