A knowledge manager's musings

sharing our research threads at KMUK

For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been getting ready for KMUK, Ark Group’s annual knowledge management event that Victoria is chairing. We’re taking with us a snapshot of our research so far into the evolution of the knowledge manager to share with delegates and speakers. I’m curious to see how it resonates with everyone.

It’s still strange to be this side of the Ark Group coin after spending a good few years working there in the early/mid-noughties. It’s the experiences I collected while working on Inside Knowledge and then at Aon and Ernst & Young that have helped me pick out 11 (I couldn’t settle on 10) threads that run through the conversations we’ve been having.

We’ve turned these themes into a series of statements to share among the tables of delegates. We don’t necessarily agree with them all, but we hope they’ll spark discussion and uncover new anecdotes that illustrate other KM challenges or successes.

I won’t go into too much detail here, but will give a full account after the conference with Paul. In case you’re curious, here are our top-11 thrands (an accidental portmanteau - threads and strands - invented while catching up with Khal on the research). We’d love to hear your reaction to them:

• Knowledge managers must help make space for reflection and assimilation
• Knowledge managers must focus on the practical and talk the language of the business rather than preach the philosophy of KM
• Knowledge managers need to understand the commercial angle to their work and articulate how KM impacts business outcomes
• Knowledge management initiatives must follow the organisation’s strategic direction and start at the grass roots
• Social media is a powerful tool for knowledge sharing but the cultural context within an enterprise is different to the external cultural context
• Mobility solutions, such as smart phones and iPads, have solved the information-access challenge
• Knowledge managers have the tools to collaborate virtually across geographies but lack the capabilities to use them successfully
• The link between cause and effect for knowledge initiatives is difficult to articulate
• Knowledge managers should focus on just-in-time rather than just-in-case KM as we can’t predict and capture what people will need
• Knowledge managers should recognise critical points in the employee lifecycle are new hires and leavers
• The skills, behaviours and characteristics of a successful knowledge manager have changed dramatically over the past 10 years

And if you’re going to be at KMUK, do say hello. It’s a while since I was last at a KM conference so I’m hoping there’ll be some friendly faces. And if you want to follow from afar, I’ll be tweeting at @shiggison.

First published on the Sparknow blog.