Librarians as Knowledge Managers

Librarians as Knowledge Managers: The View from the Executive Suite Dave Pollard SLA Annual Conference June 6, 2007 [email_address] Meeting of Minds

A Tale of Two Executives D: “We figured that by providing all this Knowledge Management software to our people, we could get rid of the library, and everyone could do their own research online.” R: “Information Professionals are specialists like everyone else today. It’s insane to have our managers and staff trying, badly, to do research, when IPs have spent their careers learning to do it very well.”

Dave’s Cultural Anthropology Story (1) The View from the Executive Suite
“ We don’t know how to use this knowledge stuff. And we don’t need it. We’ve already got what we need.”
“ Here’s what’s keeping us awake at night:
Mitigating risk
Reducing costs
Increasing value/person
Strengthening key customer relationships
Tell us how KM, IPs and librarians can help us with that .”

Dave’s Cultural Anthropology Story (2) The View from the Front Lines “ I can’t find anything on my computer.” “ I can search, but I can’t re search.” “ Why didn’t anyone show me this before ?” “ My task is to assess what all this data means.” “ I don’t need a perfect answer. But I need one right now .” “ Half of my calls are to ask me if I know about X , or, if not, who does.” “ The things we’re worst at are collaboration and innovation. Can you help us with that ?”

Dave’s Cultural Anthropology Story (3) The View from the Customers “ Why isn’t KM enabling our suppliers to reduce the cost of their services?” “ We don’t choose a supplier based on what they know about our business (and we assume they know their business). We choose based on the quality of the relationship we have with our supplier representative.” “ We expect our suppliers to be leveraging best practices and their communities of practice, to improve their services to us and leverage what they all know. Aren’t they?” Different from what the Executives view. Different from the Front Line’s view. Which group do you want to please?

The View from the Executive Suite: Panel Results Part 1 Who Owns KM? What’s the IP’s Role?
No agreement on what it is or if it’s needed
No agreement on who owns it or what it should do
Not sure whether to centralize, decentralize or outsource ICM
Type D view: It’s everyone’s job. If people can’t do it themselves, get rid of them
Type R view: The BUs own the content
If librarians are focused on content, they probably belong in BUs too. Or maybe in R&D? Or marketing?
If KM is about infrastructure (technology), then IT owns it (they have the budgets)
If KM is about learning, HR owns it
Librarians are becoming IPs and they have two roles: research and cataloguing/metadata
Librarians have to specialize or they’ll be outsourced; if they specialize they could become SMEs
IPs are increasingly overskilled and underemployed

The View from the Executive Suite: Panel Results Part 2 Where Does KM Fit? What’s its Mission?
Still don’t see the benefits: Few senior champions, and disconnect with perceptions of the front lines
Obsession with risk & cost: Is knowledge-sharing risky? Can KM increase value-based billings? Reduce headcount?
Don’t care about customers’ unmet needs or innovation or collaboration
Customers want knowledge delivered on their site, their way, not on Extranet/Internet
Information we buy is too raw
Information on Intranet is not very useful
Execs still trying to ‘change the culture’ and processes and expect KM to help
Intrigued by new tech (Facebook, UTube, blogs, wikis) but don’t get them
Decentralizing (Type R) organizations see the value in KM that the front lines see, but they are outnumbered by centralizing (Type D) organizations

Diagnosing Your Organization’s Knowledge Culture Stories, ideas, advice ‘ Best practices’ What knowledge is most valued In networks In hierarchies Where power resides What management wants from workers What motivates people How knowledge flows What drives decision-making Effectiveness Efficiency Personal satisfaction Promotion, raise P2P through collaboration Top-down from ‘leadership’ Long-term agility, opportunity Short-term profits, risk Type R Organizations Type D Organizations

How Executives See the Role of Information and Information Professionals Type D Organizations Type R Organizations (These charts to be re-done to improve legibility)

acquire store disseminate add value synthesize connect canvass apply Know-what Collection Content Just in case Know-who Connection Context Just in time Librarians are good at this But can they do this ? Type R Organizations: The Challenge

Type D Organizations: The Waiting Game

A KM Framework & Why It’s Important
To guide KM activities and provide context for KM projects
To explain the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of KM (over & over, consistently)
To frame elevator pitches
Value Propositions:
Why are we doing this?
What is expected?
KM Services & Products:
Content acquisition & provision
Research, knowledge transfer
Architecture, tools, spaces
Support & Training
etc.
Design & Development
Principles
What guides what we do
and how we do it?
Outcomes:
How do we measure
success?
Customers:
Who are we doing
this for?

Six KM “Quick Win” Ideas
Introduce IM
Introduce Google Desktop and other PCM tools
Introduce Desktop Videoconferencing
Create a JIT Canvassing system
Improve “Know-Who” Directories
Introduce RSS Aggregator Pages

What You Can Do Now: Type R Organizations
Quick Wins
Cultural Anthropology (study all 3 groups):
current state use of information & technology
needs
‘ time & motion’ data (see Davenport’s study)
information behaviours (incl. dysfunctional ones)
Experiments: e.g.
personal productivity improvement
proactive research & adding meaning
collaboration
harvesting
stories
mindmaps
social networking tools
‘ wisdom of crowds’ canvassing
thinking customers ahead

Davenport’s Study of Knowledge Worker Activity Volumes
Workers spend an average every day of:
3 ¼ hours processing work-related information
Half of that is e-mail (processing and sending 17 e-mails, receiving and processing 44 e-mails, participating in 16 IMs)
A quarter of that is phone (making 15 calls, receiving 18 calls and 8 voice messages and participating in 1 teleconference)
Much of the remainder is looking for information
Multiple, un-integrated tools, not effectively used, not well supported
Most have poor search, poorer research skills
Work effectiveness tends to be proportional to time invested in and size of networks
Pilot experiments lack rigour
No ‘end of process’ – yet!

Dysfunctional Information Behaviours
(list of 4 categories, 25 total types of dysfunctional information behaviour e.g. bad news never travels up) – this list explains why it’s so difficult to change ‘culture’ in organizations

What You Can Do Now: Type D Organizations
Quick Wins
Assess the Cost of Not Knowing (Christensen, risk assessment)
Competitive Intelligence pilot: environmental scanning, strategy canvasses etc.
Then: skunkworks, vision, learn more about the business, and/or wait

Now Let’s Brainstorm
What’s your biggest KM challenge:
Knowing what’s needed?
Finding good models & success stories?
‘ Selling’ investment in KM to management?
How have you solved these challenges?
Is your organization ready for the Connect, Canvass, Synthesize, Apply model of KM? Are you?
What do you need, to be able to persuade your organization to let you add more value to information? To let you become a personal productivity enabler? Do you even want to do this?
What else can IPs do in Type R organizations? In Type D organizations?
Tell us your story.

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Librarians as Knowledge Managers

by Dave Pollard on Jun 12, 2007

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