Knowledge Worker 2.0
Power to the people
by Stephen Collins acidlabs

Who am I?

What are we talking about?
‣ Knowledge Worker?
‣ KM realities
‣ Knowledge Worker and Knowledge
Management 1.0
‣ The alternative
‣ Culture shift
‣ Knowledge Management 2.0
‣ Knowledge Worker 2.0

Knowledge Worker?

“... works primarily with information
or... develops and uses knowledge
in the workplace.”
Peter Drucker, Landmarks of Tomorrow, 1959

So what’s the problem?
‣ idealised
‣ true in theory
‣ true in reality (but only from the self-
labelled KWs POV)
‣ unrealistic in reality (organisations don’t
recognise KWs and their work in every
instance)

So what is the reality?

Knowledge Management (and therefore
Knowledge Work) is largely stuck in the
past, with a focus on...

process...

... and tools.

Old skool kills innovation
‣ management layers ‣ risk aversion
(hierarchies)
‣ skewing to high-level
‣ paperwork, reports thinking
& reviews
‣ valuing deadlines
‣ overplanning over doing it right
‣ competition ‣ demanding
consensus
‣ favoring the go-
getters
adapted (a little) from Un-Managing: Unleashing the Creative Beast in your Team
Tara Hunt, GOVIS 2007

widgets

understanding of what constitutes
knowledge work is narrow
http://flickr.com/photos/pinkmoose/314519606/

What does this
mean for
Knowledge Workers
and Knowledge
Management?

KM and KWs are often limited to...

here...
http://flickr.com/photos/laracee/59170361/

... and here

BigCorp Pty Ltd
But not here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here.
Where they should be.

This creates an
environment where
good KM is
impossible
http://flickr.com/photos/zoomzoom/304135268/

a closed culture

information is owned and held selfishly

trapped within feifdoms holding that information

Knowledge workers are
forced to look like this
limited in scope and location
custodian of information
knowledge as process
use rigid ways of organising
information

So?

KWs are demotivated and restricted

Zzzzzzz...

Say goodbye to all
your tacit knowledge

There is an alternative

“...the focus is pretty much around
the subject of people... And, like
we all know, a successful KM
strategy is one that combines into
a perfect balance a focus on the
people, on the tools and on the
processes.”
Luis Suarez, KM Consultant, IBM
defines “Knowledge Management 2.0”
http://www.elsua.net/2007/05/07/apqc-km-innovation-1007-the-disconnect-between-km-10-and-km-20/

the long tail of people

Day of the Long Tail
Peter Hirshberg, Chairman, Technorati
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xAA71Ssids

The three forces of the long tail
‣ Democratise the tools of production
‣ Democratise the tools of distribution
‣ Connect supply and demand
Chris Anderson
The Long Tail - How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand

better tools

The Machine is Us/ing Us
Dr Michael Wesch
Digital Ethnography Working Group, KSU
http://mediatedcultures.net/, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

introduce social software inside the wall
to engage with your organisation
and through the wall to engage with your
clients, peers and communities

easy to use
web-based
bottom up, not top down
less feature bloat
more GTD
from Meet Charlie: What is Enterprise 2.0?
Scott Gavin

blogs
wikis
podcasts
social networking
online collaboration
tagging
social bookmarking
from Meet Charlie: What is Enterprise 2.0?
Scott Gavin

Four quick take aways
70% of Folksonomy tag terms not in Taxonomy
Jennifer Trant on Steve.museum project

Four quick take aways
86% of workers use an unsupported tool at work to boost productivity
Zen and the Art of Rogue Employee Management, Yankee Group, July 2007

Four quick take aways
65% of workers in big (>1000 employees) companies rely on each
other, not management, to solve problems… 37% ignore company
rules because they have a better way to get things done
The Informal Organisation, Katzenbach Partners, July 2007

Four quick take aways
SAP has nearly 900000 people involved in its community helping each
other develop solutions and solve problems around SAP products
In any month, over 10 per cent actively participate by posting
Mike Prosceno, Vice President, Global Communications, SAP
Social Media Today Podcast, 18 April 2007

Social computing can be
a powerful force for collaboration

good process
focussed on people

David Gurteen
Gurteen Knowledge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buEMIYNIYVY

This isn’t your father’s KM
bring people together
let them share
encourage collaboration
break down barriers

Three basic rules of KM
‣ Knowledge will only ever be
volunteered it can not be
conscripted
‣ We only know what we know when
we need to know it
‣ We always know more than we can
tell and we will always tell more
than we can write down
David Snowden
Complex Acts of Knowing - Paradox and Descriptive Self Awareness
http://www.cognitive-edge.com/articledetails.php?articleid=13%3Cbr%20/%3E

Case Study: US Intel Community
Intellipedia
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:CIA_New_HQ_Entrance.jpg

What’s needed is a...

Culture shift

“You can’t manage knowledge –
nobody can. What you can do is to
manage the environment in which
knowledge can be created,
discovered, captured, shared, distilled,
validated, transferred, adopted,
adapted and applied.”
Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell
Learning to Fly: Practical Knowledge Management
from Leading and Learning Organizations

the gates to information are open

knowledge is
shared freely

“...where people continually expand their capacity to create the
results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of
thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and
where people are continually learning how to learn together.”
Peter Senge
The Fifth Discipline

Case Study: IBM
Innovative communities
http://www.wirednewyork.com/images/ibm_building_sculpture_3feb02.jpg

Knowledge
Management 2.0

Conditions for KM and KW creativity
‣ anyone can say anything ‣ celebrate risk-taking - fail
- there are no “lesser” gloriously (and often)
voices
‣ transparent and open -
‣ move from owned to everyone contributes
communal - information
‣ change of environment -
openly available
knowledge work is
‣ multiple perspectives everywhere
‣ experiment with new ‣ fun, laughter and
tools - wikis, blogs, enjoyment of activity
tagging, RSS
‣ lots of encouragement
adapted (a little) from Un-Managing: Unleashing the Creative Beast in your Team
Tara Hunt, GOVIS 2007

Knowledge Worker 2.0

Now, knowledge workers
look like this
‣ all over the organisation
‣ understands “the way we
do things around here”
‣ shares and distributes
information freely
‣ uses information systems
focussed on people
‣ centralised control is
an option
‣ uses taxonomies,
folk taxonomies
and folksonomies

Get the shirt!
http://cafepress.com/kwtwo

Imagine
http://www.flickr.com/photos/midnight_trucker/376653652/

Licensing
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
http://www.slideshare.net/trib

Like the cool pictures?
Mostly from iStockphoto.com and Flickr.
Others as noted on slides.

Extra credit
‣ ‣
Un-Managing: Unleashing the Creative Meet Charlie: What is Enterprise 2.0?
Beast in your Team by Scott Gavin @ Enterprise 2.0
Tara Hunt @ GOVIS 2007 Evangelist
http://www.govis.org.nz/ http://scottgavin.info/?page_id=11
conference2007/, http://www.blip.tv/
‣
file/244008/, steve: the art museum social tagging
http://www.slideshare.net/missrogue/ project
unmanaging-unleashing-the-creative- http://steve.museum/
beast/
‣ The Informal Organization
‣ Government 2.0: Architecting for Katzenbach Partners
Collaboration http://www.katzenbach.com/Work/
Tara Hunt @ GOVIS 2007 (Day 2 Publications/PublicationInstance/
Keynote) tabid/73/Default.aspx?Entity_ID=550
http://www.blip.tv/file/242668/,
‣
http://www.horsepigcow.com/ Zen and the Art of Rogue Employee
2007/05/25/government-20-butterfly- Management
wing-storm/ Yankee Group
http://www.yankeegroup.com/
‣ The Long Tail: Why the Future of ResearchDocument.do?id=16465
Business is Selling Less of More
Chris Anderson
http://longtail.com/

Stephen Collins
trib@acidlabs.org
skype: trib22 twitter: trib
+61 410 680722
www.acidlabs.org
strategies, tools and processes to empower knowledge workers