web 2.0, design & community
Last July, I spoke at the inaugural Ignite/LA on the use of virtual communities to enable strategic knowledge sharing across the enterprise. It took a while, but the video is now online.
The Ignite format uses 20 slides which auto-advance every 15 seconds making the presentation length a total of five minutes. The next Ignite/LA will be held on Monday, June 7th in Santa Monica. You can now register online.
Knowledge management is commonly understood as an enterprise initiative, usually with the objectives of collecting, capturing and reusing knowledge and expertise within the enterprise. The rise of cloud computing, social media and free collaboration tools has made it possible for communities of like-minded people to form outside the context of the enterprise — a form of ad-hoc knowledge sharing and collaboration.
Examples of such communities abound, including (in the KM realm) KMers.org, KMwaves.org and SIKM. But you don’t need to look further than Google to find a wealth of thriving community eco-systems, many with processes for identifying experts and collecting knowledge. Easy access to collaboration tools like Twitter, Skype, blogs, wikis and Google Wave provide the underlying technology that makes such collaboration possible among participants who might otherwise never meet.
It’s reasonable to suggest that real knowledge management occurs in many of these external communities, even if it isn’t really considered KM by its participants.
In this environment, each enterprise (theoretically) has its own knowledge management methodology and systems. In addition, each external community (i.e. KMers.org) also has their own methodology and systems… and community. A professional at Partner C can collaborate and share knowledge within their own enterprise, and/or within any number of external communities. But they remain separate systems. When internal knowledge and expertise comes up short, he must repeat the process (if he’s motivated) in whatever external communities he is involved in.
Extra-Enterprise KM
What I am interested in exploring is what I’ve termed extra-enterprise knowledge management. This involves tightly coupled KM shared within a known group of enterprises, and ideally with integration to traditional intra-enterprise KM systems.
In this environment, there remain internal KM processes and tools, but with strong connections to other valued enterprises — clients, partners, suppliers and in some cases even competitors may fit the bill. The professional in Company A can begin their search for knowledge or expertise within their enterprise, but can also extend that to include the community that “lives” at the intersection of the participating enterprises. It’s KM beyond the firewall.
This happens today in small groups, and generally through personal networking (who you know). I’d like to extend this to the broader enterprise.
There are numerous obstacles and questions that must be resolved to make this a reality. There are legal and regulatory problems, technical issues, and culture clashes, each of which I will explore in the future. But extra-enterprise KM holds tremendous promise for extending and leveraging knowledge sharing and collaboration. Whatever it is called, it’s the next wave of KM.
Interested in continuing the discussion? I am moderating a Twitter chat event titled KM Beyond the Firewall at KMers.org on March 9, 2010 at noon EST.
O’reilly Radar reports that Yahoo! has made another acquisition in their drive to transform the company’s web properties into a Web 2.0 über-community. This time it’s the music playlist community Webjay created by Lucas Gonze.
Yahoo! seems determined to be a player in the Web 2.0 world, and they just might succeed.
I often hear people talking about how Yahoo! is buying up Web2.0, but i don’t think it’s just that. It’s not only about tagging, social bookmarking, sharing, etc. It’s about rethinking the innovation process when handling social technologies. Take a look at some of the characters recently hired/acquired – Caterina Fake, Stewart Butterfield, Joshua Schachter, Andy Baio, Cameron Marlow, Chad Dickerson, Tom Coates… These aren’t even your typical Web2.0 crowd – these are creatives with attitude who have no problem telling corporate what they think and pushing for changes that they feel are essential.
What is the glue that holds all these many seemingly disjointed pieces together (Flickr, del.icio.us, Webjay, etc.)? The people, first of all. People with innovative ideas and the drive to express them. What about from the perspective of the community member? Well, there’s authentication, something that Yahoo! can help unify. There’s commenting and discussion. And there is tagging.
A KM Digression
I had a conversation last week with Darryl, Randy and Kevin about tagging. Not the folksonomy-style tagging familiar in the Web 2.0 world, but old-school taxonomy. Specifically, how much emphasis structured taxonomy (i.e. tagging with a predefined vocabulary) should have in an enterprise knowledge management environment, and whether there is a place for folksonomy in such an environment.
People clearly “get” the value of tagging. As they use web sites like Flickr, del.icio.us and Last.fm, they see firsthand how tags add value on both a personal and a community level. The debate is whether free-form tagging can apply inside the corporate firewall. I believe there’s a place for both. Structured tagging (taxonomy via vocabulary) by knowledge managers; folksonomy tagging by everyone else. Imagine being able to see three levels of tag clouds: enterprise, community, and personal. At a glance you would see what matters most at each level. Color coding could make it more revealing. Corporate tags (vocabulary) gets green; community tags get grey; personal tags get blue.
Are you with me?
Wikis are a fascinating experiment in collaborative content management. Wikipedia is the perfect example. Within a few short years it’s grown to become one of the largest encyclopedias every, all based on knowledge shared by individuals on a volunteer basis.
I’ve been fascinated with the application of wikis in the realm of knowledge management. The concept is simple — we all possess knowledge, and as we individually share the bits and pieces of what we know, collectively we grow more knowledgeable. I benefit from your knowledge and expertise, just as you do from mine. Knowledge is shared by individuals, but the collection (or the wiki) is owned by the collective.
To experiment with this technology, I’ve setup a wiki using the same software that powers Wikipedia: Wikimedia. Yes, it’s available for free, and it took me all of about 15 minutes to download, install and configure. Amazing.
If you are interested in exploring the application of wikis to the field of knowledge management, jump in and check out the FDnot Wiki. It’s open for you to sign-up and begin contributing your knowledge.
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