Tag Archive for 'Leveraging Knowledge'

Knowledge Management as a Lever of Cultural Change: a Case Study of a Global NGO

Published by lynda on July 27, 2010 in Thursday Afternoon Meetings. 0 Comments

Thursday, August 19, 2010, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m., Microsoft, 201 Jones Rd., Sixth Floor, Waltham, MA 02451. Directions.

SPEAKER: Margi Olson, Principal Consultant, Mansys Consulting

TOPIC: World Vision is a global Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with 40,000 employees operating in 90 countries worldwide.  Their superordinate goal is “building a better world for our children”.  They are best known in the US for their child sponsorship programs.  They have extensive programs throughout the world in areas of expertise such as health and nutrition, poverty and justice for children, anti-trafficking, conflict sensitivity, and many others.  A key determinant of their success is getting the right experts to the right place in a timely manner, while utilizing donated revenue as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Margi will discuss a major organizational intervention to implement a global network of experts for effective  deployment in developing countries.  Although she will discuss the processes and systems to support this network, the major focus of the talk will be on utilizing knowledge management as a lever for cultural change.  She will describe the vision of the organization to operate as a non-hierarchical partnership, and the role of knowledge management to support that vision.

BIOGRAPHY: Margi Olson’s passion is understanding what makes enterprises prosper with that illusive combination of leadership, business process, skills and technology. From 2002 until 2007, Margi was Dean of Business, Bentley University, in Waltham.  She came to Bentley after 12 years of strategic change roles both as an executive (Lend Lease) and a consultant (Lotus / IBM and DMR).  Previously, she was a professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University.  Margi currently works as a  knowledge management consultant for World Vision, a global NGO operating in 90 countries.

PLEASE Register even if you are not certain you can attend so we have an accurate estimate of attendees for handouts.

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Leveraging Knowledge by Leading the Leaders

Published by lynda on July 20, 2010 in Friday Breakfast Meetings. 1 Comment

Friday, August 6, 2010 at 7:30 - 9:30 a.m. Rebecca’s at Reservoir Place, Trapelo Road, Waltham.

TOPIC: In July the group exchanged stories of our own knowledge sharing (or not) in business situations. It was a terrific session and very interesting. The topic for August will build on the possibilities for influencing outcomes, even when the odds for success look poor. [You might want to check out the comments and follow the links for more context on that meeting.]

Larry Chait observed that a recurring theme in some of the stories was managers (or people in power) not hearing problems, failure to tolerate naysayers, or having closed minds.

We’ll share examples or insights on how we can open closed minds to receive inconvenient truths for the purpose of moving organizations towards better outcomes.

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Mis-spent Knowledge: Lessons Learned from Disasters

Published by lynda on June 22, 2010 in Friday Breakfast Meetings. 4 Comments

Friday, July 2, at 7:30 - 9:30 a.m. Rebecca’s at Reservoir Place, Trapelo Road, Waltham.

TOPIC: “Bad Stuff” keeps happening. Previous BP CEO, John Browne, was a knowledge sharing champion. Any number of large and prestigious multinational corporations and major institutions have experienced one or more catastrophic events in the past 40 years. Think Union Carbide (Bhopal), J&J (Tylenol), NASA (Challenger and others), AIG (financial meltdown). Many of our community have had direct or indirect work experiences inside or as suppliers to these enterprises and we know how they work. Safety memoranda, bulletins, policies and lectures are prominent and ubiquitous.

  • Where does communication fail?
  • Does information imparted ever get internalized as personal knowledge that influences work behaviors?
  • What aspect of “knowing” the right practices and choices is broken?
  • Is the weakest link the lowest worker on the ladder or the top leader, or somewhere else?
  • What does the BP event teach us about Knowledge in the Enterprise?

Our discussion on July 2 will not find definitive answers to these questions. It should at least cause each to reflect on how we would modify our own professional and work behaviors to avoid being the weak link or enabler for minor or major catastrophes in any community where we have a presence. Perhaps this is a call to become the responsible actor on the scene of any accident waiting to happen.

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Intangible Capital: Putting Knowledge to Work in the 21st-Century Organization

Published by lynda on June 8, 2010 in News and Commentary. 0 Comments

Intangible Capital: Putting Knowledge to Work in the 21st-Century Organization by Mary Adams and Mike Oleksak, two members of the Boston KM Forum. Mary and Mike gave use a terrific presentation a couple of years ago and we highly recommend that you check this new publication out.

Their thought leadership on the topic is well known and we want to congratulate them on the release.

From their recent newsletter, Trek Consulting you get a taste of the theme:

The inability of current accounting standards to keep up with this shift means that a recent look at the S&P 500 market value revealed that market value exceeded the book value of its component companies by 70%.  Additionally, Ernst & Young data from 2007 showed 50% of the value of all mergers was assigned to goodwill and another 20% to other intangible assets. Intangibles are clearly an important factor in how businesses grow today.

KMF Café – Table-talking KM Challenges a joint program with SLA Boston*

Published by lynda on March 7, 2010 in Bentley University Programs. 4 Comments

KM Table Topics/Cases
a Joint Program
Sponsored by the Boston KM Forum and SLA Boston*
Symposium at Bentley University, Thursday, April 29, 2010, 8AM - 4PM

The Boston KM Forum is launching a new format for our Bentley University series - Workshop style roundtable discussions. Additional readings and related content

> 8-8:30 Registration and breakfast

> 8:30 - 9 Introductions and Announcements

> 9 - 10 Roundtable Session 1

> Break

> 10:15 - 11:15  Roundtable Session 2

> 11:25 - 12:25 Roundtable Session 3

> 12:30 Lunch

> 1:30 - 3:30 Panel Discussion and Open Forum


SHOWCASING these TOPICS

Here is the format:

There will be six tables,  each with a case presenter (noted above) and moderator. The case presenter will describe the challenge as a mini case study and open the discussion with questions for the table audience. Over the course of an hour the moderator and presenter will “tease out” commentary, suggestions and innovative solutions.

Attendees will rotate three times during the meeting to new tables and a different topic of interest.

In the afternoon, moderators/presenters will share highlights of the case and commentary.

Boston Knowledge Management Forum at Bentley University
A Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge

Thursday, April 29, 2010, 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM,

The Commons Room in the Adamian Academic Center, Bentley Univ., Waltham, MA (Bldg. D on Map) Directions

$50 Pre-Registration Deadline April 23 [click here to register and pay online OR bring cash/check; $60 for walk-ins with no pre-registration] The fee, includes a light breakfast and full lunch.

Advance registration is required to be eligible for the $50 for the full-day rate. Registration includes continental breakfast and lunch. After filling out the registration form, you may elect to pay using PayPal or you can mail your check to the address provided. Make the check payable to Boston KM Forum. We would appreciate prepayment to speed the on-site registration process. Note that this event is heavily subsidized by The Boston KM Forum to keep the cost within the reach of all KM practitioners. For walk-ins, $60 at the door, cash or check only. Click here to register.

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*SLA Boston is a Chapter of the international association SLA, with over 11,000 members worldwide. SLA is the global organization for innovative information professionals and their strategic partners. It’s mission is to promote and strengthen its members through learning, advocacy, and networking initiatives. SLA Boston is one of the local New England chapters of SLA. Our core values are leadership, service, innovation and continuous learning, results and accountability, collaboration and partnering. The Boston KM Forum has enjoyed active participation by many members of the SLA over the years; partnering in this joint symposium workshop will enhance the relationship.

Boston KM Forum wishes to thank the
Bentley University, Elkin B. McCallum Graduate School of Business
for its continued support of the KM series.

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To receive notices of upcoming events send a message to info@kmforum.org.

Personal Knowledge Management — Professional Know-how

Published by lynda on September 16, 2009 in Bentley University Programs. 4 Comments

Boston Knowledge Management Forum at Bentley University
A Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge

Thursday, October 22, 2009, 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM,

The Commons Room - Adamian Academic Center, Bentley Univ., Waltham, MA (Bldg. D on Map) Directions

$50 Pre-Registration Deadline Oct. 16 for pre-registration [click here to register and pay online OR bring cash/check; $60 for walk-ins with no pre-registration] The fee, includes a light breakfast and full lunch.

Moderator, Larry Chait, Managing Partner of Chait & Associates and former Chief Knowledge Officer of Arthur D. Little

We are increasingly bombarded with new information and knowledge.  Some talk about “information overload,” others about “information fatigue.”  We’re all faced with more and more “stuff”—and we aren’t sure how to save it, find it, and basically cope with it all.  How can you better deal with email?  With blogs?  With Twitter and Facebook?  With paper?  With files?  Already I’m feeling overloaded!!

Our upcoming Symposium at Bentley University was designed to help.  It is focused on Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)—a growing field of interest designed to help people cope with this explosion of information and knowledge.  To discuss PKM, we’ve assembled some familiar and some new faces, each with a unique perspective on the challenges of PKM.

Our speakers and panelists will include Patti Anklam, Net Work Consultant; Win Carus, President and Founder of Information Extraction Systems; Larry Chait, Managing Director, Chait and Associates; Doug Cornelius, Chief Compliance Officer, Beacon Capital Partners; Healy Jones, Head of Marketing, Pixily; Tom Iglehart, President and Founder, Care Commons, Inc.; David Goldstein, Managing Partner, Knowledge Management Associates; David Eddy, David Eddy and Associates; and Stever Robbins, the “Get-it-Done-Guy.”

Our speakers, moderators, and panelists will each have very practical information and examples to share.  Note that based on feedback from prior symposia, we are allowing plenty of time in our sessions for Q&A.  Please join us on October 22 for what promises to be yet another great Symposium!

Link to program readings

8:00- 8:30 Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:30 - Opening and Introductions

Presentation Speakers and Topics

Managing Your Personal Knowledge Network: Patti Anklam

The locus of knowledge has shifted over the past 15 years of “KM” – from being in “stuff” (artifacts, content management systems), to being in people (communities of practice, collaboration systems), to being in the network (constantly alive and moving around us, available directly and peripherally from our friends, colleagues, co-workers, and those we following on Twitter).  How we maintain and grow our personal networks – our personal net work – is a critical part of “personal knowledge management.”  Patti will put personal networks in context and then review practical techniques for maintaining personal networks.

Tools and Tips for the Knowledgable Practitioner: Larry Chait

Larry has assembled a collection of PKM tools and tips that he will share with the audience over the course of the day—and he’ll provide a wrap-up of what we’ve learned at the end of the Symposium.

Personal Knowledge Management and Compliance: Doug Cornelius

This session will follow Doug’s adventures through different approaches to personal knowledge management and different tools he has used, internally and externally.  In the beginning, there was the central repository, trying to capture internal knowledge.  Then, the consumer web showed us new tools for knowledge management.  Let’s see how these new tools have created new approaches to knowledge management.

Personal PKM Strategies: Dave Eddy, David Goldstein, and Stever Robbins (Panelists)

Eddy presentation on Contact Management

This panel discussion, moderated by Larry Chait, will begin with each panelist giving a short description some elements of his personal knowledge strategy.  Then the panelists and the audience will engage in a discussion of problems and challenges—and tools and techniques—for effective personal knowledge management.

Self-care: Knowledge Management in Everyday Life: Tom Iglehart and
Knowledge Management for Health Win Carus

Researchers and healthcare providers agree that an informed person is a healthier person.  But where is the path from “novice” to “knowledgeable?”  Most consumers don’t understand medical language and don’t have the time or the ability to absorb the mass of health information that is so easily available.  Furthermore, rather than just “knowing,” they would rather be “doing.”  They are looking for tools to help them do the right things to avoid health problems.  We will look at the decision paths that consumers take today, the networks of help involved, and some of the emerging tools that help people access the knowledge they need to do the right things at the right times.

Becoming Paperless: Healy Jones

Healy Jones, the head of marketing for Pixily, an online document management company, will discuss the advantages of going paperless and the steps you can take to achieve the paperless office dream.  The concepts behind Pixily’s products apply both to companies and to personal knowledge management.  Removing physical paper from your life can not only reduce clutter, but can also increase your ability to access information and improve productivity.  Several technologies that you can use to reduce your dependence on paper and strategies to go paperless will be discussed.

3:15 - 4:00 Wrap-up: Larry Chait

Larry has assembled a collection of PKM tools and tips that he will share with the audience over the course of the day—and he’ll provide a wrap-up of what we’ve learned at the end of the Symposium.

After meeting posts

[Room is available for audience to network until 4:30 pm]

Registration

Speaker Biographies

Patti Anklam, an independent consultant currently doing business as Net Work, provides expertise in knowledge management with a specialty in collaboration, social networks, and social media.  Patti has over 40 years’ experience in collaboration software and knowledge management, and has been specializing in social networks since 2001.  Prior to becoming an independent consultant, Patti worked in high technology firms IBM, Digital Equipment/Compaq (now HP), and Nortel Networks. At Nortel Networks, she was the Director of Knowledge Management for Nortel’s Global Professional Services organization from 2000 to 2001.  Patti is a long-time member of the Boston KM Forum.

Win Carus is the Founder and President of Information Extraction Systems, Inc.  He has over twenty-five years of experience in the research, design, and development of multilingual text and speech natural language technologies for OEM and application markets (spelling correction, hyphenation, proofreading and grammar correction; language recognition; electronic dictionary and reference works; information retrieval; machine translation; speech recognition; and information extraction).  He is an inventor on over twenty patents in the field of natural language processing.  The IEBuilder™ Toolkit of natural language processing and information extraction tools draws on these years of experience: it combines statistical, machine-learning, finite-state and corpus-based techniques; integrates unstructured, semi-structured and fully structured knowledge sources; and incorporates user feedback.  He was formerly Vice President, Research, of Dictaphone’s Applied Language Technologies Group; Distinguished Scientist at Lernout & Hauspie, and Director of Research for Inso Corporation and the Software Division of Houghton Mifflin Company.

Prior to launching Chait & Associates, Larry Chait was a Corporate Vice President of Arthur D. Little, Inc. He built ADL’s internal, global Knowledge Management function and served as the firm’s first Chief Knowledge Officer. In that role, he oversaw the design, development, and implementation of the firm’s multi-million-dollar KM initiative. In his earlier consulting role at ADL, Larry led major engagements in change management, process improvement, and strategic IT planning for domestic and international clients ranging from start-ups to the Global 100. Larry has also authored 20 articles published in the US and abroad, lectured in MBA and post-graduate programs in five universities, and spoken at over 40 conferences on topics including knowledge management, process improvement, and the management of change. He is currently President of The Boston KM Forum, a community of practitioners that offers over 25 KM-knowledge-sharing events each year.

Doug Cornelius is the Chief Compliance Officer for Beacon Capital Partners, LLC, a real estate private equity firm.  He authors Compliance Building, a blog on compliance and business ethics.  Previously he was a senior real estate and knowledge management attorney at the law firm of Goodwin Procter, LLP.

David Eddy moved from programming to sales in 1988.  His initial contact management system was manila file folders and his territory was the US and Canada.  He quickly moved to a custom written PC based system and then to a single-user, Macintosh-based commercial system with a powerful tagging mechanism.  Today, he uses a client-server Macintosh system that contains 1,100 Accounts, 2,500 Contacts, 3,600 Notes and an even more powerful tagging mechanism.  Waiting in the wings is the ability to connect the database to his iPod Touch!

David Goldstein is Managing Partner and co-founder of Knowledge Management Associates.  For more than 20 years, David has been a widely quoted expert in business intelligence and knowledge management systems.  At KMA, David oversees all projects, and works closely with clients to understand business needs, assess upcoming challenges, and design leading edge technology solutions.  Before founding KMA, David was a professor in the information systems area at the Harvard Business School, the Sloan School at MIT, and the Boston University School of Management.  As a faculty member, he conducted research and provided consulting services for numerous Fortune 500 companies, including American Express and IBM.  David holds a B.Sc. degree from McGill University, S.M. and M.E. degrees from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from M.I.T.

Tom Iglehart began his career in Boston with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.  He entered the software industry in the 1980s as an analyst and marketer of communication, business process, and database technologies, eventually becoming one of the key executives to drive 45x growth for one of the area’s most successful privately-held software companies.  Throughout this time, his academic and professional focus has been on the intersection of language, technology, information theory, coordination science, and related enabling technologies.  He is currently founder and president of medical informatics company Care Commons, Inc., and a member of the advisory board for the healthcare cluster of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council.

Healy Jones is the Head of Sales and Marketing for Pixily, an award-winning, online paper and document management company.  Pixily helps small businesses manage their paper and digital files through an easy to use, secure web-based system.  (Learn more about Pixily by visiting http://www.pixily.com)  Prior to joining Pixily, Healy worked as a venture capitalist with Atlas Venture, Summit Partners and other funds.  He also worked in investment banking with JP Morgan’s technology group in San Francisco.  Healy has an MBA from Wharton and an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College.

As a consultant to people and companies, Stever Robbins advises on a wide range of workplace productivity and entrepreneurial issues.  He’s been involved in successful start-ups and new ventures at such companies as Intuit Corp.  He’s been a go-to expert on managing e-mail for more than five years, appearing in the Miami Herald, New York Times and NBC Nightly News.  His “Get-it-Done-Guy” podcast has been a Top 20 download at iTunes.  He has written for Harvard Business School Publishing, Entrepreneur Magazine, and the Boston Business Journal.  He received a bachelor’s degree from MIT, an MBA from Harvard Business School, and is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management program.  His website is <www.steverrobbins.com>.

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Advance registration is required to be eligible for the $50 for the full-day rate. Registration includes continental breakfast and lunch. After filling out the registration form, you may elect to pay using PayPal or you can mail your check to the address provided. Make the check payable to Boston KM Forum. We would appreciate prepayment to speed the on-site registration process. Note that this event is heavily subsidized by The Boston KM Forum to keep the cost within the reach of all KM practitioners. For walk-ins, $60 at the door, cash or check only. Click here to register.

Boston KM Forum wishes to thank the Bentley University, Elkin B. McCallum Graduate School of Business for its continued support of the KM series.

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To receive notices of upcoming events send a message to info@kmforum.org.

Knowledge Management on Your Mind? A Forum for All

Published by lynda on June 10, 2009 in Thursday Afternoon Meetings. 1 Comment

Thursday, June 18, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m., Microsoft, 201 Jones Rd., Sixth Floor, Waltham, MA 02451. Directions.

SPEAKER: Wei Zhang, Wendy Austin and Heather Hedden

TOPIC: The Boston KM Forum is opening the June 18th Thursday meeting to the audience for a Sharing/Roundtable/Q &A session. This is a moderated “open mic” discussion of knowledge management topics. Among  our numerous members are those who  attend meetings and contribute heartily to discussion and debate during our Thursday presentations and Friday roundtable programs. We invite members to “raise a hand” and put forth a thought, issue, problem or challenge from their professional work for everyone to learn from and respond, as appropriate.

What you need to do to be one of the “panelists” is to register and consider volunteering to be a mini-presenter in a 15 slot. You will have five minutes to share a KM related idea or a current challenge with those in attendance; then forum leaders will moderate ten minutes of audience discussion on the topic you open for us to consider. For those who have never made it to a Friday morning topic discussion, you will get the full flavor of our typical roundtable sharing of ideas and commentary.

You are welcome to come in the capacity of speaker or active audience.

Topics on the Agenda:

KM course development for undergraduate or graduate  business schools: What should be included?[ Wei Zhang, Assoc. Professor at U. Mass Boston presented his experiences offering and teaching both undergraduate and graduate business students a course on knowledge management. There had been low interest from undergraduates in the course but the graduate course is very popular and oversubscribed. Much of the discussion centered around whether he needs to include technology implementation lessons (e.g. SharePoint) in the course because many of the students are not IT oriented. Attendees encouraged the use of case studies to illustrate how technology can be used to leverage knowledge sharing, the application of standards (ITIL) for selecting and applying technologies, understanding which and what technologies are appropropriate and analytical methods for recognizing and leveraging knowledge assets in the context of the organization. He was encouraged to consider referring his students to take a systems analysis course or low level computer science course to pick up the technical language and basic understanding of technologies. Courses in specific technologies are widely available from vendor partners for those who need to learn a specific tool.]

Navigation Taxonomies; What Works Well (or Doesn’t) with Your Content System? [Heather Hedden, Principal at Hedden Information Management, Simmons lecturer, and EContent Magazine contributor on taxonomy development and indexing methods, presented a variety of taxonomy displays that are typical of the navigation format deployed natively from various content management systems. She sought feedback and comments on the advantages and disadvantages of their usability and usefulness in a variety of situations. The group gave comments on the consideration for contextual relevance and ease of understanding, user expectations when visiting a site and their familiarity or expertise with the topic. Preferences seemed to depend a great deal on the nature of the subject matter (broad or narrow focus, non-technical vs. technical, special expert audience vs. general public).

Managing a Technical Archives Project and Retaining Enterprise Expert Wisdom [Wendy Austin, Information Specialist at Draper Laboratory had questions about identifying, classifying and preserving knowledge assets created over the years at the Laboratory. From a specific project relating to legacy NASA documents to other program materials, she has been developing a system for classifying the many documents while also speaking with experts nearing retirement about them. Her concern is how to continue expanding the archival framework as new topics and new materials are uncovered and brought into the system. In general, the group encouraged the acceptance that beginning with a simple and general topic classification that can be expanded to narrower topics, as needed, is a good way to go. Also, looking at the classification already in use for the existing library should provide a consistency to the vocabulary. Finally, the attendees promoted the idea of getting the experts to share stories about the projects that would be captured in notes or video. This would help the archivists to build up understanding and context for the materials that are being turned over.]

Also mentioned in the discussion was PaperTiger, a software solution that does indexing and search for files stored on paper, streamlining files and also allowing an online search to yield paper-based results. Stacy Goodman, VP of Process and Strategy at UGL-Unicco brought this to our attention as a personal productivity tool.

Thoughts on book How we Decide, by Jonah Lehrer (idea courtesy of Jill Coghlan) [no discussion due to time constraints. Topic will be taken up at next breakfast meeting, Aug. 7]

Topics and tools of interest - High Level Taxonomy of Boston KM Forum Topics:

  • Affiliated topics and concepts (e.g. standards)
  • Asset collections (e.g. archives)
  • Knowledge assets (e.g. intellectual property)
  • Knowledge intensive disciplines (e.g. linguistics)
  • Knowledge management roles (e.g. librarian)
  • Knowledge processes (e.g. content management)
  • Structuring knowledge assets (e.g. taxonomy)
  • Tools (e.g. content management systems, twitter)
  • Detailed Taxonomy

SURVEY LINK: David Griffiths, a PhD student and Associate Lecturer at Edinburgh University doing research to determine KM curricula https://www.survey.ed.ac.uk/km2009.

The survey is a fine overview of the various topics that fall under the domain of knowledge management. We encourage our members to take it.

PLEASE Register even if you are not certain you can attend so we have an accurate estimate of attendees for handouts.

Registration Form for Thursday

Registration Comments (Cost, time, meeting format)