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I’m not a big fan of predictions and soothsaying, but I still read those that are well thought.

Tony Byrne has developed his Predictions for 2007 which include:

• Google de-googles its appliance
• AJAX UI backlash
• Web managers embracing the delete key
• Falling seat prices
• Rediscovery of workflow
• Portal platforms will diversify

I agree with most of Tony’s predictions, but I think there are bigger ones at play. I know I said I don’t do these predictions but since my company is called ‘Prescient’ I feel compelled to become a hypocrite.

The year 2007 will see:

• Microsoft crank-up the marketing of Sharepoint leading to more and more customers buying without seriously examining alternative solutions
• Standalone portal products will continue to be considerably out-done by CMS solutions
• More vendors delivering a complete all-in-one solution that includes robust content management, search and portal functionality
• Continued market consolidation with many more CMS vendors being bought, merged or disappearing
• Dramatic growth in open source implementation and increased profile and functionality for bigger name solutions such as Zope, Alfresco, OpenCMS, and Plone
• More and more organizations will convert PDF and MS-Word forms to online submission forms with a mixture of in-house and outsourced solutions
• The search engine market will experience less growth than previous years as more organizations realize their current engine suffices and instead focus on content tagging, categorizing, process and policies
• Discussion and focus on Knowledge Management (KM) will continue to decline as more organizations instead narrow their attention to specific tools such as Web 2.0 applications
• More organizations will implement blogs and wikis, but they will still be part of a minority group; social bookmarking and podcasting will still remain little more than a fad on the intranet

Agree? Disagree? What other predictions will come true? Post your comment or question below.

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For more intranet news visit www.IntranetReport.com

Knowledge management is a funny subject – it’s such a hot buzz word and yet its rare to read anything meaningful on the subject. In fact, most managers and executives are under the illusion that KM is something that can be purchased from a vendor.

I’ve not done a study on this but I’ll wager $1000 that if you were to ask 10 executives to define KM, 9 of 10 would make some reference to a plug-and-play solution.

I know this is old hat for some of you, but let’s redefine KM. Of course, depending on the vendor, there are also varying definitions, but I define KM as KM is how corporate knowledge – both tacit and explicit – is stored, retrieved and reused for achieving corporate objectives. Notice there is no direct reference to technology.

Effective knowledge management requires three key components:

·         Participatory individuals – employees who are willing, able and active sharers of tacit knowledge.

·         Process and rules – defined rules and standards (e.g. corporate taxonomy) for categorizing and storing information and knowledge.

·         Technology – physical infrastructure including software that enables the above and allows for effective knowledge retrieval.

A recent article It's what you know and how you use it in the Sydney Morning Herald takes a look at KM placing an importance on business and process…

And while technology plays a supporting rather than lead role in knowledge management, it is also providing ASIC with a method of measuring the effect of its knowledge management initiatives. Ms Sbarcea has implemented an open source social network analysis system which "visualises in a map the connections and pathways between people".

There are many, many tools and systems that fall under the KM umbrella – from search to social media such as blogs and wikis to content and document management. The future of KM may in fact be glimpsed by looking at Google.  In a recent ZDnet article Google dodges knowledge management question, Andrew Donoghue writes that Google is extremely well positioned to be a major player in the KM space, but as is typically Google, is sufficiently vague about its plans.

Google has hinted that it could create an extremely powerful corporate knowledge management or information management platform by integrating products such as its search appliances with its other search and communications applications.

Speaking at the launch of Google’s latest Mini search appliance on Thursday, product marketing manager Arvind Desikan admitted that integrating different Google enterprise-class search technologies together, such as the Enterprise Desktop Search and Google Enterprise Toolbar, would benefit business customers. "The more things we have integrated, the more useful it will be," he said.

Personally, I think KM is still in its infancy. So don’t despair if you find the subject matter confusing and daunting. It is confusing – and daunting. I’d watch Google closely as I also would watch Autonomy and Microsoft. In the meantime, focus on people and process. Build a strong, central intranet portal with an intuitive information architecture and a powerful search engine supported by well-defined and rigorous rules and policies including a corporate taxonomy.

RELATED ITEMS:

No silver bullet for Knowledge Management

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media

Knowledge management (KM) solutions are now the most important strategic technologies for large companies – beating out CRM and mobile/wireless technology priorities – according to a report of European executives, sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services.

Brought to my attention by the excellent blog Portals & KM by Bill Ives “Know how managing knowledge for competitive advantage” details the findings of asurvey by the Economist Intelligence Unit:

·         67% of companies cite knowledge management/business intelligence solutions as important to achieving their strategic goals over the next three years

·         63% believe CRM solutions are vital over the next three years

·         35% see mobile/wireless technology as critical

Other findings of the report include:

·         Too much information impedes decision–making. Over half (55%) of executives say that IT's failure to prioritize information is the main barrier to effective decision–making. Consolidating information and providing consistent performance indicators are regarded as the most important step firms can take to improve the speed and quality of decision–making.

·         Good customer information remains elusive. Knowledge about customers, their preferences and their behavior is the overwhelming focus for improving the quality of information in large organizations over the next three years. The focus of CRM initiatives is now shifting from automating processes and collecting data to enabling more sophisticated analysis of customer requirements and buying habits.

·         Relevant information is more important than "information anywhere.” When asked where IT needs to improve most to help managers make better decisions, the top two priorities are to make it easier to analyze and drill down into information (40%) and improve the quality of data (31%). Only 12% of executives see ensuring access to information anywhere as a priority for improvement.

·         Corporate culture is as important as IT for effective knowledge management.The biggest obstacles to knowledge sharing in large organizations are organizational, rather than IT–related. Half of executives say that internal barriers between departments hamper information sharing. Ignorance of what knowledge exists, or of where to find it, is another major barrier according to 41% of respondents. In some cases, a simple solution such as keeping a regularly updated record of who knows what can be more effective than throwing IT at the problem, according to the report.

·         Effective knowledge management pays. Executives increasingly see knowledge management as a vital tool for competitive advantage. One case study in the report shows how Schlumberger, an oil services company, achieved a return on investment of $200m in a single year from a recent knowledge management initiative.

It’s important to stress however what I’ve said before: successful KM relies on more than technology. Off-the-shelf solutions are not a silver bullet. Optimal KM depends on participatory employees guided by process and policies and finally supported by the appropriate technology (see No Silver Bullet for Knowledge Management).

 Download the report for free.

Most I.T. projects have some hurdles or bugs. The $9 billion U.S. Navy-Marine Corps intranet (NMCI) is no exception.

Of course the military would use an acronym like NMCI, but I was hoping that we would be privy to one of those cutting-edge mission names like Mission Intranet Freedom or Mission Global Information Dominance... Ooops! That moniker might be letting the cat-out-of-the-bag....

Speaking at a conference of 1,200 military vendors in Norfolk, Virginia, the NMCI head honcho Rear Admiral James B. Goodwin III lamented about some of the challenges. As reported in the Virginian-Pilot, some of the bugs have included e-mail problems for Admiral Michael G. Mullen, President Bush’s nominee for chief of naval operations.

Rear Adm Goodwin joked, ““Probably not the e-mail I wanted to see from my new boss, but it’s one of the realities right now.”

For those not familiar with the project, EDS was hired to work with the Navy and Marine Corps to build a "comprehensive, enterprise-wide initiative that will make the full range of network-based information services available to Sailors and Marines for day-to-day activities and in war.”

The $9 billion project is in its fifth year.

NMCI features more than your average run-of-the-mill secure access to US Armed Forces information and systems and “universal access to integrated voice, video and data communications.

While it is not complete the Navy Marine intranet will "afford pier-side connectivity to Navy vessels in port. And it will link more than 360,000 desktops across the United States as well as sites in Puerto Rico, Iceland and Cuba.”

The Navy and Marine Corps use the NMCI to achieve "a number of critical objectives:

• Enhanced network security
• Interoperability with CINCs and other Services
• Knowledge sharing across the globe
• Increased productivity
• Improved systems reliability and quality of service
• Reduced cost of voice, video and data services

Want to know more? The public can visit the intranet home page at www.nmciinfo.usmc.mil (updated URL).

Everyone has content, but how well is it written?

An Information Mapping (IMI) survey shows that about 65% of the respondents spend from 1 to 3 hours per day reading and writing emails.

·         40% "waste" thirty minutes to three hours per day reading poorly written emails.

·         80% of respondents deem email writing skills as 'extremely' or 'very' important to their jobs.

Not surprisingly, the respondents don’t represent chicken little companies. Nearly 50% of the respondent companies had 5,000 or more employees or more. More than 80% of the respondents were management or had a “professional” function. Key jobs included:  

·         general management

·         operations

·         human resources & training

·         information technology

The study (Information Mapping Survey Reveals Email Writing Skills Vital to Job Effectiveness)identified the biggest email problems as:

• Disorganized content
• Missing critical information
• Unclear action or request
• Content is too wordy, long and difficult to read

"It is evident that organizations can greatly improve productivity and performance by helping employees write more effective email communications," said Deborah Kenny, IMI's Vice President and General Manager of Learning Solutions. "Email writing is a critical competency for today's business professionals, but too few email messages are organized clearly or effectively. Poorly written emails translate into substantial inefficiencies and costs that have a significant impact on an organization's bottom line."

The bottom line: poor content costs money. Employees should be trained how to write effective email and content on the intranet. Furthermore, there should be an effective use policy for e-mail which also dictates what belongs on e-mail and what belongs on the intranet.

Wiping-out 15 minutes of wasted employee time on average for each of your company’s 5,000+ employees would save or earn back millions of dollars in productivity gains.

There’s an adage that is old for the intranet age (since they came to be mainstream in the early 90s) that says you shouldn’t put anything on the intranet that you wouldn’t put in print. It relates to the older adage that you shouldn’t print anything that you wouldn’t want anyone outside the company to read.

Your content is valuable. You wouldn’t want to share most of it with the outside world – especially the competition or media. However, if you are making content available via the intranet then it is possible it can be leaked externally. The number one leaking culprit, of course, is the employee.

There are three general positions or models to adopt vis a vis content protection:

• Open market – publish just about anything you can on the corporate intranet.
• Closed market – put sever constraints on what can be published.
• Asynchronous market – a hybrid model that entrusts employees with a certain level of responsibility to maintain confidentiality.

My own personal opinion is that if you’ve hired and trusted an individual to do a job that the organization deems crucial enough to justify the pay then most individuals are trustworthy and not likely to leak confidential information to outside sources. On the other hand, I wouldn’t publish any corporate top secrets either. As such I recommend most companies adopt an asynchronous model that assumes a certain level of responsibility and trustworthiness of employees but does not make widely available all information and data to all employees.

Regardless, intranet and corporate information managers do have a responsibility to inform employees of their responsibility and to limit the organization’s liability. Such action includes the development of several policies:

• Editorial policy
• Terms of use
• Acceptable use

Editorial policy

Your editorial policy is less of a legal security blanket and more of a definition of roles and responsibilities of those developing and maintaining online content. The editorial policy should include details on...

• content types
• style acceptability
• news determinants (e.g. currency, impact, etc.)
• formatting
• archiving
• photo treatments and bylines
• content management system rules and directions
• copyright and legal
• privacy and security
• governance including roles and responsibilities
• taxonomy (classification)
• site registration and indexing

Terms of use

Terms of use is a standard legal disclaimer. It says who owns it and declares the copyright, disclaims accuracy of content, etc.

Acceptable use

Acceptable use spells out the rules. Thall shall not...

• Email content outside of the company.
• Print and distribute content outside of the company.
• Release content to any media outlet.
• Rewrite or reproduce content for personal purposes or profit without the expressed written consent of the company (legal department).

Page footers

If you’re not already doing so make sure you have coded into your style sheets or CMS templates a footer that always includes the following:

• A legal disclaimer
• Terms of use
• Copyright stamp
• Name and email address of author
• Date of publish

While clients have hired me to develop these policies and standards the work is not really rocket science. It just takes a little time and thought that could save your organization some headaches in the future.

Don’t believe the hype – there is no silver bullet for effective knowledge management.

Were you to believe the constant bombardment of sales brochures, pitches, presentations, articles and related ‘spin’ it would be easy to conclude that knowledge management (KM) is some form of technology – a combination of various hardware and software components. This is what the technology vendors would have corporate managers believe.

In truth, successful KM depends more on people and process than technology.

KM Defined

Based on common definitions that can vary slightly from one to the next, simply put, KM is how corporate knowledge – both tacit and explicit – is stored, retrieved and reused for achieving corporate objectives. Notice there is no direct reference to technology.

Effective knowledge management requires three key components:

• Participatory individuals – employees who are willing, able and active sharers of tacit knowledge.
• Process and rules – defined rules and standards (e.g. corporate taxonomy) for categorizing and storing information and knowledge.
• Technology – physical infrastructure including software that enables the above and allows for effective knowledge retrieval.

“To many organizations, implementing a knowledge management strategy can initially appear to be a daunting and overwhelming task,” writes Antony Satyadas, in “Growing with Knowledge Management” for Line 56.  “Many questions must be addressed before users feel comfortable investing in a KM solution, including: Where do I begin? What technology do I need? How do I ensure the process is managed correctly? How do I measure the effectiveness of my knowledge management solution?”

Planning

Of course, any initiative needs a plan and defined goals and measurable expectations (outcomes) before any technologies should be evaluated, purchased or implemented. The priorities and expectations of internal managers, executives, and information workers need to be understood, documented and accounted and applied to best practices before any technology is considered. Once specific goals, standards, and roles are identified and documented, then technology and evaluation criteria can begin prior to solution evaluation and selection (see Pssst, wanna buy a CMS?).

Education and change management are also requisites to any KM plan. “It is important to remember that more than 50 percent of a KM solution is about change management and ensuring that your organization's culture and behavior patterns are appropriately accounted for in the strategy,” says Satvadas, who carries the title of Knowledge Discovery Leader at Lotus.

Technology

I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard or read the phrase “effective knowledge management system.” I’ll bet you $1,000 that if you asked 10,000 communications, human resource or IT professionals you might find 10 or 20 that could accurately define “effective knowledge management system.”

The truth is there is no one technology or system. In fact, effective KM often requires multiple technologies working in tandem under a set of standards that could include one, many or all of the following:

• Email
• Search engine
• Corporate portal
• Document management
• Content management
• Directory
• Instant messaging
• Personalization
• Profiling
• E-Learning
• Web conferencing
• Blog
• Wiki
• Etc.

After several months of planning and investigation, one client of  mine (Prescient Digital Media), a major energy utility, selected a portal product that included a content management platform with personalization, discussion forums, search and other utilities to work hand-in-hand with a new document management solution to reduce the average time employees spent on searching for information (based on an employee study, the average time spent searching for information on the corporate information was 18-20 minutes per day per employee) to less than 10 minutes, and to reduce the maximum number of clicks to reaching retrieval online corporate information to three or less (95% of the time).

Measurable goals are requisite to any solid KM plan.

Return On Investment

Much to the potential joy of your CIO and CFO, the benefits of effective KM are indeed measurable in terms of dollars and cents. Measurable benefits (hard and soft) can include:

• Increased customer satisfaction (which directly correlates with sales revenue)
• Reduced IT help desk costs
• Reduced software maintenance costs
• Increased employee productivity (reduced searching time, etc.)
• Reduced meeting costs
• Reduced paper costs
• Reduced paper and software distribution costs

Halliburton is one of the world's largest providers of products and services to the oil and gas industries and winner of the 2003 Extended Enterprise Innovator Award for developing an extensive collaborative portal that relies on integrated ERP functions to serve customers, suppliers and employees.

In its first year, the portal influenced $120 million in sales, according to customer surveys; improved corporate efficiencies to the tune of about $500,000 by enabling better access to technical documents; and led to reduced payment cycles.(Source: Beth Schultz, Network World, February 17, 2003

Bottom Line

Effective KM requires a lot of work, intelligent thinking, rules and standards, advanced planning, and a supportive culture (including supportive executives) not too the appropriate tools and technology. There is no silver bullet. The bullet is made of wood and requires a lot of carving, moulding, care and hard work before it can be fired with a successful hit.