The Business Impact of Knowledge Communities at Motorola

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The Business Impact of Knowledge Communities at
Motorola
Dr. Arthur Paton Motorola Knowledge Community
Resource Office
right people right knowledge right now
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Introductions

• Art Paton
• 29 Years in Technical Education
• Experience in 17 countries
• Designed for all modes from job aids to virtual
  reality
• Chair Knowledge Community Office and KC Strategy
• Manage 3 Global Communities

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Some Terms..

• Synchronous Learning
• As in Same Time, like classroom or web seminar or
  teleconference
• Asynchronous Learning
• As in not at the same time,
• like watching a video or using a learning CD in
  your computer, watching a recorded seminar or
  downloading and using a computer-based learning
  program.
• Most social networking is asynchronous

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Another Term

• Social Networking
• People sharing thoughts and information with each
  other regularly, often in defined groups
• Usually done with computer applications
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Mobile access is growing exponentially!!

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HIDEF

• Blog
• a website, maintained by an individual with
  regular entries of commentary or news on a
  particular subject others function as more
  personal online diaries. As of December 2007,
  blog search engine Technorati was tracking more
  than 112 million blogs
• Wiki
• collaborative website, using open contributions
  and consensus-based editing and organization of
  content on any topic. Wiki is a Hawaiian word
  for fast.
• Ward Cunningham, was the developer of the first
  wiki software, WikiWikiWeb

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HiTouch

• Community
• Any group exchanging knowledge about a topic on a
  regular basis. Social Networking tools called
  Knowledge Communities or Community of Practice
  enable collaboration electronically.
• Communities typically host Blogs, Wikis,
  Discussion Groups, Forums, Polls, Libraries and
  other collaborative tools.
• Communities enable asynchronous, global
  collaboration

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Pause and Reflect

• What social networking tools are being used in
  your company today?
• Blogs
• Wikis
• Forums/Discussions
• Communities
• Micromessaging
• Web 2.0 Directory

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Motorola Communities The Story

• IT Web 2.0 Strategy
• Open Text Tool Enhancement 2004
• Initially Discussion Groups, QA, Site Templates
• Added Forums, Blogs, Wikis, FAQs, Template
  enhancements
• Community Beta early 2005, no announcement
• People Experiment..
• Motorola University Involvement (again)
• Motorola University asked to Sponsor Communities,
  2007
• MU asks for list of communities.. 2,000
  Communities!
• Currently Active Communities 250
• Knowledge Community Resource Office Created 2007
• Benchmark with Caterpillar, APQC, Honeywell, TI
• Survey KC Leaders, Implement Learning, Create KC
  Leader Community

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Selling It..

• External ROI analysis attributes 600 net benefit
  for every discussion thread in any knowledge
  community.
• Documented 5-year returns range from 26M to 75M
• The ability to learn faster than the competition
  is often the only sustainable competitive
  advantage a company can have Arie de Geus MIT

Source Caterpillar ROI study, MIT
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And This.
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A Word About Our Partner
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Community Directory
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Community Types

• Phase 1
• Short Term, Information-based, take and go
  transactions
• 75 of Communities
• Require committed resource providers
• Constant updating to provide constant value
• Phase 2
• Long Term, Collaboration and Research-based
• 15 of Communities
• Require Senior Sponsorship, Committed Members
• Future oriented topics

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Community Creation
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Examples

• Blogs
• Wikis
• Forums
• Tweets
• QA

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Community Tools - Blogs
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Community Meeting Notes Wiki
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Community Leader Resources File
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Community Leader Training
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Forum Example
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Social Networking Promotion
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Motorola Usage Stats

• As of 1Q2009
• 7,868 Blogs
• 1708 Communities
• 2,400 FAQs (20,000 answers)
• 3,577 Forums
• 7,943 Wikis
• 7,900 Extranet Projects
• 6,000 Motmot Accounts
• All are Active, indicating recent postings

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Zeitgeist
http//motmot.mot.com/tags
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Posting to Motmot
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Motmot user distribution
2840
925
(350)
931
220
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Example Community Categories

• Human Resources
• Sales and Marketing
• Supply Chain
• Engineering
• Leadership

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HR Communities

• Global MU
• Unites global learning team
• Process, methods, tips, internal and external
  expertise
• Expert list
• HR Centers of Expertise
• Global Communities
• 17 Communities
• Disability, Asia, Womens Business Councils
• Coordinate global efforts on defining business
  impact
• Council operations, decisions, priorities

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Business Unit Sales and Marketing

• Partners for End To End Solutions
• Software Development
• Customer Feedback
• Product Announcement
• Product Support
• External/Internal Community for solution
  development

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Engineering

• Software
• Security Tools, Testing, Architecture, Coding
• Hardware
• Compartmentalized Design, contractors, internal
• Agile Software Engineering Business Case

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Agile Community Challenges

• Unable to expand within a business or across
  businesses without a community
• Collaboration on pan-business metrics and data
  collection not possible without a community
• Best practice definition, validation not possible
  without a community
• Learning Cycles much longer without a community

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Agile Software Development

• Community Page
• Challenge
• Actions
• Results
• Business Impact

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Agile Software Engineering
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Results
Software Projects
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Results
Products
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The Virtual Engineering Symposium

• Mediated by Communities
• One community per topic area
• Session Chair Community Leader
• Citrix Go To Webinar for Presentation
• 364 Papers, over half from outside the US
• Live and Recorded
• Communities Persist After Symposium

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Global Reach
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Virtual Symposium Community
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Session Track Communities
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Results

• 2,457 Global Participants
• 12 Countries
• 227 Papers Presented
• 95 said do it again
• 90 said they got something to use (tracking
  reuse metric)
• 85 would participate next time
• 70 would like to present next time

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The Successful Community

• Grassroots Communities
• Successful because they benefit members
• Allow safe pilots, self selection, testing
• Tend to support interaction between groups
• Sponsored Communities
• Successful because they benefit the company
• Clear goal, timeline, metrics
• Accountability, why arent you doing this?

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Community Member Attitudes

• Survey of 85 of 200 Communities
• Done by University of Illinois
• Questions about attitudes around community
  membership, leadership and value

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Survey Results
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The Future Past

• Motorola Vision
• Communities chartered as knowledge owners
• Tacit expertise captured, maintained, in
  communities
• Tell Me Why learning, Blogs, xTube, xTunes, xx.
• Communities responsible for tacit expertise
  education
• Eight communities have this role now
• Perspective
• How was this done before the internet, KM,
  community applications, tools, APQC, etc.?
• How will this be done in the future, when
  computing will be orders of magnitude more
  capable and pervasive?
• What will be the roles of people and technology?

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Oak Beams at New College, Oxford

• I think of the oak beams in the ceiling of
  College Hall at New College, Oxford, first built
  in 1386. In 1856, when the beams needed
  replacing, carpenters used oak trees that had
  been planted in 1386 when the dining hall was
  first built. The 14th-century builder had planted
  the trees in anticipation of the time, hundreds
  of years in the future, when the beams would need
  replacing. Did the carpenters plant new trees to
  replace the beams again a few hundred years from
  now?
• From Danny Hillis, presentation at Motorola 2001

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• Thank You
• Contact Information
• art.paton_at_motorola.com