Blog by Emily Heath.
One of our five key themes in NetIKX’s 2010-2012 seminar framework has been ensuring business value and cost effectiveness in everything that we do. In fact it is such an important theme, that our 2013-2015 framework will be highlighting it as a key perspective to underline all our seminars.
Our two speakers at NetIKX’s September 2012 seminar operate in two very different sectors. However, both share a commitment to deliver value and ensure cost effectiveness to both internal and external clients, which gave them valuable insights to share with us on this important topic.
Speakers:
Roger Farbey – British Dental Association (BDA)
‘How to justify the implementation and continuation of a new KM service’
Roger Farbey is Head of Library & Knowledge Services at the British Dental Association (BDA) where he has been in post since 1991. In this time he has introduced a new Library Management System and online searching (Medline) to the BDA and an online public access catalogue (OPAC), which he insisted, would be available to all including non-members (“to show them what they were missing”). He was instrumental in introducing KM to the BDA in 2009 when he appointed the Association’s first Knowledge Manager, Nikki West. He is a Fellow of CILIP and was made an MBE for Services to Dentistry and Dental Information in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Megan Roberts – Oxford Innovation
‘Cost effectiveness: providing a service and proving value without a budget’
Megan has been working at Oxford Innovation, a small business support company, since 2008. She is currently providing a one-woman information service whilst juggling the vagaries of small company budgeting, allocating costs to specific projects rather than having a central budget. Megan is also vice-chair of UKeiG.
Roger Farbey
The BDA first tried knowledge management techniques in 2005, at the bequest of the then CEO. But KM didn’t really take off until 2006, when a new, very supportive, CEO took up post.
The new CEO asked the Library staff to help coordinate the BDA’s CRM database (known as CARE), moving it forward and adding value. A business case was put forward to create a new Knowledge Manager post, to be tasked with conducting an organisation-wide knowledge audit.
The new Knowledge Manager (Nikki West) began in January 2007. Her information audit revealed that the BDA’s documents were in a painful state of disarray, with some even held off site in a furniture warehouse (no doubt a common problem across many institutions!). Items had been haphazardly stored on different shelves with no real system. Physical storage in central London costs lots of money, so it was imperative to eliminate any “rubbish”. Nikki has been at the forefront of doing this, managing to free up lots of storage space by destroying unneeded records – a tangible benefit.
One department in particular was taking up a lot of space with stored archives of paperwork dating back over the past twenty years. At first they steadfastly resisted Nikki throwing any items out, but in the last couple of years they have completely changed their attitude and become very compliant in putting a destruction date on the new recording forms provided. Roger believes they have come to grasp the benefit of having someone else look after their records! The BDA’s CEO has also been very helpful in overcoming any resistance.
Encouraging sharing informally
To encourage good collaboration and interaction between BDA teams, the Knowledge Services team initially tried holding ‘knowledge cafes’, but found these were a bit too formal and stilted. Instead they now hold informal charity coffee mornings by the library, which help encourage staff to talk together, transferring knowledge and encouraging sharing informally. Apart from a small kitchen, the BDA has no staff room or other shared space where staff can come together. There are pub meetings after work, but not everyone wants to go to the pub. So the coffee mornings provide an opportunity for staff to get together during work time and share information – Roger commented that this sounds “incredibly facile” but actually yields very helpful results for finding out what people are working on.
In April 2012 the previous CARE Owners’ Group (COG) name was changed to Knowledge Owners’ Group (KOG), to reflect the wider area of activity and interfaces that the group now considers. The KOG will assist in the facilitation and development of rules and good practice for the organisation and storage of recorded content across the BDA’s information systems. Documents have been devised to illustrate and promote this, including an attractive Mind Map of the BDA’s Functional Classification scheme.
Gaining acceptance for KM (the sneaky way)
Roger believes that the most valuable tool in gaining acceptance for KM within an organisation is to make sure it brings value and practical assistance. Implementing good records management has proved to be a valuable tool in gaining wider acceptance and credibility for KM across BDA teams. If previously resistant departments can be persuaded to buy into records management they inevitably also buy into the other KM activities – in Roger’s view it is impossible to overestimate the importance of these “trojan horse” methods.
Dentist’s chair in the BDA museum
Megan Roberts
Megan’s employers, Oxford Innovation, are government funded to go in and help companies understand how to improve their profitability and stay in business. A lot of companies don’t realise how important information is to their success. Even Oxford Innovation don’t even appreciate this – Megan has been trying to persuade senior management that emailing documents to collaborate is not that efficient and a communal network space where staff can share documents together would be much more efficient.
Data validation is really important – Megan doesn’t just rely on Wikipedia! She likes to check that a couple of sources agree; often you get a lot of articles all just copying word-for-word a single source – the challenge is to find original sources. As she is often researching topics which are completely new to her, she finds Wikipedia can be a good grounding to get a feel for a subject, before following through the links to other sources at the bottom of Wikipedia articles. As you learn the language of the topic area you can start to refine your search.
She is also a great believer in paying for information if necessary, to ensure good quality info – but this has to be justified to clients. Going behind the paywall can expose information Google can’t. Trade associations are often really valuable sources of data, and Megan will suggest that her clients join these associations to gain access to member-only databases.
How to provide an excellent service without a budget – “You’ve got to dig a bit deeper and go a bit further than Google”
A “snazzy report”, even just formatted nicely using Word so that it looks good, often impresses. People like something tangible to hold on to; something done formally looks much more valuable. References at the end of reports also create a good impression of authority.
Think outside the box – tell clients more points of view than they’re expecting! Look for what you think people might want, rather than what they ask for. Delve deeper into the problem to look a few stages back than they’ve reached. Sometimes companies come to Oxford Innovation wanting advice on how to sell more of their products, but on investigation Oxford Innovation discover the company does not have the production capacity to produce more products, even if they were able to sell more.
Proving value internally
Megan commented that this is often difficult. If you don’t tell your colleagues what you can do, how are they supposed to know? Informal chats about what colleagues are working on can be a good opportunity to offer them help.
Listen and adapt – pay attention to what people want – and put yourself out there!
@MeganJRoberts
http://meganjroberts.wordpress.com
Both presentations are available to NetIKX members by logging into the NetIKX website.
Below are a couple of photos from the group discussions after our speakers.
;
March 2013 Seminar: Knowledge management: past, present and future
/in Developing and exploiting information and knowledge, Events 2013, Previous Events/by PerrineSummary
Summary:
Stuart Ward was the original founder of NetIKX when it evolved from previous Information Management groups. He led the meeting through the changes in KM since then and provided a model of how to help our businesses see the value of KM.
Lissi gave an overview of her research into three case studies showing how KM has been used in charity organisations. She was able to draw out some of the factors in the success of these programmes as well as some of the problems to avoid!
Speakers
Stuart Ward, Forward Consulting, established Forward Consulting in 1997 to specialise in Business Change Management, HR, and Information Management. He set up Forward Knowledge Consulting in 2003 to provide knowledge management consultancy. Prior to 1997 he had over 8 years as a senior company director in the electricity industry with experience of IS and business management at executive team level in commercial, public and private sector organisations. He has a track record of achievements in information management and IT, major business change management, HR, quality improvement, business process redesign, project management and cost reduction. He has excellent communication, team building, business analysis, project management and influencing skills.
He was the founding member of NetIKX (Network for Information and Knowledge Exchange) in 2007, first Chairman until July 2008.
Specialties: Change management, information and knowledge management practice, policy, strategy and performance assessment (Knowledge and Information Index). He believes in creating business value through better use of information and knowledge. He knows about recruitment processes and practice. He is an accredited police SEARCH Assessor. He lectures at University level.
Lissi Corfield, The Knowledge Advantage, was Head of IT at VSO, (Voluntary Service Overseas) for many years and has recently gained a PhD in Knowledge Management from the Open University. Her study was based on research in three major UK charities.
Time and Venue
March 2013, 2pm The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS
Slides
No slides available for this presentation
Tweets
#netikx60
Blog
See a blog report: Knowledge Management: past, present and future – notes on a NetIKX seminar
A seond report was written by Val Skelton for Information Today: Knowledge management: past, present and future
Study Suggestions
None
Digital native or digital immigrant – does it matter?
/in Developing and exploiting information and knowledge, Harnessing the web for information and knowledge exchange, Netikx/by AlisonKaren Blakeman and Graham Coult, 28 January 2013 #NetIKX59
The first seminar of NetIKX’s new 2013-2015 programme looked at the issues we all face in a technology-driven world. It combined two of our key themes: harnessing the web for information and knowledge exchange, and developing and exploiting information and knowledge assets and resources.
Karen Blakeman – RBA Information Services
‘Born digital: time for a rethink’
As Karen reminded us, the phrase ‘Digital immigrants’ can be traced back to Marc Prensky’s paper, ‘Digital natives, Digital Immigrants’, 2001. This paper is free to download and there is also a follow-up Part2 paper. Prensky made the argument that the US education system was no longer fit for purpose for a younger generation born with new technologies exploding around them.
Karen Blakeman speaking.
Pre-internet, many information professionals were using subscription databases with no graphical interfaces. A lot of asking people we knew or asking other professional institutes was done back then. In contrast a wide range of innovative, imaginative search interfaces exist now:
Karen believes that the ‘digital native’ or ‘digital immigrant’ labels are not helpful and “we have far more useful things to worry about”! Using Google effectively, producing good digital photos – none of this comes naturally to any of us – we have to learn.
The major issue for many of us is not going to be the technical side of using technology but the cost, which could lead to poorer people and those living in remote areas being excluded. Many parts of the UK still do not have broadband.
School homework is often internet based now, with students expected to carry out research online – more difficult for children who have slow internet at home or no internet access at all.
Under new government policy rules, jobseekers will soon be forced to sign up online with a job seeker’s website named Universal Jobmatch, or face losing their benefits (see this Guardian article, ‘Unemployed to be forced to use government job website’. Those without internet can use their local library – unless, of course, the library has been closed down!
The Millennials may know how to use social media, but perhaps not in a work context. We tend to have an expectation that just by using the internet regularly, the younger generation have absorbed excellent web analysis and communication skills. This is not always the case. University lecturers often report that their students lack awareness of how to assess the validity of sources and construct their own argument in an essay. Perhaps the sheer amount of information available online has resulted in too much spoon-feeding.
Ultimately Karen believes that it’s your attitude to technology that matters, not what technology you were brought up with. It’s down to personality – your level of curiosity and happiness to explore, an individual thing rather than an age thing. This is demonstrated by an interview on the BBC website with a pensioner who enjoys gaming – ‘Computer games keep me mentally active’.
Karen’s presentation is available at slideshare.net/KarenBlakeman/born-digital.
Graham Coult, Editor-in-Chief, Managing Information
‘Research behaviours: the evidence base’
In support of Karen’s talk, Graham gave us an overview of research which has been undertaken into research behaviours – “Karen was the main course, I’m the pudding”. He told us he would present a “selection, even a miscellany, not exhaustive” of relevant research, taken from Emerald and ASLIB’s database of research articles.
In this study, Ruleman analysed the demographic differences between faculty staff and students in terms of their social media use. She found that social media is by no means a youthful obsession, with both staff and students being active users of social media, just in different ways.
Graham Coult speaking.
The author of this study sought to add to the relatively small amount of empirical research done so far on the social media use of the “Internet Generation”. They found that although social media use amongst Milliennials is generally high, Milliennials as a group are not homogeneous in their online behaviour. Using a large-scale empirical study with over 800 participants, the authors identified three different subgroups of Millennials:
Perhaps surprisingly, ‘information seeking’ was the main reason the surveyed Milliennials gave for using social media. Facebook are planning to enhance their search capabilities through their new Facebook Search service. Who needs Google+ or indeed Google if Facebook does search? This could create a situation where large groups of Facebook users never search outside Facebook.
This paper discusses lots of ways to link up traditional sources using mobile technologies. There is evidence that new technologies (mobile etc) can increase use of “traditional” library services in unforeseen ways.
Graham’s conclusions:
Graham’s presentation is available to NetIKX members at www.netikx.org.
Related links:
By Emily Heath
Blog for January 2013: Digital native or digital immigrant?
/in Netikx, Uncategorised/by AlisonThe first seminar of NetIKX’s new 2013-2015 programme looked at the issues we all face in a technology-driven world. It combined two of our key themes: harnessing the web for information and knowledge exchange and developing and exploiting information and knowledge assets and resources.
The first speaker was Karen Blakeman from the RBA Information services, talking about ‘Born Digital: time for a rethink’. As Karen reminded us, the phrase ‘Digital immigrants’ can be traced back to Marc Prensky’s paper, ‘Digital natives, Digital Immigrants’, 2001. This paper is free to download and there is also a follow-up Part2 paper. Prensky made the argument that the US education system was no longer fit for purpose for a younger generation born with new technologies exploding around them.
Pre-internet, many information professionals were using subscription databases with no graphical interfaces. A lot of asking people we knew or asking other professional institutes was done back then. In contrast a wide range of innovative, imaginative search interfaces exist now:
Karen believes that the ‘digital native’ or ‘digital immigrant’ labels are not helpful and “we have far more useful things to worry about”! Using Google effectively, producing good digital photos – none of this comes naturally to any of us – we have to learn. The major issue for many of us is not going to be the technical side of using technology but the cost, which could lead to poorer people and those living in remote areas being excluded. Many parts of the UK still do not have broadband. School homework is often internet based now, with students expected to carry out research online – more difficult for children who have slow internet at home or no internet access at all.
Under new government policy rules, jobseekers will soon be forced to sign up online with a job seeker’s website named Universal Jobmatch, or face losing their benefits (see this Guardian article, ‘Unemployed to be forced to use government job website’. Those without internet can use their local library – unless, of course, the library has been closed down!
The Millennials may know how to use social media, but perhaps not in a work context. We tend to have an expectation that just by using the internet regularly, the younger generation have absorbed excellent web analysis and communication skills. This is not always the case. University lecturers often report that their students lack awareness of how to assess the validity of sources and construct their own argument in an essay. Perhaps the sheer amount of information available online has resulted in too much spoon-feeding.
Ultimately Karen believes that it’s your attitude to technology that matters, not what technology you were brought up with. It’s down to personality – your level of curiosity and happiness to explore, an individual thing rather than an age thing. This is demonstrated by an interview on the BBC website with a pensioner who enjoys gaming – ‘Computer games keep me mentally active’.
In support of Karen’s talk, Graham Coult gave us an overview of research which has been undertaken into research behaviours – “Karen was the main course, I’m the pudding”. He told us he would present a “selection, even a miscellany, not exhaustive” of relevant research, taken from Emerald and ASLIB’s database of research articles.
Social media at the university: a demographic comparison’. Alice B. Ruleman, University of Central Missouri, US (2012)
In this study, Ruleman analysed the demographic differences between faculty staff and students in terms of their social media use. She found that social media is by no means a youthful obsession, with both staff and students being active users of social media, just in different ways.
Kilian, T., Hennigs, and Langner, S. (2012), “Do Millennials read books or blogs? Introducing a media usage typology of the internet generation”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp.114 – 124. ISSN: 0736-3761.
The author of this study sought to add to the relatively small amount of empirical research done so far on the social media use of the “Internet Generation”. They found that although social media use amongst Milliennials is generally high, Milliennials as a group are not homogeneous in their online behaviour. Using a large-scale empirical study with over 800 participants, the authors identified three different subgroups of Millennials:
Perhaps surprisingly, ‘information seeking’ was the main reason the surveyed Milliennials gave for using social media. Facebook are planning to enhance their search capabilities through their new Facebook Search service. Who needs Google+ or indeed Google if Facebook does search? This could create a situation where large groups of Facebook users never search outside Facebook.
Vandi, C. and Djebbari, E. (2011),”How to create new services between library resources, museum exhibitions and virtual collections”, Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp.15 – 19. ISSN: 0741-9058.
This paper discusses lots of ways to link up traditional sources using mobile technologies. There is evidence that new technologies (mobile etc) can increase use of “traditional” library services in unforeseen ways.
Graham concluded:
(Val Skelton also wrote a report on this even in Information Today)
January 2013 Seminar: Born digital or Digital native?
/in Events 2013, K and IM: Skills and competencies, Knowledge and information management, Previous Events/by AlisonSummary
This meeting was a lively and engaging session. We heard from Karen Blakeman and Graham Coult who spoke about the way technology is changing lives through the perspective of the differences that our individual experience will provide. The idea that a ‘digital native’ will be confident and well informed about the implications of new technology may be misplaced as understanding is not the same as ‘knowing what to do’. We also heard about research that looked into digital behaviours, noting how widespread the use of social media is now, used by young and old – but perhaps in different ways. As usual, a NetIKX meeting included networking in small group discussions and then lively chat over refreshments.
Speakers
Karen Blakeman is from RBA Information Services. Her talk was called ‘Born digital: time for a rethink’.
Graham Coult is the Editor-in-Chief of Managing Information and expert in ‘Research Behaviours: the evidence base’.
Time and Venue
28 January 2013. 2pm The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS
Slides
These are not available now
Tweets
#netikx59
Blog
See our blog report: Digital native or digital immigrant?
Study Suggestions
Marc Prensky’s paper, ‘Digital natives, Digital Immigrants’, 2001.
For more information about Karen’s work, the RBA website is: http://www.rba.co.uk/
November 2012 Seminar: Maximizing knowledge – sharing information conversationally through podcasts and social media
/in Events 2012, K and I sharing: social media, Knowledge and information sharing, Previous Events/by AlisonSummary
In this NetIKX workshop we heard how Helen led her team at A.T.Kearney in developing an innovative series of podcasts, providing a new, more conversational way of knowledge transfer for staff and potential customers. She has been able to quantify the number of podcast downloads using Google Analytics. The podcasts are easily exceeding their current KPI of 1000 hits per month, averaging around 3000-4000 hits/month. To promote the podcasts, Helen tweets links to them and the Marketing team then re-tweets these, to promote her Twitter handle.
No direct revenue has been produced yet, as the podcasts are free, but the team has started thinking about selling the podcast content as an e-book for a nominal price, to help reach a wider audience and potentially bring in some revenue. Helen concluded that “To innovate, you have to accept failure”. She didn’t know the series would be a success, and initially was embarrassed at the thought that they might fail, but went ahead and did it anyway. This was a very inspiring event.
Speakers
Helen Clegg, is the Knowledge Team Director Global, at AT Kearney, where she focuses on Knowledge-sharing solutions. She has developed and implemented a knowledge-sharing framework and supporting toolkit to enable consultants to better share lessons learned. Helen has marketed product and service development. She has developed, implemented, marketed and project managed outsourced research offering for consultants. Helen has also marketed communications. She researched, moderated, produced and marketed ‘Wave of The Future’ podcast series.
Time and Venue
November 2012, 2pm The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS
Slides
No slides available for this presentation
Tweets
#netikx56
Blog
See our blog report: Maximizing knowledge – sharing information conversationally through podcasts and social media, Helen Clegg, 7 November 2012
Study Suggestions
None.
Maximizing knowledge – sharing information conversationally through podcasts and social media, Helen Clegg, 7 November 2012
/in Netikx/by AlisonBlog by Emily Heath.
At our latest NetIKX workshop we heard how Helen led her team at A.T.Kearney in developing an innovative series of podcasts, providing a new, more conversational way of knowledge transfer for staff and potential customers. A.T.Kearney is an international management consultancy with about 2,700 consultants. There are four staff in the global Knowledge team, which is headed up by Helen from London, with the rest of her team based in a couple of locations in the US.
Helen Clegg
Typed documents are obviously one method of knowledge transfer, and still used within A.T.Kearney. However, in 2007 Helen and her then colleague Susan Montgomery (a founding member of the Aslib IRM Network, and its first chairperson), became increasingly aware that information also comes in audio or visual forms – phone calls, podcasts, pictures – and started to think about ways they could capture this alternative type of information through podcasting.
Innovation through experimentation
At A.T.Kearney innovation and risk-taking is encouraged as part of the corporate culture. Helen’s Vice-President told her – “Go and do something. If you make a mistake, plead for forgiveness later!”. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that big budgets are available for new projects, so Helen knew finding a very low-cost solution would be necessary to get the podcasts going.
The Knowledge team put a business case together to produce an information podcast, detailing the number of working hours required, recording costs etc. They didn’t expect it to approved, but it was!
The first podcast…
The topic they chose for their first podcast was ‘Sourcing business travel’ – an important subject for big organisations. To keep costs extremely low, A.T.Kearney’s technical team were asked if they could help. They started by recording a conference call with a consultant at A.T.Kearney, which cost nothing. The technical team then edited it using free Apple software called ‘Garage Band‘. Copyright free music from the internet was used for background music, plus a copyright free image to advertise the podcast.
Success!
It was “a really good feeling” for Helen and her team to have the first podcast done. They were encouraged to do more by enthusiastic colleagues and one of the team, Susan Montgomery, came up with the theme ‘Wave of the Future’ to name the series of podcasts. The aim is to give updates on the latest topics that matter to business leaders – including globalization, sustainability, and the latest trends in procurement – in a format that can be easily digested, for example, whilst commuting or travelling.
The podcasts feature conversations with the staff at A.T.Kearney, giving them a platform to talk about a subject they know about, showcasing their knowledge and presenting them as experts in their field. Podcasts have also been produced on ‘Business information research’ and ‘Skeptical information seeking’, advertising the Knowledge team’s services.
Improving the production process
As the team have gained more experience in producing podcasts, they have put together guidelines for moderators and speakers. Set scripts are not used, but talking points are agreed beforehand. In the beginning the podcasts were put on iTunes, and have since been added to YouTube and the A.T.Kearney website. New starters at A.T.Kearney have begun using them to gain an understanding of the company’s expertise and culture.
Helen speaking
Quantifying and promoting their success
Key performance indicators (KPIs) as a measure of how well products are doing are used at A.T.Kearney, so being able to quantify the number of podcast downloads using Google Analytics has been useful. The podcasts are easily exceeding their current KPI of 1000 hits per month, averaging around 3000-4000 hits/month. To promote the podcasts, Helen tweets links to them and the Marketing team then re-tweets these, to promote her Twitter handle.
No direct revenue has been produced yet, as the podcasts are free, but the team has started thinking about selling the podcast content as an e-book for a nominal price, to help reach a wider audience and potentially bring in some revenue.
Helen concluded that “To innovate, you have to accept failure”. She didn’t know the series would be a success, and initially was embarrassed at the thought that they might fail, but went ahead and did it anyway.
Some audience questions:
“Do you keep podcasts up to date?”
Helen replied that they do weed out old podcasts, for instance the first one the team produced on sourcing travel is no longer available online as it’s too out of date now.
“How long does one podcast take to produce?”
Helen thought around eight hours of planning, finding speakers etc and four hours of a technical person’s time. It can sometimes be quicker and sometimes longer, depending on how long it takes to organise the meetings with speakers and moderate the podcast. Not everyone has natural moderation skills, so it depends upon the person doing it.
Further reading/listening:
NetIKX seminar report – ‘Ensuring business value and cost-effectiveness’, 25 September 2012
/in Ensuring business value and cost effectiveness, Events 2012, Previous Events/by AlisonBlog by Emily Heath.
One of our five key themes in NetIKX’s 2010-2012 seminar framework has been ensuring business value and cost effectiveness in everything that we do. In fact it is such an important theme, that our 2013-2015 framework will be highlighting it as a key perspective to underline all our seminars.
Our two speakers at NetIKX’s September 2012 seminar operate in two very different sectors. However, both share a commitment to deliver value and ensure cost effectiveness to both internal and external clients, which gave them valuable insights to share with us on this important topic.
Speakers:
Roger Farbey – British Dental Association (BDA)
‘How to justify the implementation and continuation of a new KM service’
Roger Farbey is Head of Library & Knowledge Services at the British Dental Association (BDA) where he has been in post since 1991. In this time he has introduced a new Library Management System and online searching (Medline) to the BDA and an online public access catalogue (OPAC), which he insisted, would be available to all including non-members (“to show them what they were missing”). He was instrumental in introducing KM to the BDA in 2009 when he appointed the Association’s first Knowledge Manager, Nikki West. He is a Fellow of CILIP and was made an MBE for Services to Dentistry and Dental Information in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Megan Roberts – Oxford Innovation
‘Cost effectiveness: providing a service and proving value without a budget’
Megan has been working at Oxford Innovation, a small business support company, since 2008. She is currently providing a one-woman information service whilst juggling the vagaries of small company budgeting, allocating costs to specific projects rather than having a central budget. Megan is also vice-chair of UKeiG.
Roger Farbey
The BDA first tried knowledge management techniques in 2005, at the bequest of the then CEO. But KM didn’t really take off until 2006, when a new, very supportive, CEO took up post.
The new CEO asked the Library staff to help coordinate the BDA’s CRM database (known as CARE), moving it forward and adding value. A business case was put forward to create a new Knowledge Manager post, to be tasked with conducting an organisation-wide knowledge audit.
The new Knowledge Manager (Nikki West) began in January 2007. Her information audit revealed that the BDA’s documents were in a painful state of disarray, with some even held off site in a furniture warehouse (no doubt a common problem across many institutions!). Items had been haphazardly stored on different shelves with no real system. Physical storage in central London costs lots of money, so it was imperative to eliminate any “rubbish”. Nikki has been at the forefront of doing this, managing to free up lots of storage space by destroying unneeded records – a tangible benefit.
One department in particular was taking up a lot of space with stored archives of paperwork dating back over the past twenty years. At first they steadfastly resisted Nikki throwing any items out, but in the last couple of years they have completely changed their attitude and become very compliant in putting a destruction date on the new recording forms provided. Roger believes they have come to grasp the benefit of having someone else look after their records! The BDA’s CEO has also been very helpful in overcoming any resistance.
Encouraging sharing informally
To encourage good collaboration and interaction between BDA teams, the Knowledge Services team initially tried holding ‘knowledge cafes’, but found these were a bit too formal and stilted. Instead they now hold informal charity coffee mornings by the library, which help encourage staff to talk together, transferring knowledge and encouraging sharing informally. Apart from a small kitchen, the BDA has no staff room or other shared space where staff can come together. There are pub meetings after work, but not everyone wants to go to the pub. So the coffee mornings provide an opportunity for staff to get together during work time and share information – Roger commented that this sounds “incredibly facile” but actually yields very helpful results for finding out what people are working on.
In April 2012 the previous CARE Owners’ Group (COG) name was changed to Knowledge Owners’ Group (KOG), to reflect the wider area of activity and interfaces that the group now considers. The KOG will assist in the facilitation and development of rules and good practice for the organisation and storage of recorded content across the BDA’s information systems. Documents have been devised to illustrate and promote this, including an attractive Mind Map of the BDA’s Functional Classification scheme.
Gaining acceptance for KM (the sneaky way)
Roger believes that the most valuable tool in gaining acceptance for KM within an organisation is to make sure it brings value and practical assistance. Implementing good records management has proved to be a valuable tool in gaining wider acceptance and credibility for KM across BDA teams. If previously resistant departments can be persuaded to buy into records management they inevitably also buy into the other KM activities – in Roger’s view it is impossible to overestimate the importance of these “trojan horse” methods.
Dentist’s chair in the BDA museum
Megan Roberts
Megan’s employers, Oxford Innovation, are government funded to go in and help companies understand how to improve their profitability and stay in business. A lot of companies don’t realise how important information is to their success. Even Oxford Innovation don’t even appreciate this – Megan has been trying to persuade senior management that emailing documents to collaborate is not that efficient and a communal network space where staff can share documents together would be much more efficient.
Data validation is really important – Megan doesn’t just rely on Wikipedia! She likes to check that a couple of sources agree; often you get a lot of articles all just copying word-for-word a single source – the challenge is to find original sources. As she is often researching topics which are completely new to her, she finds Wikipedia can be a good grounding to get a feel for a subject, before following through the links to other sources at the bottom of Wikipedia articles. As you learn the language of the topic area you can start to refine your search.
She is also a great believer in paying for information if necessary, to ensure good quality info – but this has to be justified to clients. Going behind the paywall can expose information Google can’t. Trade associations are often really valuable sources of data, and Megan will suggest that her clients join these associations to gain access to member-only databases.
How to provide an excellent service without a budget – “You’ve got to dig a bit deeper and go a bit further than Google”
A “snazzy report”, even just formatted nicely using Word so that it looks good, often impresses. People like something tangible to hold on to; something done formally looks much more valuable. References at the end of reports also create a good impression of authority.
Think outside the box – tell clients more points of view than they’re expecting! Look for what you think people might want, rather than what they ask for. Delve deeper into the problem to look a few stages back than they’ve reached. Sometimes companies come to Oxford Innovation wanting advice on how to sell more of their products, but on investigation Oxford Innovation discover the company does not have the production capacity to produce more products, even if they were able to sell more.
Proving value internally
Megan commented that this is often difficult. If you don’t tell your colleagues what you can do, how are they supposed to know? Informal chats about what colleagues are working on can be a good opportunity to offer them help.
Listen and adapt – pay attention to what people want – and put yourself out there!
@MeganJRoberts
http://meganjroberts.wordpress.com
Both presentations are available to NetIKX members by logging into the NetIKX website.
Below are a couple of photos from the group discussions after our speakers.
September 2012 Seminar: Ensuring business value and cost-effectiveness in what we do
/in Events 2012, Previous Events/by AlisonSummary
Our two speakers at NetIKX’s September 2012 seminar operate in two very different sectors. However, both share a commitment to deliver value and ensure cost effectiveness to both internal and external clients, which gave them valuable insights to share with us on this important topic.
Roger talked about gaining acceptance for KM within an organisation by making sure it brings value and practical assistance. Implementing good records management has proved to be a valuable tool in gaining wider acceptance and credibility for KM across BDA teams. If previously resistant departments can be persuaded to buy into records management they inevitably also buy into the other KM activities.
Megan talked about data validation. – the challenge is to find original sources. As she is often researching topics which are completely new to her, she finds Wikipedia can be a good grounding to get a feel for a subject, before following through the links to other sources at the bottom of Wikipedia articles. As you learn the language of the topic area you can start to refine your search.
She also recommends paying for information if necessary, to ensure good quality info – but this has to be justified to clients. Going behind the paywall can expose information Google can’t. Trade associations are often really valuable sources of data, and Megan suggests to her clients that they join these associations to gain access to member-only databases.
Speakers
Megan Roberts works at Oxford Innovation , a small business support company, since 2008. She is currently providing a one-woman information service whilst juggling the vagaries of small company budgeting, allocating costs to specific projects rather than having a central budget. Megan is also vice-chair of UKeiG.
Roger Farbey is Head of Library & Knowledge Services at the British Dental Association (BDA) where he has been in post since 1991. In this time he has introduced a new Library Management System and online searching (Medline) to the BDA and an online public access catalogue (OPAC). He was instrumental in introducing KM to the BDA in 2009 when he appointed the Association’s first Knowledge Manager, Nikki West. He is a Fellow of CILIP and was made an MBE for Services to Dentistry and Dental Information in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Time and Venue
September 2012, 2pm The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS
Slides
No slides available
Tweets
#netikx57
Blog
See our blog report: NetIKX seminar report – ‘Ensuring business value and cost-effectiveness’, 25 September 2012
Study Suggestions
None
July 2012 Seminar: Digital preservation – Help!
/in Data, Events 2012, Knowledge and information security and privacy, Previous Events/by AlisonSummary
This NetIKX event had two speakers giving contrasting case studies on digital preservation. A wide variety of issues were raised for general discussion at the end of the event.
Speakers
Mark Merifield, works at the National Archives, as Manager of Records Information Services. Mark Provides advice, training and guidance to Central Government on the management of Digital Information.
Rob Gethen Smith, works at the Tate as IS Director. He specialises in digital innovation and data and information governance
Time and Venue
July 2012, 2pm The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS
Slides
No slides available for this presentation
Tweets
#netikx58
Blog
No Blog available.
March 2012 Seminar: The role of KM in supporting new ways of working
/in Developing and exploiting information and knowledge, Events 2012, Previous Events/by AlisonSummary
This NetIKX event looked at innovation within organisations and demonstrated the value that KM can offer. Case studies were discussed from the Chartered Management Institute.
Speakers
John Davies, Business Consultant, Head of Learning and Consulting, Idox plc He specialises in Strategy and change management
Piers Cain, Chartered Management Institute. Head of Knowledge Management. He is also a change management specialist.
Time and Venue
March 2012, 2pm The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS
Slides
No slides available
Tweets
#netikx60
Study Suggestions
None