Discussions of Enterprise Search Summit last spring in NYC:

From Bill Ives (who will be live blogging from KMWorld 2010 in Nov)

From Jed Cathorne’s EMC Stuff, day one and day two

KMWorld, Nov 15-18, with workshops on the 15th and three tracks of programs Nov 16-18.

Taxonomy Boot Camp, Nov 15/16

Enterprise Search Summit Fall, November 16-18

SharePoint Symposium, Nov 17/18 (the newest addition to the KMWorld family of events)

By co-locating these events, KMWorld 2010 provides all the essential pieces of the information engine that powers today’s effective enterprise — including knowledge creation, publishing, sharing, finding, mining, reuse, and more.  Well managed and implemented, these activities work together to enable business problem-solving, innovation, and achievement — all those critical processes and practices for KnowHow: The Knowledge-Driven Enterprise (the theme of KMWorld 2010).

Stay tuned for more information about these events, guest blogs from speakers, and related material.  Register and maximize your organization’s technological investments through practical hands-on information, case studies and instructions, and build personal relationships with speakers and thought leaders at many conference networking events.

KMWorld 2010, Nov 15-18, Washington DC

Yes, KMWorld 2010 is moving to the east coast and will be at the Marriott Renaissance in Washington DC,  November 16-18.  It will be integrated with:

• Taxonomy Boot Camp, Nov 15-16
• Enterprise Search Summit Fall , Nov 16-18
• and the newest Information Today 2-day event, SharePoint Symposium, Nov 17-18

The call for speakers is available and we hope to hear from you and see you in November!

Dave Snowden, the well-known if not iconic figure known to most everyone who attends KMWorld, finished off this year’s KMWorld conference with a three-hour session which introduced (or further familiarized) attendees with the Cynefin model and Cognitive Edge methodologies for addressing complexity.

Dave instructed participants to sit at round tables, in groups of approximately 6 people, evening things out.  He noted that there were several CE practitioners in the room as well, and asked us (I am one of them) to ensure that we were evenly distributed around the room so that we could help if and when any table ran into the need for additional clarification, etc. (though in my case, it’s just as likely that I would add more confusion than clarity to the group’s understanding of the issue or the methods).

Dave then asked each group to come up with:

• the three key learnings that they have taken away from this year’s KMWorld conference, and
• three key challenges to organizations that stem from those learnings
• a proposal for addressing those challenges that they would present to a fictitious senior management team

(I may not have those key tasks articulated quite correctly, as I am writing this post a day and a half after the session and I am relying on my memory).

After completing that first task, Dave asked a representative from each group to move to the next table and present the proposal to the fictitious management team sitting at that table, and then apply the Cognitive Edge method known as Ritual Dissent (the person presenting the idea sits with their back to the table whilst the group attacks the idea as savagely as possible, tearing it down from as many angles as possible).

The rest of the session was essentially several more rounds of this exercise, with brief theory bursts about corporate anthropology (ably supported by Beth Meriam, who has helped Dave on the Children of the World project) and use of the Cognitive Edge method interspersed between these rounds of the exercise.

The session was effective at demonstrating in a brief manner the key tenets of the Cynefin model and some of the core concepts of the Cognitive Edge methodology.

A good time was had by all.

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KM World Sessions: Is Semantic Technology Real?

KM World Sessions: Evolve From a Tactical E-Discovery Approach to Search and E-Discovery

KM World Sessions: The Role of Social Techniques in Search & How It Impacts Your Organization

KM World Sessions: From Birth to Billions: The Life Story of Google Enterprise Search

KM World Sessions: Fundamentals of Enterprise Search

KM World Sessions: Enterprise Search Technologies

KM World Sessions: Resetting the Enterprise With 2.0 Collaborative Tools

Here’s a recent Harvard Business Publishing blog post on its “How We Work” blog (Peter Bregsman) that’s attracted quite a few comments.  It obviously struck a nerve.

The premise of the post underlines and reinforces one of the key points that KMWorld speaker and teacher emeritus Dave Snowden keeps ramming home for everybody.  Real and honest stories (narratives) can make a big difference in how people see their work, the place they work, why they work, how to work, and so on.

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A Good Way to Change a Corporate Culture

“I’d like to talk to you about a big project,” the woman told me on the phone. “We need to change our culture.”

She was a senior leader in a professional services firm, where people really are their most important asset. Only it turns out the people weren’t so happy. Theirs was a very successful firm with high revenues, great clients, and hard working employees. But employee satisfaction was abysmally low and turnover rates were staggeringly high. Employees were performing, they just weren’t staying.

This firm had developed a reputation for being a terrible place to work. When I met with the head of the firm, he illustrated the problem with a personal example. Just recently, he told me, a client meeting had been scheduled on the day one of his employees was getting married. “I told her she needed to be there. That the meeting was early enough and she could still get to her wedding on time.”

He paused and then continued, “I’m not proud of that story, but it’s how we’ve always operated the firm.” Then he looked at me, “So, Peter, how do you change the culture of a company?”

Such a simple question. I wanted to give him a simple answer.

But a culture is a complex system with a multitude of interrelated processes and mechanisms that keep it humming along.

Performance reviews and training programs define the firm’s expectations. Financial reward systems reinforce them. Memos and communications highlight what’s important. And senior leadership actions — promotions for people who toe the line and a dead end career for those who don’t — emphasize the firm’s priorities.

In most organizations these elements develop unconsciously and organically to create a system that, while not always ideal, works. To change the culture is awkward, self-conscious, and complex. It’s better to avoid it if possible.

“Why do you want to change the culture?” I asked him. “The firm seems successful. Highly profitable. The culture seems to be working to support those goals. Why not keep it?”

He had to think for a few moments. “It’s not sustainable. Eventually we’ll lose our best people. No one will want to work here.” And then he paused. “I won’t want to work here.”

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To find out how narrative and stories can make a difference, read the rest of this interesting and inspiring blog post here …

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Create learning organizations con necting internal and external; there are  new listening platforms to identify experts – Yammer (internal twitter-like tool, and Yammer CEO, David Sacks, speaking in KMW session A302 on Thurs) and also know the influence of these key people

Create new worksflows, hierarchies moving into more flexibile structures; social technologies disrupting traditional organizations

New announcement from SalesForce: integrating social updates into the enterprise

Openness requires accountability, social media & disclosure policies, e.g. Red Cross handbook

Fail fast, fail smart: identify top 5-10 worst case scenarios; develop migration & contingency plans; encourage risk taking and forgive failures

Social networks like air, everywhere

Social integrated into all aspects of search, information and orgs

Be ready to give up control

;-)

If attendees at KMWorld 09 need any further convincing that working in interconnected environments where people operate in social networks is an important issue, here’s some brand new research out today from the Society for New Communications Research suggesting that C-level execs are increasingly taking this new set of conditions seriously!

Via ZDNet ..

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Wow! Top execs say they are influenced by social networks

This is a new research study from the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) is very important because it shows that company executives are influenced by their online networks.

And the trend is growing. The influence on business decisions by online communities is at its highest in three years.

The research was conducted by Don Bulmer from SAP and Vanessa DiMauro.

Here are some key findings from this survey of 365 business professionals:

- Professional decision-making is becoming more social – enter the era of Social Media Peer Groups (SMPG)

- Professional networks are emerging as decision-support tools

- Professionals trust online information almost as much as information gotten from in-person

- Reliance on web-based professional networks and online communities has increased significantly over the past 3 years

- Social Media use patterns are not pre-determined by age or organizational affiliation

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These are all very interesting findings. Especially the high level of trust that decision makers have in regards to their online communities. It’s good to have some real data to match the anecdotal stories and observations.

There is more survey data here on Don Bulmer’s blog: Everyday Influence: SNCR Research Reveals Social Media’s Impact on Business and Decision Making

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KM World Sessions: Fundamentals of Enterprise Search

KM World Sessions: Enterprise Search Technologies

KM World Sessions: Resetting the Enterprise With 2.0 Collaborative Tools

Toby Ward

Bill Ives

Rebecca Jones

FastForward Blog

Thanks all for sharing!

In this morning’s keynote address, Andrew McAfee mentioned the book The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki.  Some of you may remember that Surowiecki delivered the keynote presentation at KMWorld 2007 (a conference about knowledge management and improving the effectiveness of knowledge work).

Yes, everyone gets the concept stated by the title.  Regardless of whether they agree with Surowiecki or not, there’s a fundamental attraction, and empirical evidence, to the concept.  A crowd, faced with a question or a problem, or an idea, is made up of a wide range of different diverse people with as many perspectives as there are people.  Yet there often seems to be a wisdom, a coalescing of sense, that can be deduced or extracted, or “consensed” from the crowd using a range of known processes.  In a given process, the crowd takes on a consciousness, and adopts a perspective or a position on an issue, which represents its ‘wisdom”.

The workforce in any given organization is a crowd of sorts (a crowd that is likely to be more homogenous than a general crowd, to be sure, and the constraint of some homogeneity plays into the rest of my thinking, as I hope will be evident).  Organizations have cultures, and can even be said to have personalities that flow from or are representative of that culture, as individuals in the organization act outwards towards customer, suppliers, vendors and other external stakeholders.

Indeed, many organizations go to significant lengths to ensure that their workforces are aligned, on the same page, hold a shared vision, speak as one .. you get the picture (or the vision, so to speak  .

And the inspiration, the catalyst, the creator enabling the construction of that shared vision, the alignment, the culture in which the vision takes shape and is made manifest, is the job of the leader or (more common today) the leadership team.

But .. and here is where it gets interesting for me .. there is a significant tension in this process between structurally-induced learned behaviours and the sense people have of engaging and channeling the energy of a culture.

For quite a few years now there have been sustained and often clarion-like calls for the development of learning organizations, and for changes to fundamental assumptions and models of leadership and effective management.  And, there have been  hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars spent on culture change initiatives, coaching, and the increased effectiveness of internal communications.  You know it, I know it and employees all over North America and western Europe know it.

There have been scads of organizational development and organization change books trumpeting the need for change, and asserting that one way or another the change is accomplished under a great leader or a magnificent leadership team.  There are competency models galore, climate and culture surveys, and a wide range of other assessment, diagnostic and developmental tools and processes aimed at “harnessing the employees’ and the organization’s potential”.

The structure of most organizations of any size is still clearly hierarchical, and it is the rare “authentic” or natural leader that possesses, finds or grows in him or herself the wisdom to bring humility, purpose, values, clarity and inclusive decision-making to the challenging role of creating  and leading a responsive, adaptable and effective organization.  Jim Collins codified these rare qualities in a concept and articles about “Level Five Leadership“, which was a featured central article in the Harvard Business Review’s Breakthrough Leadership issue.

When going back into that literature or that field, the fundamentals I have always returned to  are the key points of humility and listening.

And I think that there’s the rub, and the lesson on offer with the possibilities of acknowledging and working to access the wisdom “collective intelligence” of the organizational crowd.

Most leaders, executives and senior managers are still of an age where they have been steeped in industrial-era management science assumptions, and they have reached the levels of senior decision-making and leadership with the help of the models of leadership and management effectiveness that preceded this digital and hyperlinked environment that includes the Internet and wide, deep and rapid access to information and other people.

They are to inspire culture, shape and direct the organization’s personality (expressed through its service and execution) and use power, access knowledge and acumen wisely.  But most still (and it may only be semi-consciously) know best how to operate top-down, even if their personal leadership or management style is not coercive or directive (note:  leadership & management styles and the related competency models come today mainly from David McLelland’s seminal work at Harvard in the ’60’s on Power (P), Achievement (Ach) and Affiliation (Aff), said to be the three motivational drivers common to all people in a workplace setting).

By and large, the people in today’s organizational structures charged with the accountability for leading to results, still like and know how to use the power of hierarchy.  Let’s please remember that regardless of the relatively rapid changes in the fields of leadership development (viz. Level Five Leadership and Breakthrough Leadership, noted above .. or evenBuckingham’s “First, Break All The Rules”), not so very much has changed.

Notwithstanding Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence work and more recently, more from him on Social Intelligence ( derived from the basic constructs developed by David Mclelland, noted above), there remains in my opinion fundamental dissonance between these critical human attributes, the actual dynamics that demonstrate their use, and the social architecture in which they are used (the organization’s structure).   The concepts and the words in the latest and greatest competency models may have changed, the coaches and professional leadership developers will have trotted them out, and you can’t get onto an airplane and look at the magazines without some article about the “new leadership”, but the banal reality is that most compensation philosophies and methods and performance management scheme objectives have not.  Yes, these leaders and managers will have performance objective related to the new competency models, and yes, there will be invoices from consultants to show that the leaders and senior managers have been trained during the last twelve months, but … the basic dominant organizational structure of today still mitigates against the use of these relatively new concepts.

Enter social software .. blogs, wikis and various widgets (like IM interfaces that help people connect, converse, swap ways of doing things and feedback from colleagues and customers … giant, wide always-coursing feedback loops that will not be stopped.

What of the wisdom collective intelligence of the interconnected of the organizational crowd ?

Well, in spite of more than a decade of much work by many organizations that have involved themselves in much more inclusive, organizational democracy-oriented initiatives, it only takes a little bit of perceived ambiguity, loss of perceived control, shifts in markets or constituents … and control-oriented hierarchy usually reasserts itself very quickly.

Don’t believe me ?  Read The Economist’s The New Organization, published 24 months ago (damn, it’s now behind a pay wall.  I must have linked to it one too many times 

We’ve probably all worked in jobs in sizeable hierarchical organizations.  We know that many, if not most, people who work want to do a good job and also know a lot about what’s really going on – in the company, in its industry, in its markets, in the world out there and in the world they inhabit daily.

We also know that there is indeed something … something tangible, observable, useful and able to be developed and put to use … to the notion of the wisdom collective intelligence contained in and offered up by crowds when faced with an issue.

I and many others have maintained for a long time now that the adroit, open and sincere use of social software in an organization, and the listening and the tapping into wisdom … the wisdom of a given organization’s crowd … will help leaders and managers develop and grow as quickly, or more so, into leaders who do not rely on charisma or positional power or coercion or dishonest political manipulation, but rather face and embrace the crowd they are part of with humility.

The job of a leader in today’s hyperlinked and transparent organizational world is to instantiate the crowd’s wisdom with a clearly-stated and purposeful mission and objective, and then listen. This is where social software can shine … in my opinion it can replace or augment even the most sophisticated culture or internal communications surveys and diagnostics.  It can help leaders and managers learn to really listen, and to respond in intelligent and mature ways to the conversations that will carry the wisdom collective intelligence of the organizational crowd. It can help them engage with that wisdom intelligence through leading and managing by blogging around (blogging around being the virtual electronic equivalent of “walking around” from the famous MBWA meme).

These days (and certainly “tomorrow”) it’s less and less about charisma, command and control, and more and more about conversations and championing, catalyzing and coordinating the wisdom collective intelligence of any given organizational crowd (and increasingly that crowd includes the customers, the suppliers, the vendors .. the whole shebang).

Collect content; connect people

Try things out; improve & iterate

Lead by example; model behaviors

Set goals; recognize and reward

Tell stories; get others to tell theirs

Enable innovation; support integration

Include openly; span boundaries

Prime the pump; ask & answer questions

Network; pay it forward & share relentlessly

Let go of control; encourage & monitor

Just say yes; be responsive

Meet less, deliver more

Thirteen is the magic number — this is the 13th KMWorld conference; Stan provided 13 insights as well as 13 reasons people don’t share knowledge, 13 recommended blogs, recommended sites, communities, conferences, and more.  Thanks Stan for great content.

Here’s a post I wrote a few months ago about why, in a networked age,  it’s generally a good idea

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