“In the past few weeks I have received a number of requests for communities of practice based on the job level of the intended members.  For example, consultant, senior consultant, and so on.

I am interested in your thoughts and experiences with communities of this type.  What are some possible benefits of a community based on the level of the members (e.g., senior consultant), as opposed to one based on a topic of interest to people of multiple levels (e.g., cloud computing)?”

Way back in 1987, before anyone ever talked about KM or communities, I started a financial analysis supervisors network. Why? Because I wanted to know what other supervisors were doing to perform the same work. We were all the same level, located across the US and reported up to different managers and were matrixed to different functional areas. And yes, it was within the practice of financial analysis, however, this “level” of responsibility had its own demands, practices and involvement in the organization. The sharing of the practice of financial analysis supervision was very helpful….

Move to 2010 and I would create a Finance Community of Practice and have a special interest group for the supervisor level.  So in your situation, it could be a “Consulting” community of practice – the domain of knowledge being consulting and the purpose would be building the capacity of your consultants to perform the job of consulting. You might say… isn’t that what training & development is for? Yes, it is. That is why I would place these level or role based communities under the sponsorship of this functional area. The value to the organization would be to ensure the training of consultants continues to build the knowledge and skills of that role. And, that the training continues to reflect the real practical experience of what is happening out in the field. It also becomes the place where you can create the coaching and mentoring opportunities in order to move individuals from one level of that role to the next. Or in the case of retention of knowledge, the sharing of knowledge and experience from senior levels to the newbies coming on board. The strategic purpose of these types of communities is to constantly raise the bar of knowledge, skills and performance levels of your organization.

So my opinion would be absolutely level-based communities can be of value.  Communities or networks are always of value when you bring together people  who are either cross-organizational, cross-client, or cross-geographical.

Then, if you add to it the following principle from David Snowden:

• We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down. This is probably the most important. The process of taking things from our heads, to our mouths (speaking it) to our hands (writing it down) involves loss of content and context. It is always less than it could have been as it is increasingly codified.

Knowledge Harvesting (KH) really doesn’t seem to be the most effective way of solving the problem.  And, of course I am assuming that the primary problem that KH is solving is brain drain from organizations – regardless of whether it’s boomers or Gen X, Y and Millenials moving around.  Wouldn’t it be cheaper to keep these knowledgeable people connected to your company for as long as possible?  Especially knowing that you can never really get their knowledge out of their heads in any valuable way for future use.  And, in light of the ever increasing change in technology and how we work, how relevant will that information be 1-2 years after it is documented. 

Why aren’t there more KM strategists in companies asking better questions about the knowledge in their company and establishing better ways to nurture it?  I like the agricultural metaphor, because nurturing knowledge growth, planting knowledge seeds, knowledge fertilizing, knowledge grafting… all really resonate for me.  But, harvesting just doesn’t work for me.  Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it seems so final, cut, broken, pulled out, and we all know that as soon as we cut flowers, pull out a carrot, pick an apple, it’s on its way to total decay.  Hmmm.

If companies are really afraid of losing the knowledge in people’s heads, then why not just maintain a good relationship with that employee.  (Duh)  We share knowledge with people we like.  We share knowledge when people are in need.  How about playing up on that instead of thinking we can put a straw to people’s heads and draw out the good stuff.  Why not use social networking tools and communities of practice to maintain these connections?  Isn’t that cheaper and more efficient?  The more we can create the contextual opportunities for people  to ask questions and solve problems, regardless of whether they continue to get a paycheck from a company, the better we have reduced the impact when people leave.   

No, I don’t think I will be doing any knowledge harvesting.  I am going to stick with knowledge nurturing, knowledge seeding, knowledge fertilizing, knowledge pollinating….

Do we really need to establish a professional certification for knowledge management? Don’t get me wrong, I believe in professional certifications, but KM? Even project management doesn’t have the greatest of reputations for their professional certification of a PMP. Yes, I know many companies dangle that little certification out there for applicants to have. But the reality is, I can go and take the test and add those 3 little letters after my name and it still doesn’t mean I am an experienced practitioner. I admit, I am probably biased, since I followed the route that I recommend… take some training, read some books and then go do it!

Really, If you still think a professional certification for KM is needed, I would at least follow the HR Certification Institute model:  Separate training from testing for certification, allowing anyone to do the training.  Make every individual wanting a certification prove experience with proof of responsibilities.  (I would even require recommendations from leadership, though HRCI does not require this.)   Have the testing and certification process cost only a couple hundred dollars/euros, and require annual recertification through continued training.

Here’s the bottom line to me… If you are really experienced in KM, you know that this functional area will eventually be part of the company’s culture and just a matter of how a company does business – fully integrated into their business processes.   So any type of professional certification would eventually be useless.  And, when it comes to the corporate bottom line, a company shouldn’t have to hire additional people who have this certification to “do” knowledge management.  If they are going to survive in the 21st century as a corporation, the company better be training all employees on these concepts, as KM builds organizational effectiveness.

Just my 2 cents worth!

Let me give you an example….  My creative process kicks into high gear when I talk with someone.   If I am to work at my most creative level, allow me to talk with people about my ideas.  Inevitably, my idea will evolve, shift, and move like an ameoba every time I talk with someone.  It’s not that I change my mind, it’s that each encounter feeds my ideas and at each step perfects my thoughts.  And, let me just say, that this is not a preference, this is a fundamental requirement for me to work.  I definitely am not the type of person that you tell to go off and think about something and come back later with a solution.  That would be like telling me to go and write an article without using my hands. 

This is in distinct contrast to someone like my husband who’s creativity comes from alone time and physical labor.  He processes information best through physical movement.  Don’t expect him to give you a response to a question right away.  He needs time for his brain to process it and to go into that file cabinet of a brain and bring out all the possible pieces of information and experiences related to that request.  He needs to cogitate by himself and then he can come back and talk about it. 

If I force him to respond immediately, I’m doomed.  I won’t get anything from him.  But, if I plant my request like a seed, and then come back later, I am greeted with a full grown plant around which we can have that conversation and dialogue that I need in order to eventually come up with the best and most creative idea. 

Between his process and mine, there is significant disconnect in the timing of creativity.  The key here is to  recognize the differences and build out a new way of working that supports both processes.  If you do, then you will find that you have created a highly effective creative community where all members are able to bring their most creative selves to creating new and innovative products and services.

That’s a whopper of a question and means many things to many people and changes depending on the industry or organization. I have to admit I like the definition that’s in Wikipedia: “Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of practices used in an organisation to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organisational processes or practice”.

The words “Knowledge Management” are as good as any to represent the total activities of connecting people to people and people to information within organizations. It represents cross division, cross region, cross department knowledge sharing, capturing, creating, reusing, organizing, etc….

It is about expecting a set of behaviors within an organization that allows for continual learning ultimately for the benefit of increasing profits and sales. KM strategies, implemented well can have a significant impact on finding ways to reduce costs, drive standardization into business processes to increase quality and customer satisfaction, build and expand the knowledge, skills, and abilities of employees; and, most importantly, KM Strategies can increase knowledge sharing and knowledge seeking resulting in new and innovative products and services.

I’ve seen KM described as technology. However, anyone experienced in deploying technology in general will know that it’s not about technology, it’s about changing the way we work (processes) and the behaviors we use when we work (culture). Technology comes in as the enabler after you have determined Culture and Process.

Let me illustrate with riding a bike (a salute to the Tour de France).  I can read all about riding a bike;  I can document lessons learned from anyone on riding a bike;  I can interview people about riding a bike;   I can video people riding bikes, I can even compile best practices for all aspects of riding a bike.  But, in all cases, I do not have direct knowledge of riding a bike, until I experience riding a bike.   After the “knowledge” is captured for someone to see or read, from the perspective of the reader or viewer, it is only information.   To take this one step further, as a new bike rider, I can look at all of these pieces of information and have a greater opportunity of successful bike riding experience. 

So, what we learn about KM from the bike-riding metaphor is that codifying and documenting is not the end goal of knowledge management, but a necessary part of it.  The end goal of KM is very simply to improve performance whether it’s in your personal life or business life.    By providing current information about real experiences, the next person can take that information and incorporate it into their experience so that they can be quicker, more effective, improve quality and generally improve performance.  

P.S.  Some people get hung up on the age old knowledge vs information argument when talking about knowledge management.  What I remind people is that words are just symbols used to approximate an experience, it is not the totality of that experience.  That’s why I have returned over an over to using the term “knowledge management” to include both information and knowledge management.

 Any of these sound familiar?  Content management has become the bane of our business existence.  Supposedly we went from the pain of paper, to a paperless wonderland.  But all we really did was transfer the content hairball from one system to another.  And, when we find the latest and greatest tech tool, we continue to move the content hairball around.   We constantly move from one tool to another , never fixing the underlying structure of the problem…. Garbage in, garbage out!

 How do you get rid of the content hairball?   The reality is you can’t get rid of the content hairball until you do some detangling… something that cuts through the mess…  I call it Content Rationalization .   In other words, do some in-house organizing…. Any Home Organizer will tell you there are some simple steps to organizing your home.  I’ve converted these into simple steps for Content Rationalization for small or large content hairballs….

• Assess – Figure out what you have and where you have it
• Plan – Figure out what you want to have in the end
• Rationalize – Go through everything and organize it all into 3 buckets
  1. Keep
  2. Save for possible future use
  3. Get rid of it
• Organize – Based on what you want to have and what you want to keep, determine the right “system” (based on people, process and technology)
• Sustain – Develop a content management process that everyone can live with that prevents having to do major content rationalization again.

Content Rationalization is a buzzword for organizing your content and getting rid of the “noise” content in your company.  It’s not fun, and it’s not pretty, but you have to do it.  It’s a huge job when you leave it alone and don’t touch it for years.  But, if you invest up front time to do content rationalization and create an on-going process for content management – a cradle to grave process, then your business content landscape becomes much more tolerable and you start eliminating your content hairballs.  And, you won’t say… Why the hell can’t I find it?…