Author Archive for lynda

Organizing Content & Expert Knowledge without Spending a Million Bucks

Published by lynda on April 30, 2013 in Member Blogs & Wikis of Interest and Thursday Afternoon Meetings. 0 Comments

Thursday, May 16, 2013, 4 - 6 p.m., Bentley University, Morison Hall, Morison Boardroom #300, 175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA 02451. Campus Map.

SPEAKER: Larry Chait, Discussion Leader

TOPIC: Small/medium businesses (SMBs) are heavily represented within our KM community of practice; we also have members who work within groups in larger enterprises with limited resources to pursue their knowledge initiatives. The theme of this meeting came recently from a single member, but over the years, similar inquiries have frequently appeared. The discussion will focus on practices for gathering, sharing, and leveraging knowledge through minimally invasive, lower-tech, less-expensive solutions. Larry has been harvesting examples and experiences for a couple of decades – and he is sure you have your own. Typical situations with cautions and remedies for handling them will round out the topic. Whether you support ten, a hundred, or a few thousand people, there are sure to be ideas that will prove of value to you from this discussion!

BIOGRAPHY: In addition to being the President of the Boston KM forum, Larry Chait is Managing Director of Chait and Associates, Inc., a consultancy that advises senior managers and their teams on achieving and sustaining high performance. He has over forty years of business-management experience. In his consulting work, Larry has helped executives and organizations manage change. His focus is on knowledge management, change management, and business process improvement. In addition, Larry supports clients as an executive and team coach. Prior to Chait and Associates, Larry was Vice President and Director of Arthur D. Little, Inc. He held positions including chief knowledge officer, director, and principal consultant. Before ADL, Larry was president of his own retail organization and vice president of product development for a national IT services company. Larry has authored three books, is a contributing author of “Managing the Learning Process of the Corporation” and “Knowledge Management in Practice: Connections and Context,” and is co-author with Lynda Moulton of an upcoming book on practical knowledge management. Larry received his A.B. in Economics from Cornell University and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

PLEASE PLEASE Register even if you are not certain you can attend so we have an accurate estimate of attendees for handouts. If you then make a decision not to attend, please use the registration link and note in the comments field that you will not attend.

NOTE: The registration page has changed and you will be directed to another site where the registration form resides. It is now hosted by lwmtechnology.com and is legitimate.

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Leveraging Data for PLM with Oleg Shilovitsky

Published by lynda on April 8, 2013 in Thursday Afternoon Meetings. 0 Comments

Thursday, April 18, 2013, 4 - 6 p.m., Bentley University, Morison Hall, Morison Boardroom #300, 175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA 02451. Campus Map.

SPEAKER: Oleg Shilovitsky, Sr. Director PLM and Data Management at Autodesk

TOPIC: As co-Founder of Inforbix, a software company focused on ensuring reliable capture and relevant retrieval of manufacturing and engineering data and design work, Oleg Shilovitsky put his own knowledge and experience to work.  Trained as a civil engineer (computer aided design specialty), and having worked on software for customer relationship management, and search, Oleg knows the importance of capture and re-use of information assets. We look forward to hearing his reasons for developing Inforbix and the concepts that formed how he approached its development. We will also ask about some solutions provided to customers and how this took him to Autodesk and his work there.

BIOGRAPHY: Oleg Shilovitsky is an engineer who received his PhD in Integration of graphic and data management in complex CAD Systems from the Civil Engineering Institute. Moscow; earlier he graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of Russia with an MSc., in Computers and CAD in civil engineering. Fusing the requirements of  engineers with his knowledge of search system, semantic technologies and CAD outputs, Oleg has embarked on several ventures before his company was acquired by Autodesk. He currently blogs at Beyond PLM where he shares his philosophy of product development and much more - it is interesting for anyone interested in how one engineer thinks about data > information and knowledge management.

PLEASE PLEASE Register even if you are not certain you can attend so we have an accurate estimate of attendees for handouts. If you then make a decision not to attend, please use the registration link and note in the comments field that you will not attend.

NOTE: The registration page has changed and you will be directed to another site where the registration form resides. It is now hosted by lwmtechnology.com and is legitimate.

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Remembrance of a KM Leader, Carl Frappaolo

Published by lynda on March 19, 2013 in KM Forum Events, News and Commentary and Thursday Afternoon Meetings. 5 Comments

Our KM community was richer for the wisdom, generosity, and kindness of Carl Frappaolo. I only wish we could enjoy the humor and enthusiasm of his presentations just more time.  This commentary from one of our members says it all:

We of the Greater Boston KM Republic have lost a great presence and champion of consensus-based leadership, honest doubt, open questioning, and gentle humor. I can think of no one who was more invested in those aspects of our community than Carl. His inquisitive nature was not only playfully inspired but also articulate in the way he unpacked an issue. His courage resided in an ability to chart a course, change direction, and continue forward without losing focus or nerve once new thinking was required. He would contribute with the critical back-fill others needed to fully participate without digressing into the weeds. He was at peace as chief proponent or devil’s advocate in the vision of a keynote or in the details of a deployment.

I reached out to him two weeks ago today for counsel on a proof of concept that we’ll soon be hosting at Avid. Carl mentioned how a certain search media giant with a market-beating search appliance did a presentation on the virtues of enterprise search and Carl said it felt like an out-of-body experience. Basically they were pitching Carl the project leader with material that Carl the analyst had put together years ago in his past consulting life. The story illustrates the way Carl’s analysis was of a form that followed function, a conceptual thinker whose insights and recommendations stood up to the knocks and bumps of their implementation. The soundness of his visions informed the practicality of working day-to-day in this profession of our choosing.

I thank Carl for that and so much more along our daily path. – Marc Solomon, Avid Technology, Inc.

Please add your voices in the comment section if you have special memories of Carl.

… and from Dan Keldsen, a professional colleague, business partner at Information Architected, and friend:

Marc - wonderfully well put…

Carl was a hell of a friend, mentor, partner, collaborator and just incredible human being. He’ll be sorely missed.

Carl passed away on Sunday March 17. His life will be celebrated on Thursday March 21 at 2:00pm at St. Ignatius of Loyola Church 28 Commonwealth Av. Chestnut Hill, Ma. 02467 All welcome.

Thank you Marc and Dan. — Kindly, Lynda Moulton

Faculty Research Assets at Harvard Business School: an Interview with Melissa Shaffer

Published by lynda on March 12, 2013 in Thursday Afternoon Meetings. 0 Comments

Thursday, March 21, Smith Academic Technology Center, Room 321*, 4 - 6 p.m.,  Bentley University,  175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA 02451.  #57 on map Campus Map.

* Smith Academic Tech. Ctr. is the location for our February and March, 2013 meetings only. Then we are back to Morison Hall.

SPEAKER: Melissa Shaffer, Director, Digital Content Program at Harvard Business School

TOPIC: Capture of primary research content from print to electronic formats has had a steady migration path since the late 1970s to the present when new content is exclusively digital. With the emergence of Web searching in the 1990s, technologies began to emerge to support content capture and retrieval to support public access through academic and public libraries, as well as for scholarly research in graduate schools and businesses. Melissa Shaffer has been at the forefront of this revolution since early days and has recently been engaged in the roll-out of a new faculty research database at Harvard Business School. The challenges of migrating from an internally developed digital system to a SharePoint platform are among the topics we will ask Melissa about in this interview with an expert from the field.

[After the meeting: We had a far ranging discussion that focused on Melissa's progression from her days working on AI search project Mercury at Carnegie Mellon, to Faxon as a database content specialist before she went to North Dakota working on a groundbreaking data transmission project, packaging and transmitting meteorological satellite data to the farm community. Farmers were the data consumers of the ND venture and they picked up the information on desktop computers at their farms to guide their decisions about irrigation, fertilizer and seed distribution. Then at search engine developer Northern Light, Melissa managed the task of making licensed content accessible via a web interface in the early days of the Internet. In her current work at Harvard Business School Melissa is now managing and contributing to a number of projects at the business school and on committees working to unify content access across the university. Melissa shared stories of the taxonomy, metadata management and search efforts that led up to the deployment of the Research Information System containing faculty content. In its current form you can visit the site here:

Harvard Business School. Faculty Research website: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/search.aspx?cnt=15&sort=Descending&df=1

This was a great session and a wonderful bunch of lessons in how our content access initiatives to work with knowledge assets have evolved using database technologies and techniques to make content more findable; Melissa has been active and contributed at so many junctures in the journey.]

BIOGRAPHY: Melissa Shaffer has undertaken roles in digital content management and retrieval for over twenty years. She began her career at Carnegie Mellon, Faxon Research Services and North Dakota State University before assuming a position as Director,  Database Development at Northern Light, one of the early Web search engines. She has been at Harvard Business School since 1998 in several roles including Deputy Director of Baker Library and Director, Information Management Services. In her current role as Director of the Digital Content Program, she has responsibility for the strategic aspects of content produced and acquired by the faculty at Harvard Business School.

PLEASE PLEASE Register even if you are not certain you can attend so we have an accurate estimate of attendees for handouts. If you then make a decision not to attend, please use the registration link and note in the comments field that you will not attend.

NOTE: The registration page has changed and you will be directed to another site where the registration form resides. It is now hosted by lwmtechnology.com and is legitimate.

Registration Form for Thursday

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Smarter-Companies a New Affiliation with Boston KM Forum

Published by lynda on March 11, 2013 in News and Commentary and Other Organizations Meetings. 0 Comments

Boston KM Forum enjoyed a terrific working session in February with Mary Adams, Founder and President of Smarter-Companies. It is wonderful to see how her latest venture that is focused on a network of intangible capital experts has taken off since the beginning of the year.

Boston KM Forum President Larry Chait and program organizer Lynda Moulton have joined along with several other members. We have started a group within the Smarter-Companies community and invite you to join, as well. This may be the perfect place to carry on discussions among our members. You can send a request with your contact information to info@kmforum.org to receive an invitation. If you are on our mailing list, look for an email invitation from us to join this week.

Mary Adams is also an organizer for the upcoming 10th International Conference on Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management mini-track, What Works in IC? Practical Perspectives, October 24-25, 2013, at George Washington University. Please visit the conference site for opportunities to present a paper or register for the program. This looks like a wonderful opportunity for our members to expand their knowledge management experience in learning and connecting with experts in the field.

Leveraging Intangibles: Learn How to Get Smarter about Organizational Knowledge

Published by lynda on February 6, 2013 in Thursday Afternoon Meetings. 2 Comments

Thursday, February 21, 2013, Smith Academic Technology Center, Room 321*, 4 - 6 p.m.,  Bentley University,  175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA 02451. Campus Map #57 on map.

* Smith Academic Tech. Ctr. is the location for our February and March, 2013 meetings only. Then we are back to Morison Hall.

SPEAKER: Mary Adams, Founder and president, Smarter-Companies

TOPIC: Viewed broadly, knowledge makes up 80% of the value of the average business. The problem is that most people don’t view knowledge broadly. And, as a consequence, they miss out on a critical strategic view of knowledge as the core driver of value, performance and financial success of organizations today.

This workshop will demonstrate the use of two open source tools:

  • ICounts Intangibility Index, a tool for helping a company quantify the degree to which intangibles drive its future success
  • ICounts Inventory, an exercise that is used to identify the unique set of intangibles developed and used by individual organizations to create value for their customers

In this workshop, Mary Adams will lead you through an exercise to learn how these tools are applied to a well-known business. Then, she’ll show you examples of how an intangibles inventory can be used to lead strategic discussions, to create measurement systems, and to develop a holistic plan to manage knowledge in any organization. You’ll come out empowered with a new way to connect your work to the overall strategic and financial results of your own organization.

BIOGRAPHY: Mary Adams is the founder of Smarter-Companies, a marketplace of consulting tools to optimize returns on the intangible capital that makes up 80% of corporate value in companies today. She is the co-author of Intangible Capital: Putting Knowledge to Work in the 21st Century Organization. Previously she spent 14 years as the founder of Trek Consulting and 14 years as a high-risk lender at Citicorp and Sanwa Business Credit.

PLEASE PLEASE Register even if you are not certain you can attend so we have an accurate estimate of attendees for handouts. If you then make a decision not to attend, please use the registration link and note in the comments field that you will not attend.

NOTE: The registration page has changed and you will be directed to another site where the registration form resides. It is now hosted by lwmtechnology.com and is legitimate.

Registration Form for Thursday

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Practical KM Survey Results; Analysis and Commentary from Participants

Published by lynda on January 9, 2013 in Thursday Afternoon Meetings. 0 Comments

Thursday, January 17, 2013, 4 - 6 p.m., Bentley University, Morison Hall, Morison Boardroom #300, 175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA 02451. Campus Map.

Panel: Lisa O’Donnell (Genzyme/Sanofi), Bert Saul (Simpson Gumpertz & Heger), Glynys Thomas (The Parthenon Group), Marcie Zaharee (The MITRE Corporation)

TOPIC: In November, 2012, Larry Chait and Lynda Moulton launched a survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/62LNLC9). At the recent Gilbane Conference we published preliminary results and now we are moving to the next phase, analyzing and exploring the commentary we received. We invited some participants who had expressed a willingness to be interviewed to share some of their responses and further comments on what their organizations do, have done and plan to accomplish in various KM initiatives. We will interview our survey contributors and then invite the audience to ask questions and join the discussion.

POST MEETING COMMENTS: The discussion was excellent and the speakers were terrific in summarizing KM activities in their diverse enterprises. The key take-aways were the need for focus on a well-defined knowledge using and knowledge seeking community for an initiative to succeed and be sustained. Routine process improvement and re-evaluation is required as new technologies and tools take hold. Constant tension in getting management support for KM teams to manage the operations while spending money on technology is an easy sell. Slides that guided the discussion are here.

BIOGRAPHIES:

  • Lisa O’Donnell is Associate Director for Information and Records Management at Genzyme/Sanofi. Previous to her current position Lisa was a business systems analyst for Genzyme, specializing in the application of OpenText/LiveLink.
  • Bert Saul is Corporate Library Manager at Simpson, Gumpertz and Heger, a national engineering firm, where he has been leading a corporate-wide KM initiative for managing and making accessible the company’s internal content for several years.
  • Glynys Thomas is Senior Knowledge Manager at The Parthenon Group where she has responsibility for  Knowledge Management and internal information systems development and deployment. Glynys prepares business and functional requirements, and is a specialist implementing SharePoint-based applications in knowledge management.
  • Marcie Zaharee is the Lead Information Systems Engineer for the Metadata Harmonization project at The MITRE Corporation. Previously, she has held positions as  Associate Department Head for Information Management and Practice, and Manager for KM and Training Integration.

PLEASE PLEASE Register even if you are not certain you can attend so we have an accurate estimate of attendees for handouts. If you then make a decision not to attend, please use the registration link and note in the comments field that you will not attend.

NOTE: The registration page has changed and you will be directed to another site where the registration form resides. It is now hosted by lwmtechnology.com and is legitimate.

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Survey on the State of Knowledge Management

Published by lynda on December 11, 2012 in News and Commentary and Survey. 1 Comment

Larry Chait and Lynda Moulton have released a survey to gather information about the current status on KM in the enterprise. The results will be shared with respondents who wish to received them (just ten short questions on two pages). Preliminary results were shared (anonymously aggregated)at our upcoming presentation at Gilbane Boston on Nov. 29th, and the final results will play a role in a forthcoming book on practical KM.

Please take this survey as soon as you have ten minutes to share: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/62LNLC9

Peter O’Kelly on How Big Data Becomes Actionable Information and Other Gilbane Conference Output

Published by lynda on December 9, 2012 in Thursday Afternoon Meetings. 0 Comments

Thursday, Dec, 20, 2012, 4 - 6 p.m., Bentley University, Morison Hall, Morison Boardroom #300, 175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA 02451. Campus Map.

SPEAKER: Peter O’Kelly,  Principal Analyst, O’Kelly Associates

TOPIC: Having shared a session with Peter O’Kelly on “Big Data” at the Gilbane Conference, we learned about his background and found his comments interesting on the topic and other content related sessions at the conference. We always like to share some of the take-aways from the meetings and we know that Peter will be able to give some great perspectives on the technology related sessions. It appears that leveraging technology to “meaningfully” analyze all that big stuff is finally receiving “big” attention. But to hear more, you will need to come and listen as we interview Peter about his professional history and how he sees content management evolving across industries. As always, audience Q&A will round out the session and the 2012 Boston KM Forum Season. Discussion slides with speaker notes.

BIOGRAPHY: Peter O’Kelly has been working in the software industry since the early 1980s, as an enterprise application developer and database architect, software product manager, strategist, and industry analyst. He has been consistently focused on information management and collaboration domains throughout his career, spanning roles at Procter & Gamble, Lotus Development Corp., IBM, Groove Networks, the Patricia Seybold Group, Macromedia, Burton Group, Microsoft, and Altova. As an independent industry analyst and consultant, Peter has worked with a wide variety of enterprises and product vendors focused on information management and collaboration/social solutions. Peter also shares perspectives on his Reality Check blog (http://pbokelly.blogspot.com/)

PLEASE PLEASE Register even if you are not certain you can attend so we have an accurate estimate of attendees for handouts. If you then make a decision not to attend, please use the registration link and note in the comments field that you will not attend.

NOTE: The registration page has changed and you will be directed to another site where the registration form resides. It is now hosted by lwmtechnology.com and is legitimate.

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Knowledge Exchanges in an Online World

Published by lynda on November 8, 2012 in Thursday Afternoon Meetings. 1 Comment

Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012, 4 - 6 p.m., Bentley University, Morison Hall, Morison Boardroom #300, 175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA 02451. Campus Map.

SPEAKER: Lynda Moulton, Moderator Group Roundtable Discussion

TOPIC: From social media to “comments” sections in online publishing to online learning and instruction, information and knowledge transfer is seeking new paths. Building on a theme of “knowledge that wants to be found” we will engage in a roundtable after a short summary of history and tools employed by the Boston KM Forum and its members. Lynda Moulton will lead the discussion sharing recent experiences with “online classroom” instruction over the Web. We will also hear from members who routinely conduct or participate in online training sessions and virtual meetings to learn more about what works and what are outstanding problem areas that remain.

Discussion Topics and Ideas on Tool Usage

PLEASE PLEASE Register even if you are not certain you can attend so we have an accurate estimate of attendees for handouts. If you then make a decision not to attend, please use the registration link and note in the comments field that you will not attend.

NOTE: The registration page has changed and you will be directed to another site where the registration form resides. It is now hosted by lwmtechnology.com and is legitimate.

Registration Form for Thursday

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