The document outlines key insights and trends in knowledge management (KM) presented at a conference held on March 4, 2020. It emphasizes the foundational aspects of KM—including people, processes, culture, and technology—and discusses emerging trends such as the integration of AI and ontologies in KM practices. Additionally, it highlights the importance of improving content discoverability and organizational alignment for better business outcomes.

1. CONFERENCE VIEW AND
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 2020 AND BEYOND
March 4, 2020

2. ZACH WAHL
FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, EK
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

3. WELCOME!
Thank you for being here!
#KMShow
@KMInstitute

4. A VIEW OF THE AGENDA

5. WHO WILL YOU HEAR FROM?
§ A combined 490 years of Knowledge and
Information Management experience.
§ From organizations including USAA, Sodexo,
Grant Thornton, World Bank, and RGP.

6. KM FOUNDATIONS

7. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT INVOLVES THE PEOPLE, PROCESS,
CULTURE, AND ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES NECESSARY TO CAPTURE,
MANAGE, SHARE, AND FIND INFORMATION.

8. DECONSTRUCTING KM
PEOPLE PROCESS CONTENT CULTURE TECHNOLOGY
• Flow of knowledge
through the
organization.
• Knowledge holders
and knowledge
consumers.
• Understanding of state
and disposition of
experts.
• Existence and
consistency of
processes.
• Awareness of and
adherence to
processes.
• Quality of processes.
• State and location of
content.
• Consistency of
structure and
architecture.
• Dynamism of content.
• Understanding of
usage (analytics).
• Senior support and
comprehension.
• Willingness to share,
collaborate, and
support.
• Maturity of “KM Suite.”
• Integration with and
between systems.
• Usability and user-
centricity.
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

9. FIND
CAPTURE
CREATE
CONNECT
MANAGEENHANCE
ACT
WHAT CAN KM DO FOR YOU?
§ Create – Creating new knowledge and information.
§ Capture – Moving from tacit to explicit, unstructured to
structured, and decentralized to centralized.
§ Manage - Guiding the sustainability and maturation of
content, ensuring content becomes better over time
instead of becoming bloated, outdated, or obsolete.
§ Enhance – Making knowledge and information “better”
over time rather than having it fall into disrepair.
Applying metadata, comments, or linkages to other
information in order to improve the complete web of
knowledge.
§ Find – Enabling the knowledge and information to be
easily and naturally surfaced.
§ Connect – Expanding the web of knowledge to include
direct access and formation of connections with the
holders of that knowledge.
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

10. KM 2020 AND BEYOND

11. Demand for clear business value and return on investment in KM efforts.
Clear understanding of Knowledge Management and Enterprise AI powered by
ontologies and knowledge graphs.
Acceptance and recognition of the enabling role of technology in KM.
Improved understanding of knowledge ecosystem including all types of knowledge,
information, and data.
Recognition of KM organizations and mandates as critical success factor.
2020 KM TRENDS TO LISTEN FOR
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

13. BUSINESS OUTCOMESKM OUTCOMES
▪ Improved content findability and
discoverability, and therefore less time
waiting, searching, and recreating
knowledge.
▪ Increased use and reuse of information.
▪ Decreased knowledge loss.
▪ Improved organizational awareness and
alignment.
▪ Enhanced quality, availability, and speed
of learning.
▪ Improved productivity.
▪ Decreased costs (and cost avoidance).
▪ Increased employee satisfaction and
retention.
▪ Faster and better up-scaling of
employees.
▪ Improved customer satisfaction and
retention.
▪ Improved delivery and sales.
▪ Increased collaboration and innovation.
▪ Future readiness.
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

15. KM FOUNDATIONS
FOR AI
CONTENT CLEANUP
CONTENT GOVERNANCE
TAXONOMY DESIGN
CONTENT TYPES
KNOWLEDGE SHARING
CULTURE
KM LEADERSHIP
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

16. FOLKSONOMY
Free-text tags.
CONTROLLED LIST
List of pre-defined
terms.
Improves consistency.
TAXONOMY
Pre-defined terms &
synonyms.
Hierarchical
relationships.
Improves consistency.
Allows for parent/child
content relationships.
Capture related data.
Integration of structured and
unstructured information.
Linked data Store.
Architecture and data
models to enable machine
learning (ML) and other AI
capabilities. Drive efficient
and intelligent data and
information management
solutions.
ONTOLOGY
Predefined classes &
properties.
Expanded relationship
types.
Increased
expressiveness.
Semantics. Inference.
KNOWLEDGE GRAPHS
KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CONTINUUM
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

17. THE FUTURE SOLUTION
+
ONTOLOGY
KNOWLEDGE GRAPHS
= ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

19. CORE KM TECHNOLOGIES
KNOWLEDGE GRAPHS TAXONOMY
MANAGEMENT
ONTOLOGY
MANAGEMENT
ENTERPRISE
SEARCH
Architecture and data models to
enable machine learning (ML)
and other AI capabilities. Drive
efficient and intelligent data and
information management
solutions.
Examples:
• Expert Finder
• Recommendation Engine
• Customer 360
WEB CONTENT
MANAGEMENT
DOCUMENT &
RECORDS
MANAGEMENT
DIGITAL ASSET
MANAGEMENT
BUSINESS CONTENT
MANAGEMENT
Used to author, organize, manage
and publish content on a website.
Examples:
• SiteCore
• GraphCMS
• CloudCMS
• Drupal
• WordPress
• Contentful
Designed to manage, secure, and
control documents across an
enterprise.
Examples:
• Alfresco
• Documentum
• Box.com
• OpenText
• GoFileRoom
• O365 / SharePoint
Designed to manage digital
products like videos and images.
Most frequently used by
marketing and publishing
departments.
Examples:
• Adobe Experience Manager
Assets
• Bynder
• Aprimo
Content management tools built for
a specific business purpose like
customer or contract management.
Examples:
• Apttus Contract Management
• Essential
• SalesForce
• Dynamics 365
• Shelf.io
Search tools designed to query
across multiple KM systems.
Examples:
• Sinequa
• Lucidworks
• Elasticsearch
• Solr
Empowers the creation and
management of complex
relationships between various
sources of data.
Examples:
• Stardog
• Neo4j
• Neptune
Enables organizations to maintain
and expose their business
taxonomies to KM systems.
Examples:
• PoolParty (SWC)
• Cambridge Semantics
• Semaphore (SmartLogic)
• Synaptica
COMPONENT CONTENT
MANAGEMENT
Manages content at a granular
level so portions of a piece of
content can be reassembled and
used for other content.
Examples:
• Marklogic
• EasyDITA
• SDL Tridion
COLLABORATION
Tools designed to enable users to
share content and collaborate
using instant messaging or video
conferencing.
Examples:
• O365 / Teams
• Slack
• ShareFile
• Firmex
• Yammer
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

20. KM ECOSYSTEM - LOGICAL ARCHITECTURE
Content Management System
Used to author, organize, manage, and publish content on a web interface
Repository Layer Web Content
Management
Enterprise
Search
Learning
Management
Analytics Layer
Taxonomy
Management
Document
Management
Instant
Messaging
Findability Layer Ontology
Management
Collaboration Layer
Content Creation Layer
Document
Sharing
Annotation /
Feedback
Chat Bot
Team
Workspaces
Reporting Usage Metrics Content Metrics
Governance Layer Workflows Records Schedule Access Controls Information Audit
WYSIWYG Editor Digital Asset Editing
Alerts /
Notifications
Recommendations
APIs
Knowledge
Graph
Customer
Relationship
Management
Digital Asset
Management
Component
Content
Management
Metadata Layer Auto-Tagging / Auto-Classification Auto-Categorization
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

22. THE KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION
MANAGEMENT SPECTRUM
Knowledge Management
Tacit
Unstructured
Distributed
Information Management
Explicit
Structured
Centralized
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

23. TRAVERSING CONTENT
UNSTRUCTURED CONTENT / FILES
EXPERT FINDER
COPS, DISCUSSION, TACIT KNOWLEDGE
TRAINING
(STRUCTURED LEARNING)
STRUCTURED DATA
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

25. KM FUNCTIONAL MODEL
Executive
Sponsorship
Requirements
Definition
Pilot Project
Management
Governance
Planning
Content
Clean-up
Content
Maintenance
Technology
Platform
Updates
Program
Management
KM STRATEGY
IMPLEMENTATION
ENABLEMENT
OPERATIONS
Business Line 1 Business Line 2
§ Effective Enterprise KM
requires real leadership
and coordination.
§ One-off “ceremonial”
positions will not suffice.
§ No matter how good the
title is, KM Orgs need to
hold real power.
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

26. FIVE LEVELS OF KAI
KNOWLEDGE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (KAI)
IS THE APPLICATION OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CONCEPTS AND
THEORIES TO ENSURE THE APPROPRIATE CAPTURE, MANAGEMENT,
AND PRESENTATION OF THE FULL SPECTRUM OF KNOWLEDGE AND
INFORMATION.
@ZACHARYWAHL, @EKCONSULTING

27. MY GOALS FOR THE CONFERENCE

28. GOALS FOR THE CONFERENCE
#KMShow
@KMInstitute
People
• Make a new connection.
• Ask at least one question.
• Talk with someone who’s work you’ve followed.
Process
• Learn a new approach, workshop exercise, or
methodology you want to apply.
• Hear about a mistake and learn how to avoid it.
Content
• Post on social media about something you like or
have learned from the conference.
• Come up with an idea for a blog based on what
you’ve heard.
Culture
• Hear a success story you can use to inspire your
team and/or convince your executives.
• Learn a new approach to building a culture of
knowledge sharing.
Technology
• Learn about one new tool (or tool space).
• See some of this fancy AI stuff in action.