The 2nd Annual KM conference

The 2^nd Annual KM conference organized by the Mumbai chapter of K-community was held on 24^th July 2012 at Hotel Four Point Sheraton at Vashi, Navi Mumbai. It was an event hosted by eClerx.

The day kick started with an opening session by multifaceted Dr. Madanmohan Rao. His insights on Knowledge cultures brought out how collaborative behavior can be defined and nurtured in organizations. The two thoughts that caught my attention were conducting Culture audits, defining 5 characteristics of the organization culture and nurturing it. He suggested audits to be prolonged over a period of 1-6 months for getting a proper character of the organization and its culture. He also strengthened the general Knowledge Manager's thought that the ROI can be only on terms of learning for the seeker and recognition for the expert.

The following session by Partho Sengupta from erstwhile Patni which is now merged with iGate, was an interesting case study on Knowledge Management after the merger. Interestingly, while entire Patni workforce was scattered to fit in with iGate for a smooth merger, KM team from the Patni side continued as is. The KM team soon found out that while they came from a Mature process oriented organization that was very hierarchical and old fashioned they were handling KM for an org that was young, dynamic, brash and not so matured in processes.

They were at advantage when it came to platforms, Patni was on MOSS 2007 while iGate on Sharepoint 2010. It helped to have an internal technical team and all platform changes could be done efficiently with quick turnarounds. They created a unified system for the employees, so people came to a single home page from where KM access was also available. It was mandated for project delivery and made auditable. They made "Preparing ecosystem to serve the “Expressed Individual” and integrated org " their motto and vision.

Dr. J.K Suresh of Infosys talked about aligning KM strategy with Business strategy. How crisis of global capitalization is causing major issues with predictability, Derisking, Sustainability etc. How each of these problems has a knowledge issue. He stressed on the fact that KM is not about process maturity or technology and excellence but about people. Temporal influences on KM, he warned can be significant. He highlighted that Employees are knowledge infused resources and not inert and an organization needs to recognize that when building the KM strategy and effectively aligning it to Business strategy.

Rajashree Natrajan from Cognizant shared her insights on KM. Give when there is an appetite should be a rule for KMers. Deliver insights not information, this makes sense else user is lost in the sea of information and not all users can interpret data.

Besides she mentioned that in CTS, “ask George” has become an entity that employees mail to for any query they have on the organization, right from HR to technical issue. People perceive it as an expert person answering there questions when in reality it is only an email id.

The most interesting case study in the conference was of L&T Hydrocarbons. The CEO’s message itself encouraged the employees to share the stories of failure, as much as there are celebrations for success. They even have a competition for sharing a failure story; that is across teams rather than individuals. KM is mandated in the process and no benefit measurement is done. He also stressed on the fact that phone conversations at the time of failure remains the strongest way of Knowledge sharing even though the world has moved on to social media.

Keshavamurthy Rajgopal shared his experience on Transitioning Cap Gemini KM from Repositories to Communities. His observation that we share to connect and connect to share lies underneath the emergence and thriving of communities. Why setting up communities facilitation is required but after that he observes that content is not required to be managed, based on need people manage it. They create and acquire knowledge as required. A Kmer’s role should be of mentoring the community leaders for the required skills. Some of the Challenges that a community faces are

• Not all deliver at all times
• Managing the expectations of the non-social generation
• Comfort of people with open spaces.

The day concluded with a vote of thanks to the sponsors, eClerx and L&T hydrocarbons and eClerx organizers team.

Also adding here the mail I had circulated earlier:

Hi Team

I had the opportunity to attend this conference here in Mumbai, yesterday.

It was refreshing to meet new people, listen to new perspectives and network with fellow KMers. There were some from non-IT background and their stories were very interesting In the next team meeting will share my notes too.

Meanwhile here some sound bites from the conference.

Dr. Madanmohan Rao, as usual live tweeted and then compiled this at the end of the day.

http://km.techsparks.com/?p=433

BTW the Rajgopal in the transcript is our ex-teammate Keshavmurthy Rajgopal, who now heads Cap Gemini Finance KM.

I was live updating on Facebook, so those who are in my friends list, got flooded J, those guys can ignore this mail. (Others pl. do not send me requests, I rarely use my FB a/c for work purpose.)

All the slide decks and videos will be updated on the link below by this weekend.

http://urtalk.kpoint.com

Trust this is useful and interesting.

Anjali

Quotes on Knowledge

“One momentary glimpse of divine wisdom, borne of meditation, is more precious than any amount of knowledge derived from merely listening to and thinking about religious teachings.”  - Gampopa

“When you know that you do not know anything, then you know everything.” – Swami Ramdas

Shared by Ananthuji of Navadarshanam

The Meaning Organization

Traditional businesses are struggling to recover from the economic downturn. They'll need to shift their focus from profits to authentic social engagement to have meaningful impact in the world.

http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/and-now-the-good-news/the-meaning-organization.html

Sharing this article by HBR writer Umair Haque.

I am intrigued by the Humanist in leadership that I have started noticing post the KM India, where I heard and met so many leaders with a spiritual inclination.  Never ever thought these two triats went together. I attribute this to the Rationalist environment that I have been in all the time. Productivity Productivity and yet again deliver value! Are Intangible values so fuzzy for the leadership to be comfortable? I was completely swept by this post by Umair and am compulsively sharing it here. A friend and me agreed he is the new Peter Senge! Keep a watch!

While we do it also lets do a bit of a self assessment where do we stand as an organization? What are our goals? Is it time for us to re-calibrate our vision?

Don't complain you have spam

In today's world of Social media it is more a testing time to find information of interest to us when it is being pushed to us. We choose to be lazy and searching for information is now second to social sharing and bookmarking. So don't complain about Spam.

Incase you do, it is your inadequacy to manage your mails and information that your circle of people are sending to you. Especially if you claim to be some one working in the field of social media. Else you are not fit to be there.

Here is where passion separates the chaff from the grain. Someone passionate is able to set rules for mails they would need and not need. They choose to follow/ unfollow people on several social media circuits.

Don't complain about spam, else you are a looser.

Function or Technology for KM?

My laptop decide to call a strike as it was subjected to overuse. While Infra team is negotiating a truce with it here I am making the most of this break to reflect.

OK. So let me share with you a disagreement I had recently with my manager. He of the old world and me of the new. I believe in the power of technology and he in traditional conversation for KM. Now it has been more than 3 yrs I've spent in the field of KM and know this much, the world is on a Technology high. Most interactions are happening on various social media platforms then why be in denial. Yes I am still learning about KM as a function but can I do without Technology?

Now look at this I don't have my laptop and I feel almost handicapped today at work. Well that is how employees feel if they are not on technology platforms. If I go and tell them "guys you have to come to closed room so that so and so can talk to you". I guess I will be the only one waiting for the world to turn up there. Yes this is first hand experience and not imagination. Knowledge sharing happens less in closed rooms and more on technology enabled platforms.

In an org of 100 thousand people where at least 40 % employees are from the Digital generation they don't know any other way of interaction. The exchange of gossip, information related to studies and then work all happens on the social media. I will be a fool to deny the presence of hi-tech in the life of the employees and a bigger one if not enabling them with a similar way of interaction. Are we looking at optimum productivity from a technology enabled workforce? Then what is the point in asking them to go back to primitive ways once they are at work. Optimum productivity can be achieved only when familiar conditions are enabled at work too for this generation.

When you sell a technology to the workforce half your game is won when you are selling KM. Won't you agree?

Men of mere high learning?

I read this nice story...

A matron helped deliver 20 babies a month in a hospital. She herself was a spinster though. Do you think inspite of this she had experienced the pleasure of giving birth to a baby, or the  pleasure of the mother's tender love for a child? This must be happening to Men of mere high learning right?

Everyone knows theory, all kinds of information is available on the world wide web. What gives the edge is the personal experience. That is true knowledge.

Then today I read a post on "What makes a good architect?" on our internal blogs where he stressed that a good architect had to be "scarred war veteran". Though idiomatically expresed, my belief was reinforced. One has to be hands on!

Would we want to be known as Powerpoint Professionals? or someone who says "I was part of the go-live team" and someone who did not drop out in the middle of execution.

As KMers we are change makers. I believe a KMer can be successful only if they have conviction. The conviction will come only by being a user of the systems we design. Be the change ourselves.

When we design systems, methodologies and culture changes if we are not the first users or the change we desire to bring about then we remain like the spinster matron, Men of mere high learning! I am not prejudiced so I add, and women too. 

Social Media For All

The Confluence 2010 is over!

One successful event was on social media applications. We invited some leaders for a conversation on it. I was quite flabbergasted when one panelist mentioned that some leaders should blog and the others should just play the role of a reader!

It is indeed an autocratic statement. In this world of democracy and freedom of speech who are we to stop people from self expression? Social media is for all and thought leadership is not any single person's prerogative. As long as people have some thing to share by way of experience, thought, idea or more, I would encourage every employee to use social media application of their choice. No KMer should ever put a block on that.

We don't expect disruptive innovations to be shared on a daily basis but do look forward to small innovations in process, ideas etc to do a task better in a day to day work life. Disruptive innovations are rare but small innovations are bountiful.

Go each one of you go ...share what you know...Social media is for all.