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Thanks to Michael Woloszynowicz for typing up these notes from my talk last night!

• What is KM?
  • Lots of value if you can share the knowledge in peoples heads with others
  • Finding the person that is best suited for a project
• Enterprise 2.0
  • Like web 2.0 but geared towards companies
  • Utilizes user technologies e.g. Blogs, Wikis, etc.
• Why care about enterprise 2.0
  • Differentiate yourself, give you an advantage
  • Broaden your network
  • Number of knowledge issues that companies are struggling with
    • Companies don’t know what to do
  • You will be in the position to make a difference
    • Companies will turn to younger generations to help
• Enterprise KM is not about the tools
  • Tools change
  • It’s the changes they bring that is important
• Knowledge is power, 10 areas of questions
  • What is knowledge (document? person? interaction?)
    • Can take a document centric view
    • But you can’t write down everything
      • This  is where people come in, find the right person
      • Not what you know but who you know
    • Sometimes you need the combination of the people and the situation
    • When looking at a paper, you need to know what view the author is taking
  • What do you do with knowledge? Hoard? Share?
    • Knowledge is power
    • Knowledge is something to be kept secret or controlled
      • You can charge lots of money for it
    • Another view is that you can share it, and that is power too
      • Why only limit your knowledge to a few people
      • By sharing it you become an expert
      • People come to you looking for advice, this gives you job security
      • People will also come to you with ideas
    • Differences between hoarding and sharing mindset is important
      • The success of your web 2.0 initiative depends on it
      • Some people do not want to share
    • What’s in it for you?
      • In the short term it can help you to find the information you need and help you practices communication skills
      • You get scale, people know about you

• • Formal vs. Informal
    • Sometimes input involves filling out set fields
    • Things such as Wikipedia are much more informal
    • Newer technologies are much more informal then older ones
      • Get the information out quickly and refine over time
      • There are advantages and disadvantages to this
        • Some people like structure
        • Others like the freedom and not be constrained
        • Constraints may stymie information sharing
          • Informality is quick
    • Informality has a lot of value
      • You can refer back to your old information
      • You can pass it to others
      • People can find it through searches
    • By making it easier to contribute knowledge, you get more of it
  • Relating to formal vs. informal is who has the information? Experts? Novices?
    • Sometimes experts are not the best resource
      • Experts can leave out steps because it is second nature to them
    • Really what you may need is someone that knows more than you
      • Novices can teach you the pitfalls and issues in language you understand
    • Enterprise 2.0 is about everyone contributing what they learn along the way
    • People often don’t contribute because they feel they are not an expert
      • But by learning, others can learn from you
      • For example, have a new hire record their learning
        • Expert can check it to make sure they are on the right path
        • Other can then learn from it
    • Experts and novices can get into conflict
      • Novices that share information become go to people and eventually become experts themselves
      • Mentoring can help to prevent this
  • One tool vs. many tools
    • Some people wait to try things only when others are using them while others want to be early adopters
    • Late adopters and early adopters are sometimes in conflict
      • Email vs. Blogs
    • Too many tools lead to integration issues
    • What happens if a tool goes down?
    • In enterprise 2.0 it pays to introduce one thing at a time and choose the tools carefully
      • Start with your business needs and find the best tool to solve the problem you are working on

• • Managing or facilitating?
    • One of the key things about enterprise 2.0 is collaboration
      • It’s not about submitting a document and closing the process
      • Capture what people are doing and learning along the way
      • Facilitation of collaboration
  • Inside or outside?
    • Companies used to feel that they are the experts in what they do
    • Hire other experts and give them tools to collaborate
    • Now people outside an organization are collaborating
      • Opens up lots of opportunities for companies
      • Can pose problems to the general public for a reward
      • When you can tap the knowledge of those outside the organization you can get more variety and better results
      • E.g. ideastorm
    • Enterprise 2.0 blurs the boundaries between inside and outside
      • Co-creation
  • Adoption is not always easy
    • Culture has a lot to do with it
      • Social, generation, etc.
    • How do you deal with these problems?
      • You have to tell people what the personal benefit is
      • If there are no benefits, people won’t participate
      • Monetary incentive is not the greatest approach
        • Can lead to gaming
      • Appeal to other aspects
        • External recognition? Self fulfilment?
      • Make it part of the way people work
        • Otherwise there is no time to input information after the fact
      • Innovators and early adopters are not a great example, find people in the middle to serve as ambassadors
  • Metrics and ROI
    • How do you quantify these initiatives? What do you measure?
      • Do you measure time savings?
        • Maybe time saved isn’t used to the companies gain
      • A lot of the value is intangible
      • Measure savings on travel or other costs
      • Gather metrics on search results
      • Before and after studies
      • What is the percentage of people using it
    • Metrics you choose will influence user behaviour towards the things you want to gain
  • What next?
    • A lot of value is gained by trying it out
    • This can be outside of work, things that you are passionate about

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