Portals and KM

KM World 2008

Who would have imagined that there would be a KM World 2008 when KM broke into the scene in the early 90s. But yes, the 12th KM World will be back, a bit early this year. It appears on September 23 - 25, 2008 at its usual venue, the San José McEnery Convention Center San José, CA. It is nice to see it still going and it did not even change its name like some other conferences. I did see enterprise 2.0 track and even an Information Architecture 3.0 session so it is keeping up with the times. KM remains alive and well. The rooster includes some of the usual suspects and some new faces. I think I have participated in six of the prior eleven. A Google search of “km world” this blog turned up 74 entries led off by my post on "Thinking for a Living" - Thomas Davenport at KM World. I will be there is spirit this year. The Enterprise Search West conference is being held at the same time and location. It should be a good event and a reunion for many in the field. I enjoyed my last trips. Be sure to see the nearby San Jose Art Museum.

Information Zen - Social Networking in Social Software from AIIM

I recently joined another group on enterprise content management and social computing. Information Zen is AIIM's online network for education, research, and best practices to help organizations optimize their information. They have a number of special focus groups. I joined the Enterprise Content Management group, the Enterprise 2.0 group, and the Information Organization and Access/ Search group. There are 144 members when I last checked and it seems to be growing. Here is a bit more about it on the AIIM Blog.

Content Management Connection

I recently joined Content Management Connection, organized by George Dearing. It is an “online community for technology practitioners, software companies, and end users to share thoughts and ideas on the changing landscape of content management and collaboration. This site is produced by The Dearing Group LLC., a marketing and new media communications company.” There is growing list of bloggers in this space, many of them I recognize. George also runs the Enterprise Content Management Feedburner Network. I appreciate his leadership in these efforts as they provide a nice aggregation on blogs in the main space covered by this blog. You can add your own blog to have it reach a new audience. I already have a comment on one of my PKM posts that reappeared there. It also has news, events, and surveys. In addition it was features like most read posts, ability to comment on posts, quick surveys with instant results, most discussed authors, most active authors, most highly rated posts, etc. I liked the layout.

Stan Garfield’s KM Thought Leader of the Week

Stan Garfield writes the excellent Weekly Knowledge Management Blog that I have referred to on several occasions. It was nice to see that I was recently selected on his blog as the KM Thought Leader of the Week. This is one of several categories that he covers weekly. Stan also includes the KM Question, Blog, Link, and Book of the Week. In this case, Stan asked many people, "If you were invited to give a keynote speech on knowledge management, what words of wisdom or lessons learned would you impart?" He posted my answer that is repeated below in its entirety. There is much more on Stan’s post for this week so I encourage you to visit the Weekly Knowledge Management Blog by Stan Garfield and add it to your RSS feeds.

"I would say that some principles still hold after 15 years. Align your KM efforts with business processes and measure them by the impact on these processes. Do not create disconnected document libraries. I would add now to explore the opportunities that Web 2.0 brings to the table. There is the potential for creating searchable knowledge bases as a byproduct of working in the new transparency offered by these tools.

However, I would not abandon the first two principles as you explore these tools. Some of the newest generation Web 2.0 tools for business use behind the firewall have gone beyond blogs and wikis to create workflow applications that incorporate this new transparency. This allows for better teamwork AND a searchable, archived window into to what the organization is doing for all who need to know, should know, and can benefit from this knowledge.

Now, when I say workflow or work process, I do not mean the static inflexible workflow of old-style content management or project management tools. The advantage of these new tools is that they allow work processes that are more organic and dynamic. They allow the users to control the workflow or process, build it up from tasks and make changes as needed. And, to repeat, they allow for transparency and archiving, and thus KM, to be a byproduct of work, rather than an added requirement."

So be sure to invite me to your next KM conference and I will elaborate. Thanks, Stan.

Lost & Found: A Smart-Practice Guide to Managing Organizational Memory

I learned from Dale Arseneault through an email group I belong to that the Canada School of the Public Service has crafted a good overview of knowledge management (in the context of organizational demographic changes) and has 
some useful s of common approaches/techniques. The research based report is called Lost & Found: A Smart-Practice Guide to Managing Organizational Memory. The focus is on public but the report provides a good introduction for fairly broad consumption.
 Knowledge management is getting close to tits twentieth anniversary, depending on when you count the start. 
That is a good run for something that people though was a fad.

I still do not like the name. Notice they do not use it in the report title. However, the concept is still current and getting a great boost from the new enterprise 2.0 tools

Value of KM - Matt Moore

Here is a really good presentation by Matt Moore of Engineers Without Fears on demonstrating the ROI / Value of Knowledge Management to beancounters - based various experiences. As he said, “Of course, I can't put the really juicy stuff in the presentation - you'd have to get me in to deliver it for that...” However, it shows a lot of common sense. I use to do KM value statements for years and it was never about volume measures as Matt states. It is about business value, which he also states.

Matt has a nice blog and does a lot of podcast interviews.

APQC’s 13th annual KM Conference

APQC’s will host its 13th annual KM conference, The New Edge in KM, in May 1-2 in Chicago. The keynote speakers include Carla O’Dell, president of APQC; Laurence Prusak, co-director of the Working Knowledge research program at Babson College (with Tom Davenport); Robert Wendover, managing director of the Center for Generational Studies; Jeremy Gutsche, founder of TrendHunter.com; and Steve Denning, famous for his storyteller, along with many other KM thought leaders and practitioners. I have heard Larry and Steve on a number of occasions and they are always interesting. Prior to the conference they are offering five pre-conference training sessions and workshops on April 28-30. You can learn more by visiting the APQC conference site.

Sample Knowledge Sharing Policy, Lost and Found

Patrick Lambe created this Knowledge and Information Sharing Sub-Policy. I now forgot how I received it but Straits Knowledge was listed in the footer so I give them credit. It was in one of the several email groups that can fill up my email inbox. In the spirit of the topic I wanted to share it with you. But then I only had the word doc. So, this being the web, I found their site, their blog, searched their blog and found this post, What Would a Knowledge Sharing Policy Look Like? Through the blog post, I found something useful, guidelines for developing an information and records management policy. There was also a link to download the Knowledge and Information Sharing Sub-Policy that you can use with acknowledgement. You have to go to the post for the link.

So now I can share it in accord with the policy. It is designed to “help staff appreciate the importance of knowledge and information sharing; identify suitable sharing opportunities; explain how the organization’s information systems can be used to support knowledge and information sharing.” I like that fact that it is aimed more at encouraging sharing that restricting it as some policies in other areas are designed to accomplish.

Does Knowledge Sharing Deliver on Its Promises?

Here is a study, Does Knowledge Sharing Deliver on Its Promises?, by Wharton management professor Martine Haas and Morten Hansen, professor of entrepreneurship at INSEAD. They found, to no surprise that the benefits of knowledge management depend on how it is implemented.

“In a study of 182 sales teams that were bidding for new client contracts in a management consulting company, Haas and Hansen found that using personal advice from experienced colleagues can improve work quality. As an example, their paper notes that colleagues with experience in areas related to a sales proposal can provide complementary expertise that a team can draw on to generate ideas and identify possible solutions for a prospective client.

Consultants frequently travel to sales meetings with potential clients accompanied by experts from the firm who help them convey the message that the consulting work will be done by competent individuals. Also, the names and credentials of advisors often are listed in proposal documents, identifying them as contributors to the proposal and to the future project work."

However they researchers add:

“The strategy of obtaining personal advice, however, also involves processing costs. Having colleagues attend meetings or appear on client documents can backfire if these colleagues are unwilling to exert the effort needed to fully understand the client's situation, adapt their knowledge to the task at hand or respond to client demands.”

I have been in both of these situations on a number of occasions. When I worked for a large consulting company I was often brought in as a firm expert and frequently added to the proposal. I was also on proposal and project teams where the visiting expert showed up to check his email and octel and to ask for the charge code for his time. Here is a more.

"We find that using codified knowledge in the form of electronic documents saved time during the task, but did not improve work quality or signal competence to clients, whereas in contrast, sharing personal advice improved work quality and signaled competence, but did not save time,"

The cavet here is that codified documents need to have context. If they do not they can be a short cut, but a short cut to the wrong direction. Context takes time and is actually best supplied by direct contact. It should not be an either or situation in terms of codified documents or personal contact. It should be both. The codified knowledge allows you to make better use of the expert and visa versa. Thanks to Tomaoki Sawada for providing this link.

Knowledge Management is Alive and Well at Boeing and Many Other Places

I tend to write more about web 2.0 and its cousin, enterprise 2.0, on this blog now. But I am pleased that knowledge management continues to play and important role in many organizations. I am doing some more traditional KM consulting right now for a firm that wants to better leverage its intellectual capital and spread the insights and work of the more experienced staff across the firm. Knowledge management has been around for 15 – 20 years depending on when you start to count. It is still going strong in many places. That is fairly good for a practice that some thought was a fad.

Here is a great story about how knowledge management is being used at Boeing. It is called Get Our Heads into It. The sub title says, “Each Boeing employee has job-related knowledge. Here’s what steps the company is taking to manage and share this collective information— and use it as a competitive advantage.” These headlines read like its 1994 but I see that as a very good thing. Kudos to Boeing

eLearning Forum

Here is a useful site. The eLearning Forum has information about events and offers downloads of presentations. You can get Don Tapscott’s (author of Wikinomics) presentation at the February eLF meeting for free. There is also a wikinomics discussion forum. The eLearning Forum is a “non-commercial, global community of people who make decisions at the intersection of learning, technology, business, and design.” It is located in Silicon Valley.

Guide to Knowledge Jargon

There has always been a lot of jargon in knowledge management. With the advent of Enterprise 2.0 more people are getting exposed to it. The people at the Applied Knowledge Group put together a useful list of key KM jargon terms for those new to the field. Thanks to Josh Rosenthal of iQuest for pointing me to this site.

Applied Knowledge Group is a knowledge management consulting and training firm.

Best Intranets for 2006

I do not normally cross posts stuff I write for the Fast Forward blog but I wanted to share this since it is very relevant to KM. The Nielson Normal Group has released their 2007 Intranet Design Annual, naming the ten best Intranets for the year. To get on this list, companies submit themselves and are reviewed by a panel of three experts in the field from the Nielson Normal Group, including one of the founders, Jakob Nielson. The criteria include: navigation, design, search, personalization and news delivery, content, and overall. Each of these criteria is further broken down into subsections, (e.g, overall includes: innovation and fun, support for main functions, captures company’s spirit, accessibility). A summary can be found on Jakob Nielson’s web site and the full report is for sale through the firm. I was given a review copy of the full report, via Mat Schwartz, another panel member.

The 10 best-designed intranets for 2006 are:
American Electric Power (AEP), United States
Comcast, United States
DaimlerChrysler AG, Germany
The Dow Chemical Company, United States
Infosys Technologies Limited, India
JP Morgan Chase & Co., United States
Microsoft Corporation, United States
National Geographic Society, United States
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), United Kingdom
Volvo Group, Sweden

I was especially interested in the inroads of Enterprise 2.0 features and approaches. The summary said that the winners “took a pragmatic approach to many hyped “Web 2.0″ techniques.” So I approached this exploration with a little caution. Yes, many web 2.0 features have been hyped and fortunately I did not find the report reactionary in substance. Rather it offered some data on what is being done at several leading firms who are heavy intranet users, although I did take some exception to some unnecessary wording. For example, it said. “Several winners have weblogs this year, but the blogs are restrained, emphasizing useful information instead of “what I did on my last date.” This is an anachronistic straw man as business blogs have been around for several years, getting high marks for Fortune, Business Week, and Harvard Business review as early as 2005. However, in fairness the report went on to say, “Microsoft even has a blog for its intranet’s managing editor to discuss features and news coverage.” That sounds like a very practical and good use of blogs.

They reported that Ajax was widely used this year, primarily “applied as an add-on feature that’s integrated into useful contexts as opposed to being used for its own sake.” They gave some examples. “Comcast displays nicely designed content previews that look like super-tooltips when users roll over lists of brand assets. Similarly, AEP updates the user’s custom list of links without refreshing the rest of the page, DaimlerChrysler updates its homepage stock ticker, and Microsoft shows the results of employee polls (a popular feature on many intranets) as soon as the user has voted…RSPB’s carpooling page (seems interesting). When users click on a map marker, it brings up a photo and other information about the employee who’s driving from that location, without otherwise changing the map or the rest of the page.” This sounds both practical and creative.

They also found that Microsoft uses social networking in a pragmatic manner to make its employee search even better, sorting results by degree of distance from the user and noted that such “sorting can be very helpful in a big organization where many people may have similar names or the same job titles.”

They also found some wiki use on intranets beginning in 2005 and noted that this year “National Geographic Society employs many wikis in a highly useful manner” through its NG Lingo wiki, which explains its internal acronyms and specialized terminology. They noted that such an intranet feature is especially helpful for new employees and that “this year’s winners included many more features to facilitate the “onboarding” (new employee) process.”

I think that one of the most practical uses of wikis is event planning for both logistics and substance but that might not surface on the formal intranet stage. Another practical use is document sharing such the enterprise wiki set up by Novell.

The report did not say anything about tagging or mashups. One of last year’s winners, IBM, is big into both of these behind their firewall. Perhaps they were not looked into or included in the award submissions.

It seems that these high profile firms are beginning to integrate Enterprise 2.0 features in the manner prescribed by Andrew McAfee and many others, including the adoption tip writers on the Fast Forward blog. Beginning with practical, focused applications that address specific business needs to demonstrate the value of these approaches and tools. The idea is to win converts from the bottom up as people directly experience the benefits and ease of use that Enterprise 2.0 can bring. The big payoffs from broader adoption will come when this foundation is established. The report appears very useful for anyone wanting to keep up with what is happening at big firm intranets.

Stan Garfield’s Google Home Page – Great KM Resource

Stan Garfield recently updated his Home Page and in the process created a great KM resource. He used Google Page Creator that appears to be a useful resource, Stan said it is easy to edit and it allows up to 100 MB of files.

Stan’s home page includes news, articles, presentations. There are also links to other KM blogs, as well as his KM blog. There is a list long list of KM related sites. It is a good example of what you can do with Google home page. Here is what CNet News had to say.

Stan also mentioned that the Ark Group has just published two new knowledge management reports. Jerry Ash's "Next Generation Knowledge Management II" with contributions from Dave Snowden, Patti Anklam, and Verna Allee, and Stan's report, "Implementing a Successful KM Programme" – see the Ark group site, Inside Knowledge, for details. These are all very experienced knowledge management experts so the reports should be very useful. business blogs

New Home for my KM Review Articles

I have been pleased to write on knowledge management, portals, and more recently, blogs for KM Review. They recently updated their web site and created a new home for my articles. They can be found at a special section on their site and downloaded at no cost. Normally, their publications are for paid subscriptions, certainly understandable, but authors can distribute their own work and this is appreciated. Here is a link to my co-authored article, with Kathleen Gilroy, on Intranet 2.0 that is not yet on the Melcrum site. They also have a Melcrum blog now, written by their employees. There was nice post, Seeing the opportunities in Second Life, that discusses why some at IBM see it as a next source of wealth on the web. There was also a reference to Melcrum FM?, discussing the option of a company radio station through podcasting. I am sure they will be starting for some large companies with concerns about their image.

2006 European and Asian MAKE Winners

The Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise winners for Europe and Asia have been announced. You can also find the winners for India at the site. This award has expanded with the global economy. This award is for those organizations that create value through best leveraging their knowledge. I wonder when Enterprise 2.0 approaches will be included in the analysis. Thanks for Stan Garfield for pointing this out.

2006 European MAKE Winners listed in alphabetical order:
1. BMW (Germany) - Motor vehicles
2. BP (UK) - Oil & gas
3. British Broadcasting Corporation (UK) - Media
4. Novo Nordisk (Denmark) - Pharmaceuticals
5. Repsol YPF (Spain) - Oil & Gas
6. Schlumberger (France) - Oil & gas equipment and services
7. Siemens (Germany) - Electronics & electrical equipment
8. Telefonica (Spain) - Telecommunications
9. UBS (Switzerland) - Financial services
10. Unilever (Netherlands/UK) - Household and personal products

2006 Asian MAKE Winners listed in alphabetical order:
1. BHP Billiton (Australia) - Mining & mineral resources
2. Canon (Japan) - Computers & office equipment
3. Honda Motor (Japan) - Motor vehicles
4. Infosys Technologies (India) - Information technology services
5. LG Electronics (S. Korea) - Electronics and electrical equipment
6. Nissan Motor (Japan) - Motor vehicles
7. POSCO (S. Korea) - Metal fabrication
8. Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (S. Korea) - Research
9. Samsung SDS (S. Korea) - Information technology services
10. Satyam Computer Services (India) - Information technology services

2006 MAKE winners

The 2006 Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) are out. I did not make up this acronym. Since Portals and KM is not eligible, the North American MAKE winners include, Apple Computer, Caterpillar, Fluor, Google, Halliburton, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Raytheon, 3M, and US National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA). Thanks to Stan Garfield for alerting me to this.

In the late 90s I used to represent my former firm at the rewards events in London. It seems so long ago and another generation of business budgets. I wonder if they have a live event. I did not see it listed in their calendar. One of the findings I liked in past reports was that the earnings for MAKE winners were higher than for the rest of companies, demonstrating a correlation between good KM and profits. But I am sure these firms are good at a lot of stuff.

You can get the report summaries for free at the MAKE site.

Dilbert on Knowledge Management, GapingVoid on Blogging

Happy Thanksgiving to those in the US. Here is a link to Dilbert's views on knowledge management. I have been aware of this for some time but it is nice to find a link.

More recently the Gaping Void put out this view on blogging. Enjoy.

What are Your Favorite KM Books?

I always liked Tom Davenport and Larry Prusack's Working Knowledge. For many years I recommended it to people as a good intro to the subject. Now I really like Tom's new book. Thinking for a Living. With the advent of web 2.0 I think what we think KM is will change and a new set of books will emerge.

Here are some books recommended by Chris Remer of Knowledge Street. I know them and agree that they are valuable but a now they have become a but historical.

The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation, by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi; Oxford University Press, 1995.

Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations, by Thomas A Stewart; Currency/Doubleday, 1997.

He also recommended Tom Stewart's second book, which is The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization; Currency/Doubleday 2001.

Here is Denham Grey's picks,Selecting 5 KM books

What are your favorite books for KM?.

Value Networks and Social Media Event in Dallas

I recently participated in a stimulating event, the Value Networks and Social Media sponsored by the KM Cluster in Dallas. Verna Alee started with “Network Strategies for Managing Complexity: Organizational and Value Network Analysis.” I have written about her comprehensive work before –see Open Value Networks Resource - and we presented together at a session in Cleveland in May. “Value networks (value webs), are the human and technical resources that work together to form relationships and add value to a product or service.” Verna showed us some new examples including the Viagra Value network. This drug started out to treat heart conditions. The test recipients noticed another effect and it was soon in great demand. By listening to what people were saying in the test trails, Pfizer was able to discover a new blockbuster drug in a novel way.

Nancy Dixon of Common Knowledge shared her experiences helping organizations listen and ask the right questions. We did a useful exercise that demonstrated the increased power of face-to-face communication in small groups. Conversations help you frame your thoughts in the act of communicating with others. Repeated conversations help you refine your thoughts and can lead to new insights. Nancy gave us some examples including experiences in the US military. We also experienced the impact directly.

Michael J. English of Best Practices, LLC covered Japan's suppa ginosha Movement: 21st Century Human Capital, Knowledge Transfer, & Organization Development. Japan is very aware of the issue of the aging workforce. They have designated suppa ginoshas to help transfer knowledge to the younger generations. These are people who are designated experts, primarily in manufacturing. They are accorded high status and the movement considers their knowledge as a national treasure. Michael said the US should adopt this practice for knowledge workers.

Camille Venezia of Knoll discussed “Time as a New Currency: Flexible and Mobile Work Strategies.” She also provided statistics on the changing demographics of the work force and the need for more flexible work arrangements. With the declining talent pool it is important to keep employees happy. Within Fortune Magazine’s 100 best places to work, 99 have flexible work strategies. These firms also outperform the S&P 500 and have about half the average employee turnover rates. Mobile and flexible work forces can also increase efficiency, as well as make people happier with their work. Camille has recently become a mobile worker, one who does not have assigned office space in a company facility. I experienced this transition during my days with a large consulting firm. I found it liberating with no down side.

The event was hosted by Adriaan Jooste of Deloitte and held in the Irving Texas Deloitte office. Robin Athey of Deloitte Research shared with us her report, It’s 2008: Do You Know Where Your Talent Is? – Why Acquisition and Retention Strategies Don’t Work. You can download for free at this link. I recommend it to anyone interested in the state of workforce and where it is going. It concludes with six questions that CEOs need to ask their HR leaders, a good heads up those in HR. Karl Wiig, one of the pioneers of KM, was an active participant and will speak next time.

These conversations will continue in the Boston area on Oct. 12 and 13 at the Value of Networks: Vertical Networks and Methods for Leaders. Verna and I will be there and we hope to see some of you.

The Mechanisms of Online Emergence – Turning KM on its Head

I have been shifting through a lot of web and enterprise 2.0 articles. Andrew McAfee provides some very useful comments in The Mechanisms of Online Emergence. First he mentions a great opening for a talk on the subject. “When I talk about Enterprise 2.0 with company management teams, industry groups, and executive education students I usually start by asking people to raise their hands if it's easier for them to find what they want on their company's Intranet than it is on the public Internet. No one has ever raised their hand….” I plan to try this with credit to Andrew the next time I talk on web 2.0.

He then explains the concept of emergence, from complexity science, as the appearance of global structure as the result of local interactions. He then goes on, “The Web is emergent because it's the dynamic creation of countless people around the world interacting with each other via links as they create new content. This is a key difference between the public Internet and private Intranets. Public Web sites are built by millions of people, while most Intranets are built and maintained by a small group. Emergence requires large numbers of actors and interactions, but intranets are produced by only a few people (even though they are passively consumed by many). In addition, most Intranet pages aren't as heavily interlinked as pages on the Internet.”

I think this is brilliant and a key reason why intranets are not actually used much and why enterprise knowledge management systems are not used much. This is the great promise of intranet 2.0. It turns enterprise content management on its head. Everything is able for knowledge exchange with no extra work by the employees. As Andrew points out the participation of employees in a healthy company should be even greater than strangers scattered across the internet. These companies should have the motivation for participation in place if it is part of the work process and not a separate activity. Now there are tools that enable this participation to be accessed and leveraged.

Opps – Some One Lost the Moon Walk Video Tapes

Stan Garfield sent me a link to this interesting article on the value of knowledge management. Using a more clever title than I did Knowledge Street wrote Raiders of the Lost Tapes about how the original video tapes got lost in the government retention facility where they were sent for safe keeping. They wrote that the fuzzy image we saw was not a factor of the transmission from the moon. In fact, “the video frequency of the lunar camera was incompatible with broadcast television. So the signal that went to the world was actually coming from a conventional TV camera, which was pointed at a monitor at the telemetry station.”

The actual image was much better. When some people went back to find the orginal tape in 2002 to transfer it to a more permanent digital format and presumably to share it with the world. Knowledge Street continued, “they couldn't find the tapes. There's no evidence they were destroyed or moved, but nobody can remember what became of them. They're just lost.”

Now I lose things from time to time. I just moved and I am still looking for some of my books like Blink and Tipping Point. But this was the first walk on the moon. Hope remains. There is a web site in Australia supporting the search. Contact the The Apollo 11 tape search site if you find the tapes.

The authors go on to discuss the importance of KM and the role of narrative in useful ways but that is content for another post. I am still thinking about their opening.

KmWiki – a Knowledge Management Place

Denham Grey organized a KM wiki to “to explore, gather links, annotate, debate and dialog around KM - what it is, where to find stuff, and why this an important subject.. It continues, “This is our second re-incarnation. An earlier attempt 1997 - 2005 was halted due to spam. The ultimate aim is to prepare wikipedia entries on key KM concepts, develop topic and concept maps of this exciting domain.”

There is a lot of great material there. Some of it is links to useful posts by Denham such as KM strategy is easy! And key decisions to make when developing a KM Strategy. Other links go to other wikis such as this wiki for comparing wiki products. There are other contributors such as Steve Barth’s definition of KM. This is a great service to the KM community.

Defining Knowledge Management.

I observed a robust email discussion about the definition of KM recently. I found that KM comes to life when contextualized within the specific busienss environment as Greg Reid added to the discussion. But trying to define it to someone else does help you think about what you are doing.

Here is the current definition of knowledge management in Wikipedia. A number of people have been working on improving it recently so it will likely continue to change. I like the link to context. There is much more of course.

“Knowledge Management (KM) refers to a range of practices and techniques used by organizations to identify, represent and distribute knowledge, know-how, expertise, intellectual capital and other forms of knowledge for leverage, reuse and transfer of knowledge and learning across the organization.
Knowledge Management programs are typically claimed to be tied to specific organizational objectives and are intended to lead to the achievement of specific targeted results such as improved performance, competitive advantage, or higher levels of innovation.”

Here is a recent post from Denham Grey with the following definition that lloks at outcomes and the complexity of KM.

“A practice concerned with increasing awareness, fostering learning, speeding collaboration & innovation and exchanging insights. There is a delicate balance to be maintained between explicit and tacit, between personal and community, between collecting assets and enabling flows, between looking inward and externally, between mining and capturing insights and building on shared experiences.”

There is more in Denham’s post on KM Principles. Here is Steve Barth’s 2002 definition of KM.

Here is the US government definiton of knowledge management thanks to Greg Reid of InFuture.

What is your definition?

State of the Portal Market 2006

Portals Magazine posted a series on the state of the portals market in 2006. The research was done by portal vendor, BEA. The highlights are that the portals market continues to be robust. I am sure it will have to accommodate web 2.0 capabilities but, as often happens, the new technology suppliments rather than replaces, the older one.

Stan Garfield’s KM Related Blogs

Stan Garfield is the Worldwide Consulting & Integration Knowledge Management Leader, Hewlett-Packard. He also writes a KM blog (see below) that I commented on last week. Stan recently shared a great list of KM related blogs and bloggers that I want to pass on. Let me know of any favorites that you have that are not included.

1. Anecdote
2. APQC
3. Patti Anklam
4. Colabria
5. Tom Davenport, Larry Prusak, and Don Cohen
6. Steve Denning
7. Stan Garfield
8. Denham Grey
9. Joitske Hulsebosch
10. Bill Ives
11. Dave Pollard
12. Luis Suarez
13. Dinesh Tantri
14. Jack Vinson
15. David Weinberger

I put together my own lists a while back in Some Knowledge Management Blogs, More Knowledge Management Blogs, and Some More Knowledge Management Blogs - Part Two. It is good to have this updated list from Stan.

KM Blog at Portals Magazine – Stan Garfield

Portals Magazine online hosts a number of blogs, including KM Blog written on a weekly basis by Stan Garfield, Worldwide Consulting & Integration Knowledge Management Leader, Hewlett-Packard. In a recent post, Stan provides comments on KM Books (in this case - Managing the Knowledge Workforce: Understanding the Information Revolution That's Changing the Business World -- by Jonathan Spira of Basex), offers KM Links (KM Cyberary -- a gateway to Knowledge Resources by Bhojaraju (India), and answers KM Questions.

This is a great resource to check on and add to your blog list.

Value Network Analysis Site - Verna Allee

John Maloney pointed me to the Verna Allee site that is now a Creative Commons resource where people can access, download and use anything on the site. It includes all the materials on her value network analysis. She is going to expand the library to include “detailed guides, case studies and tools to doing a value network analysis” with the goal of making value network analysis an open source methodology. Others will be able to contribute but the inputs will be screened to ensure quality. They will also use blogs and wikis as part of the platform. It will be interesting to see how this develops. I have heard Verna speak a few times at KM conferences and her work is very thorough.

Here is a recent podcast Verna did to the College of Engineering, Collaborative Intelligence Laboratory, on Feb 22, 2006.

Managing in the Knowledge Age: Babson Executive Education

Here is another useful thing that showed up in my Google Adsense. Babson Executive Education is holding a one week workshop, Managing in the Knowledge Age: Tools and Techniques for Building the 21st Century Enterprise April 9 to 13 at their center in Wellesley, MA. It is led by some of my favorite knowledge management experts, Tom Davenport, Larry Prusak, Dorothy Leonard, and the social networking guy, Rob Cross. I have heard all of them speak and they are good, as well as entertaining. Here is the Managing in the Knowledge Age schedule.

It is great to see quality academic programs covering knowledge management still in effect. It has been over 12 years since knowledge management broke into the media and it has out lasted many similar initiatives. Tom, Larry, and colleague Don Cohen also have a blog on knowledge management, Babson Knowledge, that is full of good stuff.

I also continue to see a number of Google ads that feature knowledge management in their head lines. Vendors and other service providers seem more eager to link their message to this term than in the late 90s, another pleasing turn of events. Of course not all the Google Adsense are properly targeted, such as the several ads for voting for Kelly Ripa vs, Regis Philbin. Not usre of the connection here.

Elusa.net – Knowledge Management Blog

Elusa.net is a blog by Luis Suarez about “Knowledge Management, Communities of Practice, Collaboration, Social Networking and Work/Life Balance” that I recently discovered. I read an interesting long post about Changing My Default Web Browser to Something Else More Web 2.0. In it he talks about the ability to integrate with such Web 2.0 tools as del.icio.us, IBM’s dog ear, and flickr. I give him kudos for talking about dogear which I also think is great as tagging inside the firewall.

There is a lot of tools discussion in this blog such as his comments on: GMail and Google Chat - Is It Really Innovation in the Instant Messaing and E-Mail Space? Luis says that this is the first time that two major web tools like these have been integrated by one provider. He writes that we can see . “how two of the most frequent activities we all get to carry out first thing in the morning are now walking hand in hand next to each other. I am sure that you would agree with this: the first thing you check in the morning is, perhaps, your e-mail, and then your buddy list to check who is online and who isn’t. Then you wander elsewhere (i.e. RSS Newsfeeds, your weblog(s), etc.).” Personally, I am perhaps one of the few who do not like IM and refuse to use it because of the interruption. I had to use it in my former job and people always expected you to stop whatever you were doing and respond to them. This was especially distracting when you were on the phone so I always said I was away from my computer. Perhaps this is one reason why I only got 8 on the geek test. Luis I am sure scores much higher.

Luis also points out in this post that IBM did this same integration a while back with its Notesbuddy. As the IBM site reads; “NotesBuddy is a lightweight tool for Lotus NotesTM Internet (POP3) mail, and Lotus SametimeTM that announces important new mail by voice, pager, or display. Instant messaging (chats) and buddy status are integrated with email to produce a single messaging tool.” Luis adds that Notesbuddy will eventually be able to connect not only with other IBM’s “Sametime end-users but also with AOL, Yahoo! and even Google Talk end-users, all of that at the same time and from a single IM client.” So it seems that both Google and IBM are moving in this direction. I will likely pass this innovation by but it should be a very good thing for those who want it.

Braintrust 2006 – San Francisco

It is nice to see that this year’s Braintrust 2006 is going to be held February 20 – 22 in San Francisco. It is one of the better KM conferences. There are many well known speakers on the Braintrust conference agenda. I presented there last year and enjoyed catching up on the field as I did at KM World this fall. It continues to be nice to see knowledge management alive and well and able to sustain support for these conferences as I wrote about in KM is Alive and Well at Braintrust 2005. Then, I added more on the sustainability of knowledge management after KM World. It appears to still be the case.

I see from the agenda that the Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise awards are still being given out. This is a long running initiative. I used to speak at their London events in the mid to late 90s which is getting to be almost ten years ago. It is a long running gig.

Some More Knowledge Management Blogs - Part Two

I have written about Some Knowledge Management Blogs and then More Knowledge Management Blogs. Recently I have come across a few more that listed below. I thought this would be a good way to start the year off.

Jeff’s KM Blog provides ”Knowledge management from the trenches - Experiences, good, bad and other from real-world KM implementation, with a major component being a new content management system.” He did an extensive post on the recent KM World 2005.

Information Management Now by Patrick Cormier from Ottawa who is writing a book by the same name. His category list is a del.icio.us tagroll and there is a link t