Knowledge Management: A domain which calls for Inspired Leadership

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Knowledge ManagementA domain which calls for
Inspired Leadership

• Bill Thom, Managing Director
• Thom-Thom Communications

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The sheer amount of it

• When information was recorded on tablets of stone
  and papyrus, IT DOUBLED ONLY IN CENTURIES
• When printing was invented, right up to the
  1970s IT DOUBLED IN THIRTY YEARS
• When computers came along IT DOUBLED EVERY SEVEN
  YEARS
• Today IT DOUBLES ONCE EVERY YEAR

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In 2010 - Prediction

• The cumulated amount of digitally captured
  information in the world is predicted to double
  every ELEVEN HOURS
• Think about it, you go to bed on a Monday, by
  the time you get back to work on Tuesday, you are
  twice as dumb as you were the day before!

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Structured and Unstructured

• Unstructured knowledge is generally textual but
  may contain structured elements such as fields,
  or controlled language (keywords from a thesaurus
  or a taxonomy)
• Structured knowledge is data, mainly in numeric
  format

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Data and Text Information

• While structured data may tell you that exporting
  to parts of the Middle East right now is rising,
• The unstructured text about the Middle East tells
  us that the whole region may become even more
  unstable
• You cant make sense of data without text

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Information plus Experience Knowledge

• How many of you have had a young cat?
• Cats love heat (information from instinct)
• They get very close to open fires (experience)
• They often go up the chimney and sit on the
  ledges (bad experience about to happen)
• The fire is lit (a very bad experience)
• Cat combines information and experience
  (knowledge)

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SYNCHRONISE YOUR KNOWLEDGE
INFORMATION FROM THE EXTERNAL WORLD
M A R K E T S
E C O N O M Y
P O P U L A T N
R E S E A R C H
LIBRARIES
ARCHIVES
DATABASES
FILMS/VIDEO
SOUND
GRAPHICS
NEWSFEEDS
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SYNCHRONISE YOUR KNOWLEDGE
INFORMATION FROM THE EXTERNAL WORLD
INFORMATION ABOUT PRODUCTS
M A R K E T S
E C O N O M Y
P O P U L A T N
R E S E A R C H
D E V E L O P
M A I N T A I N
M A N U F A C T
D E S I G N
LIBRARIES
POLICIES
PROCEDURES
ARCHIVES
DATABASES
CONTRACTS
FILMS/VIDEO
LEGAL
SOUND
SPECIFICATION
GRAPHICS
MANUALS
NEWSFEEDS
PROGRAMMES
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SYNCHRONISE YOUR KNOWLEDGE
INFORMATION FROM THE EXTERNAL WORLD
INFORMATION ABOUT PRODUCTS
INFORMATION ABOUT CUSTOMERS
M A R K E T S
E C O N O M Y
P O P U L A T N
R E S E A R C H
D E V E L O P
M A I N T A I N
M A N U F A C T
M A R K E T N G
S A L E S
P R O D U C T S
S U P P O R T
S E R V I C E S
P R O J E C T S
D E S I G N
LIBRARIES
POLICIES
STANDARDS
PROCEDURES
QUALITY
ARCHIVES
DATABASES
CONTRACTS
REGULATORY
FILMS/VIDEO
LEGAL
ENVIRONMENT
SOUND
SPECIFICATION
APPLICATIONS
GRAPHICS
MANUALS
COMPLAINTS
NEWSFEEDS
PROGRAMMES
REFERENCES
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SYNCHRONISE YOUR KNOWLEDGE
INFORMATION FROM THE EXTERNAL WORLD
INFORMATION ABOUT PRODUCTS
INFORMATION ABOUT CUSTOMERS
INFORMATION ABOUT PEOPLE
M A R K E T S
E C O N O M Y
P O P U L A T N
R E S E A R C H
D E V E L O P
M A I N T A I N
M A N U F A C T
M A R K E T N G
S A L E S
P R O D U C T S
S U P P O R T
S E R V I C E S
S K I L L S
K N O W H O W
E X P E R I E N
Q U A L I T I E
A V A I L A B I
P R O J E C T S
D E S I G N
LIBRARIES
POLICIES
STANDARDS
PERSONNEL
PROCEDURES
QUALITY
TRAINING
ARCHIVES
DATABASES
CONTRACTS
REGULATORY
LEARNING
FILMS/VIDEO
LEGAL
ENVIRONMENT
APPRAISALS
SOUND
SPECIFICATION
APPLICATIONS
HISTORY
GRAPHICS
MANUALS
COMPLAINTS
QUALIFICATION
NEWSFEEDS
PROGRAMMES
REFERENCES
FAILURES
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SYNCHRONISE YOUR KNOWLEDGE
INFORMATION FROM THE EXTERNAL WORLD
INFORMATION ABOUT PRODUCTS
INFORMATION ABOUT CUSTOMERS
INFORMATION ABOUT PEOPLE
FIND WHAT WE KNOW ANYWHERE TO
ANYONE SAVE COSTS AND TIME BE FIRST AND
EFFECTIVE MANAGE WITHOUT WALLS
M A R K E T S
E C O N O M Y
P O P U L A T N
R E S E A R C H
D E V E L O P
M A I N T A I N
M A N U F A C T
M A R K E T N G
S A L E S
P R O D U C T S
S U P P O R T
S E R V I C E S
S K I L L S
K N O W H O W
E X P E R I E N
Q U A L I T I E
A V A I L A B I
P R O J E C T S
D E S I G N
LIBRARIES
POLICIES
STANDARDS
PERSONNEL
PROCEDURES
QUALITY
TRAINING
ARCHIVES
DATABASES
CONTRACTS
REGULATORY
LEARNING
FILMS/VIDEO
LEGAL
ENVIRONMENT
APPRAISALS
SOUND
SPECIFICATION
APPLICATIONS
HISTORY
GRAPHICS
MANUALS
COMPLAINTS
QUALIFICATION
NEWSFEEDS
PROGRAMMES
REFERENCES
FAILURES
IF ONLY I KNEW WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW IN MY
COMPANY?
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What KM Includes

• Information retrieval
• Intelligent searching
• Info categorisation
• Alerting mechanisms
• Behaviour tracking
• Sharing knowledge
• Learning, Discovery
• Empowering people

• Making connections
• Getting the right results
• Control of haystacks
• Personalising services
• Anticipating needs
• Innovation, winning
• Continuous improvement
• Innovation and change

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Where is your intellectual capital?

• Information is somewhere
• Search tools inadequate
• No knowledge base
• People leave the firm
• Society based on sharing
• Traditional accounting places low value on
  information or knowledge

• But its all in Silos
• Search haystack find sheaf
• Cost escalation and waste
• Know-how goes with them
• Work culture little shared
• Giving rise to huge losses through leakage and
  waste of vital intellectual capital

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1 Leadership is Key

• Managing Director and the board must initiate and
  actively support KM initiatives
• There must be a Vision from the top
• Active involvement and sponsorship by senior
  people
• A classic case for charismatic Inspired
  Leadership

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2 Customers downwards

• Develop from a customer perspective downwards and
  do an audit
• Design everything around your customers, key
  suppliers, business partners
• Build KM around the whole supply chain
• If theres no customer benefit visible it fails
  the audit

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3 Bridge those chasms

• Every organisation has vertical structures
  leaving chasms between the functions
• KM technology can effectively bridge these chasms
  
• Accessing relevant information across the chasms
  (uniting all the separate Silo held knowledge)
  will release hidden value

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4 Start Today

• KM is a change of business lifestyle
• Evolve or die
• The first step is the hardest take it
• Use consultants to coach you not control
• This is about changing your culture and only
  you can do it

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5 Start with the Obvious

• Its eating an elephant. Do it one bite at a
  time, but work to a strategy and plan it out
• Whats your most important Resource?
• A good start is a Company Yellow Pages (its an
  easy quick win quick wins are good)
• Who works for us and do they face customers at
  all
• What might they do to help our customers
• What skills do they have and can we deploy these
• How can they be contacted without difficulty by
  our customers, suppliers, business partners

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6 The Culture Trap

• Changing the culture can only be done from the
  inside its like lifelong learning
  
• infant child adult
  mentor
• data information knowledge
  wisdom
• Its difficult! But dont allow it to be an
  excuse for inertia
• Do the right things unlock the information and
  knowledge and your people will evolve and so will
  your business

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7 Be prepared to fail

• Knowledge discovery itself is often a result of
  initial failure (Remember our Cat example)
• Take some risks
• e.g. Relax some of your IT security (most of it
  blocks people from information they need)
• Learn to trust your people and your clients
• Empower them to do more and amaze yourself
• Let them try things

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8 Adopt enabling technology

• It needs to be on every desktop
• Make it easy to use, easy to find, easy to deploy
• Start with a Knowledge Portal which is aimed at
  making life possible for your clients and your
  partners/suppliers
• Make it easy to engage with your firm
• Make it easy for people to buy from you
• Make it easy for people to communicate

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9 KM as part of E-Business

• Knowledge Management is a vital part of
  e-business
• If you sell goods or services then people need
  information access at all levels of the process
  before the sale, as part of the transaction, and
  as part of the after-sales service its a
  continuum.
• Dont make customers go through many hoops

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10 Know your customer

• KM tools, well deployed, will allow you to build
  a profile of your customers so you know them
• Track their past behaviours and make you
  responsive
• Anticipate their next requirements establishing
  their loyalty, giving better service levels
• Give them seamless access to all you can do for
  them making it easier to trade
• Allowing you to take ALL the business

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The ten virtues

• 1 Leadership from top
• 2 Start at the customer
• 3 Bridge your silos
• 4 Make a Start now
• 5 Begin the elephant with the obvious first bite

• 6 Evolve your culture
• 7 Have no fear of failing
• 8 Adopt KM technology
• 9 Include KM in e-business
• 10 Know your customers by driving it all for
  their benefit and therefore yours

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Tools for unstructured knowledge

• Summarisation tools
• Content analysers
• Inference engines
• Thesaurus builders
• Rule based taxonomy tools
• Content Management
• Document Management
• Data Mining tools
• Supply Chain tools
• E-Commerce tools
• Spacial Mapping tools

• Text engines
• Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves
• Deeper level searchtools
• Autonomy
• Verity
• Convera
• Smartlogik
• Inxight
• Clear Forest
• Northern Light

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Contact thom-thom.com
Bill Thom, MD E-mail address md_at_thom-thom.com Web
site www.thom-thom.com Telephone [phone]
4667 or 07974 230815