Introducing WIKIS as EPSS

After this exciting year, I am fortunately having some days off to "kill the little warm" (just works for native-spanish speakers), i.e. to learn bit more about knowledge management and the many scientific fields related to it.


As I mentioned recently, my understanding is that KM should encompass both vertical and horizontal knowledge transfer.


Horizontal, or peer-knowledge-transfer, aims to leverage all the organisational knowledge AT ANY TIME GIVEN. Let's imagine we take a picture of all organisational knowledge. The capability to make all this knowledge (both articulated and located at people's mind) available to every employee potentially needing it is what I call "horizontal responsibility for KM".


On the other hand, we've got the Vertical perspective. That is because knowledge has an evolution (see Sheehan and his Knowledge Life Cycle, 2002) and not only knowledge but also people flow dinamically in an organisation. The "vertical responsibility for KM" should ensure that organisational knowledge is efficiently transferred and adapted OVER TIME.


In the middle, we still can find something, like EPSS (Electronic Performance Support Systems) which talk about a continuous learning (dynamic) and knowledge transfer from peers for performance improvement of certain tasks (static).

I wonder, how good can WIKIS fit for ad-hoc EPSS where employees can update and customise the knowledge or learning object as they'd like to visualise it. Let's go into further detail:
Wikis are an easy way to set up "how to's" pages (some times 'best practices') to be administrated by employees. I may agree they may lack of accuracy, but I bet they are more dynamically updated than corporate procedures.

In my future view, employees should be able to create by themselves learning objects, whether they are wikis, podcasts or video-logs depend on the case, but definetively they should be encouraged to articulate every piece of knowledge they think a colleague (currently or in the future) might find of interest.

TELL ME!
Which other criteria should I take into account? Employee's skills/profile maybe?

2 main activities for the knowledge manager!

After few weeks of break. I return to my blog with a generalisation about the main responsibilities of the knowledge manager.

I have been reading some posts that make me conclude that the role of the KM is mainly divided into 2 responsibilities:

1. Teaching, then Coaching, then Supporting, then Delegating. As a KM responsible, first task involve to broadcast the advantages of knowledge sharing, transparency and search.

2. Facilitator. Being KM embedded in organisational culture, the second task is to ensure that the knowledge workers have the right channels and tools to practice and grow up in KM activities.

As far as the organisation is learning, the CKO should be more focused on the second responsibility and going back to the first one to refresh the fundamentals and re-address any misconception.

Right or wrong? Then let me know!

Results on the Survey about Future of VLEs

Thanks to everyone who have contributed to the discussions (see previous post).

There have been 15 people answering the complete questionnaire, plus other 4 semi-conducted discussions whose most relevant aspects have been also included in the final report.

The spectrum of respondents ranges from academia (professors and IT staff responsible for eLearning) to practitioners (eLearning managers, sales exec. of eL objects, consultants, KM, etc.). Therefore any indicts of agreement is certainly coincidence ;)

The identity of the respondents will be hidden in the documentation available on-line (document and slide show). If any of the respondents requires further information on the identity and/or profile of respondents will be dealt by private channels (always keeping anonymous those who desired to).

For further discussion in this area or related, please feel free to contact me through this blog. I will respond within 24h.

Using Web 2.0 to gather comments on Web 4.0

The last objective that I pursue for completing my thesis "Web 2.0 and Its Impact on Organisational Knowledge Strategies" is to collate views on the future of Virtual Learning Environments. VLE either at individual or at organizational level try to codify not only explicit but also tacit knowledge, or at least to provide the best communication channels for 'tacit-to-tacit' knowledge transfer.

To organize the thoughts that I'd like to hear from you I wrote 12 questions that I'd wish you answered: (It should take you 10-15min to answer them)

SECTION 1 - AWARENESS
• Have you heard of using Web 2.0 tools in learning environments (LE)? (Y/N) Could you remember any real example of use?
• Have you ever used online tools (e.g. video conference, web presentation, virtual-reality spaces, etc.) for learning/teaching purposes? (Y/N) How would you define the experience?
• Have you ever used web-based multimedia tools (e.g. podcasts, video-logs (YouTube-style), tutorials, etc.) for learning/teaching purposes? (Y/N) How would you define the experience?

SECTION 2 – TRADITIONAL vs. VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of Traditional and Virtual LE? (e.g. cultural/social trust?, human/social interaction?, cost?, quality?)
• How do you think VLEs are going to overcome any disadvantages of Traditional LEs?
• How do you think VLE will deal with transferring ‘tacit’ knowledge?

SECTION 3 – GAMES AS A LEARNING TOOLS
• Have you heard of Multi Media Player Online Reality Games such as Second Life or World of Warcraft? (Y/N)
• Have you ever interacted with other people in any Virtual Reality scenarios? (Y/N) How would you define the experience?
• Have you ever thought or heard about those as a feasible tool for teaching/learning purposes? (Y/N) Any example in particular?

SECTION 4 – THE FUTURE OF VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
• What does the long term future of learning look like? Which is the furthest prediction you may think of in terms of VLE?
• Which tools are more likely to succeed in the long term future? Why?
• How many years time do you forecast for this prediction becoming true? Which are the challenges to conquer for this prediction being accomplished?

END.

The way of sending back the answers is up to you, being these the alternatives:

• Send them by email to: r.navarrofontestad@cranfield.ac.uk


• Commenting on this post

Please, try to be concise on the answers and clear on which question you are answering at any time. If you desire your answers being anonymous let me know. The results will be included in the thesis and reported back to you.

I would like to have the results before Wednesday 22nd August.
Thank you very much for your time.

Making sense of 'Enterprise 2.0' or 'Web 2.0 in corporate environment'

After few months of research I am finding easier to understand the benefits of this new concept for me, not only involving the tools, but also re-engineering processes and cultural change.

Fantastic post (again, thanks JP) sharing thoughts not only against banning Facebook in corporate settings, but also those ideas can be expanded to the future of other tools like IM or mashups. JP says: "Banning Facebook is the equivalent of banning coffee shops and water coolers and loos." And it's difficult not to agree on that. Those who disagree may easily look at some one like themselves banning external telephone calls inside the company some dozens of years ago.

• I would add to help the PEOPLE decide where they are the next thought:
  

It IS clear that allowing IM or blogging to people in the company can be risky, so we know that large companies never trust in 100% of their employees.
In this case, I'D PREFER TO GIVE more value to the 9x% of employees who are committed with their job and let emerge those few over the other being irresponsible with their actions THAN TO RETAIN the technological evolution of my collaboration tools and keep those few hidden behind emails and emails or meetings that never end.

• Having understood which must be the strategic approach let's walk one step down: THE PROCESSES

I normally refer three main ideas to keep in mind when I try to explain which are consisting these new processes of. Three simple rules to transfer to employees when trying to communicate the magic secret of the 'Web 2.0' world.

1. Information must be shared by default not by 'making it shareable'.
   
• The same can be applied to the content creation. The document's edition will not be controlled by default unless those (like policies or rights) that must be controlled by declared experts.
• Think of your colleagues all the time and they will do it for you.
• Links in a post (or a document) make life easier. Let your colleagues read the main body content in a few minutes and link through the text the extra information that they might need.
• Bookmark and tag as you think everyone else will find it
• Be honest with yourself. Blog about your interests, bookmark what you will really use, correct/criticize something if you think it's wrong and complain if you think the things could be made easier for you to communicate.
  
2. The communication channels must be selected according to certain rules.
• Let's have a look to the graph below
• As we see, several different communication channels can be presented for communicate/share the same content. The challenge is to teach the users to select the right channel DEPENDING ON THE CONTENT AND THE MATURITY OF THE CONTENT. eMails are one-to-one (sometimes one-to-few) so that is good to maybe propose someone else an idea that you had in mind or to disagree in first term with anybody else's. Immediately that must be exposed in a Forum where the publisher has not more power to take the discussion further over the others. Everyone will dispose same opportunities to agree, shape or disagree. Some times it has happen that from the eMail it was dumped into a Wiki page. The problem that we might encounter is constant disagreement on the same corners without opportunity for discussion so that delays the overall process of maturing. The mean solution is to develop the Wiki within a Discussion Forum environment attached to it (like Wikipedia offers with its "talk" page). Finally Blogs, which still allow some comments but in minor details, and Announcements, to formalize and communicate to the rest of the community the final conclusions. (In next posts I will be giving details about this idea).

Most of the discussions on 'Enterprise 2.0' will keep open forever as it happens with Knowledge Management, Leadership and Organizational Culture or Change Management. And it's good because reflexion stimulates innovation! So don't wait until unique true solution arrives to your ears because THAT WILL NOT EVER HAPPEN.

Enterprise 2.0 - How do we get started?

http://thebestofenterprise20.blogspot.com/2007/07/and-how-do-we-get-started.html

Links 12th July 2007

1. "What is eLearning 2.0?" Karrer at
http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2006/02/what-is-elearning-20.html

2. "It is not not about the technology" McAfee at http://blog.hbs.edu/faculty/amcafee/index.php/faculty_amcafee_v3/its_not_not_about_the_technology/

3. "Knowledge management to learning organisation connection" Chinowsky and Carrillo at
http://www.scopus.com/scopus/record/display.url?eid=2-s2.0-34250676573&view=basic&origin=inward&txGid=Ck4XvXpPPIvWXPPvx24aCrg%3a2

4. "Top 10 things large companies are looking to get form Enterprise 2.0 vendors today" Mladjov at http://www.blogtronix.com/blogtronix.com/310

5. "Where are you in implementing Enterprise 2.0?" Stephens at http://www.rtodd.com/collaborage/2007/07/where_are_you_in_implementing.html