Where is the ‘front-line’ in your organisation?

Following the demonstrations at the weekend about cuts in public spending the debate yesterday turned, amongst other things, to the implications of the cuts on the Police force and of the allocation of funds by The Arts Council. 

At Prime Minister’s Question http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/9440883.stm the Opposition posed a simple (?) “yes or no” question – would the implementation of the cuts see a reduction in the numbers of ‘front-line’ staff i.e. policemen and policewomen?

It would appear that the reason this question is difficult to answer (apart from the obvious political elephant trap) is that there is no shared definition or understanding of what ‘front-line’, in the context of the Police forces, means.  Is it the ‘bobby on the beat’? Does it include the others not on duty? It takes 4/5 policemen/policewomen (given the 24×7 and shift nature of the role) for there to always be a police presence. Does ‘front-line’ include other (phone operators, staff in controls centres, special investigators and crime specialists) staff? For without many of these, the bobby on the beat would not be able to operate.  

Knowledge and information managers have a role in their organisations to help others establish shared definitions and create shared understanding – for without staff working from the same place or ‘on the same page’, informed decisions and action cannot be taken.

A useful approach for dealing with these difficult challenges, decisions, and potential actions is to use the parallel thinking approach developed by Edward de Bono in his Six Thinking Hats® http://www.debonothinkingsystems.com/tools/6hats.htm.  The approach is very helpful in that it promotes separate thinking through six distinct categories, and likely to be very helpful to those making very difficult decisions about what to cut and what to keep.

LIS Research Coalition review – survey now open

In my blog post of 23^rd March http://ianwooler.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/lis-research-coalition-review-announced/ I mentioned that a colleague and I are undertaking a review of the LIS Research Coalition’s impact and value.  A key part of this review is an online survey – which is now open http://lisresearch.org/2011/03/30/lis-research-coalition-review-%e2%80%93-survey-now-open/. 

The survey has been designed to help assess the Coalition’s work and achievements to date, as well as gather comments on the Coalition’s plans for the next 12 months.  The survey takes under 15 minutes to complete and will remain open until 17.00 on Friday April 8th 2011. A summary of the responses will be published on later http://lisresearch.org/ in he month.

The relationship between creativity and effectiveness

Measuring the impact, effectiveness and ROI of information and knowledge management activities continues to be a hot topic.  Many readers of this blog will recognise that it’s easier to measure inputs and outputs, but more difficult to measure outcomes and impact.

One of the measurement challenges for Information and Knowledge Managers is that the benefit (or ‘gain’ to use ROI language) is realised by ‘end-users’.  I refer to this group as ‘end-users’ because for many, they are organisationally distant (in terms of day-to-day working relationships and access) to those providing the information and knowledge management support (the tools, techniques and approaches).  

A further layer of complexity is added to this measurement challenge when you consider that benefit or gain (and the ability of end-users to articulate/evidence this) is very much like beauty i.e. it is in the eye of the beholder.  Benefit or gain for one end-user may be a very different experience to that of another. 

There are many information and knowledge management approaches to measuring intangibles and much has been written on this subject – but how many Information and Knowledge Managers forget to look outside the walls of their own organisation and discipline to understand how others address this issue?

If you fall into this category then a good starting point would be to read the recent article ‘when less is not more’ in The Marketer http://www.themarketer.co.uk/articles/features/when-less-is-not-more/.  The article includes some useful quotes and ideas about the relationship between creativity and effectiveness including:

• “Does creativity in marketing mean better ROI?”
• “Data reveals that creatively awarded campaigns are 11 times more effective that non-awarded ones”
• “We work with clients who use neuroscience to assess the ‘impact’ of their marketing”
• “Social media has helped small businesses with clever ideas to begin to successfully compete with large brands”.

Are your information and knowledge management activities getting their “excess share of voice?”

New Edge in Knowledge – book review by Jack Vinson

There was a great post by Jack Vinson is his blog yesterday. The post gives a short book review of The New Edge in Knowledge: How Knowledge Management Is Changing the Way We Do Business, written by Carla O’Dell and Cindy Hubert.   

As Jack notes, the book recounts and updates APQC’s http://www.apqc.org/ experience in working with hundreds of organisations. http://blog.jackvinson.com/

“I need to know about”…”I know about”

In any organisation there are people who need to know about things and people who know about things.  A simple way to connect this ‘knowledge demand’ with its ‘knowledge supply’ is to hold and facilitate regular ‘instant buddy’ events. 

Each event should be based and promoted on a key topic/theme of interest and value to the organisation or group concerned.  An open invite would encourage attendance by people who want to know about aspects of the key theme/topic and by people who have experience of the key theme/topic and learning to share. 

The event could kick off with a short post-it note/flip chart exercise with one flip chart populated with post-its of things attendees need to know about, and a second flip chart populated with post-its of things that attendees know about.  A useful tip here is for the facilitator to request one idea per post-it note and that each post-it note contain the name of the author.

The event then proceeds with the facilitator and attendees matching the demand and supply sides of this ‘knowledge sharing and transfer equation’ and then participating in conversations to ask questions, seek clarification and share knowledge and experiences.  A hand-shake or ‘tick’ added to the relevant pair of post-it notes is one way of celebrating the fact that the knowledge needed has been acquired. 

The event might end with a facilitated ‘what did we all learn’ summary and a review of any post-its that remain. Ideally, each remaining post-it note should be acted on i.e. a knowledge supplier found for the knowledge demand.

The following is an illustration of an instant buddy event where Email was the key theme/topic.   

 

LIS Research Coalition Review announced

The LIS Research Coalition (facilitating a co-ordinated and strategic approach to Library and Information Science research across the UK) was established on 2nd March 2009, and today sees the launch of a review of the Coalition’s impact and value.  I and a colleague, Sandra Ward, are undertaking the review.  For more information please see http://lisresearch.org/.

The Coalition, a Chancellor and a conservatory

The rumour mill surrounding the Coalition’s Budget 2011, coupled with the announcement of a £8bn windfall http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12800725, has placed the growth agenda and the knowledge economy back in the spotlight.  In the words of a recent speech the Chancellor said the Budget will be “unashamedly pro-growth, pro-enterprise and pro-aspiration”. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12805303.

So I’ve mentioned the Coalition and Chancellor – what of the conservatory?

The conservatory in question is mine and it is in need of some TLC; you know the sort of thing – paint peeling and the first signs of wood rot.  As I’m not being very good with ladders and DIY I contacted a local company who specialise in repairs to conservatories.  Whilst they were completing their survey I asked them about their business, and they mine.  It transpired that we have a shared interest in knowledge management.  

Over recent years the conservatory company have built a strong business – through brand, quality and reputation – and had plans to grow.  These growth plans were not dashed by rising costs or taxes; nor were they stimulated by the Government cutting red tape for small enterprises.  The growth plans were stopped by the ‘knowledge transfer’ barrier. 

The owner of the business explained that, whilst many conservatories are built to a modular design, the houses to which they are attached are not.  Therefore many conservatories have sections that are bespoke, and on any given week, the conservatory company comes across new and unique installations.  The challenge the owner faces in growing his business is one of knowledge transfer – i.e. how to capture and share 25 years worth of experience and knowledge; much of which has been accumulated by repairing one-off installations. 

Whilst the plans for growth anticipated in the Coalition’s Budget, and the likely actions of the Chancellor to stimulate small enterprise activity are important to the conservatory company – the key factor determining the growth and ultimate success of the business is knowledge transfer. 

Knowledge Consultants and Practitioners take note – small enterprises need your help and support!

Three ‘little’ knowledge thoughts – or are they?

Three ‘little’ knowledge thoughts – each worth spending 60 seconds thinking about:

1. Knowledge not put into practice is useless. 
2. It’s not so much what we know as how we use what we know. 
3. Knowledge advances by steps, not by leaps.

The future of business is the ‘mesh’

Given the current economic climate, many of us are thinking about ways to do more with less, or perhaps more realistically, do the same with less. 

Whilst researching stories around this theme I came across this presentation on Ted Talks and was taken by the statement ‘the pursuit of things easily shared’.  The presentation is given by Lisa Gansky, author of ‘The Mesh’, and she talks about “a future of business that’s about sharing all kinds of stuff, either via smart and tech-enabled rental or, more boldly, peer-to-peer”.

What products, services or successes and failures are you sharing?

 

What are you counting in your organisation?

The need for knowledge and information managers to demonstrate benefit and value has never been so important.  Many approach this through measurement – and often end up trying to measure and count everything that moves!  

In following article from the BBC NEWS Magazine, Michael Blastland poses the question “Can you count the packets of crisps?” He uses the example of crisp company seeking publicity (at the last General Election) and giving away packets coloured red, blue and yellow, with the main party leaders on the front to get us to think about statistics in a different way. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12127631

The article ends with the question “What do the crisps numbers tell us?” and Michael seeks answers from his readers.

The responses are very interesting and I particularly liked the comment “The answer is very simple. Look in the background and there are five boxes of crisps supplied for the Lib Dems, eight for Gordon Brown and 13 for David Cameron. So the suppliers anticipated more were going to be given out for Cameron and they continually topped up their bin. We would have to look at how many were given out at the end of the day rather than looking at a snapshot during the day.”  

What you see is not always what you get.  Are you counting the right things in your organisation, and more importantly, are you interpreting the statistics in the right way?