Why Knowledge Management?

Taming Knowledgeworker Information Overload Through Eliminating Email

I've been tracking Information Overload (IO) for quite some time...a subject that is at the forefront of much of Basex's research and the subject of several posts here. Along with tracking this issue, I'm most interested in solutions. The best seen so far however comes from Luis Suarez at ELSUA, who has started a new mantra of giving up email.

Of course, the immediate reaction is that there is no way that we could possibly live without email. And in truth, with the state of the workforce at this time, that would be a true statement. However, Luis' How to Collaborate with Customers without Using Email provides an excellent guide to getting control over information overload by controlling certain work email.

The prime argument is that email is a horrible collaboration tool.  Face it, when using email to collaborate, you are left with no good choices. Take a small project where 5 people need to collaborate on a document. In order to avoid dozens of "Reply-All" emails that will fill in-boxes (often with unnecessary emails), side emails are sent, multiple versions of documents/spreadsheets/etc are begun and circulated. Email 'conversations' about the document or project are made between various segments of the group, and/or are then circulated to all members - some who do not have the full context of how the document got to this point. And of course, some of us MUST answer emails as soon as they arrive, while others of us handle them at certain points during the day (or ignore them altogether), causing the collaboration to be out-of-sync at the very least and filling our in-box in the process - all of course, having the same level of priority which we each individually assign for ourselves. As the size of the project - in number of players - increases, so does the traffic and lost effort. And this is only a part of the problem.

I must say that I have not done as well as Luis Suarez has on his 26th week without email, but by using social networking solutions, I have noticed a dramatic decrease in email traffic, and improved project completion, coordination and communication by using the right tools for the right job.

In my attempts to keep tabs on and learn from Knowledge Management, Content Management, Wikis and Social Networking processes and tools, I have endeavored to never mention the company that I work for and any of our internal processes, and I will stick closely to that and not give away any secret sauce, but in this case I just want to say in nondescript terms that we are 'members of this choir'; management down to staff are huge believers that email is NOT a tool for collaboration as Luis has discovered. With a corporate culture where everyone is a watchdog that ensures that social networking tools are used when required, and that email is only used as a vital form of direct, two-way, non-collaborative communication, there is a correct focus that reduces one of the causes for information overload. 

Email is just one of the contributors to information overload, but some would argue that it is a significant part. If that is the case in an organization, Luis in his post names some specific software solutions that they have employed or that he is looking into that seem to be making a difference and which deserve some investigation.

I Sit Corrected

Earlier this week I posted some comments concerning my disappointment with LinkedIn. It was not a major disappointment, I use the network, and I continue to invite friends and business associates to join, but I thought that based upon LinkedIn's set-up that encouraged exploration 4 degrees of separation out, my experience was that it wasn't delivering on that particular promise.

After making my thoughts known, I heard first from friend and associate Jack Vinson, who provided a little bit of a reality check informing me that, "the best LinkedIn connections are the 2nd degree connections through people who can verify your existance as a good human being - and people who are actively using the service." Makes sense. I'd have to agree. If I'm sketchy on a new contact, I will probably NOT introduce them to one of my most trusted friends.

I was then pleasantly surprised to hear from Konstantin Guericke, the VP of Marketing, and a co-founder of LinkedIn, who offered these thoughts, "LinkedIn definitely has not been an instant gratification network. Definitely, finding someone who your contacts know directly is key. The third degree works pretty well in terms of trust and speed, but the fourth degree is not that different from the sixth or eigth or tenth."  I'm tracking with that, it makes sense. Thanks to Konstantin for taking the time for a personal comment.

After giving it some thought, I realized my expectations were a bit unrealistic, so I prepared tonight to not retract my comments, but to modify them. Hey, check out my earlier posts...I am a LinkedIn fan...it has helped me to think more about my connections and to use my network, and in exchange, to help people in my network.

OK, so it was time to post, but only after a quick visit to LinkedIn to check in on the network. Site down.  They're working on it. No biggy, updates happen.

Well before starting this post, one last visit to LinkedIn found the site changed and a letter from LinkedIn's CEO, Reid Hoffman, stating, "overwhelmingly, users have told us that four-degree referrals take too long and require too many people to get the real benefit of a referred introduction. We agree. Introductions, our new name for Contact Requests, will now extend only three degrees." 

Bravo for responding to customer need and focusing on building the network slowly.

The letter also promoted LinkedIn's 3.3 million users, and obviously growing. I think the important thing for LinkedIn will be constant review and update of service and promises, which LinkedIn seems to be applying. At 2 years old, it's still very new, it's exciting, and I think that it is a learning experience for everyone.

An additional service, to allow members to traverse further than 3 degrees of separation, is InMail, which will allow users to send email annonymously and the 4th, 5th, etc degree recipient can decide if they want to receive InMail, and if they want to pursue the connection. Seems like a good idea.

I sit corrected. Apparently, so does LinkedIn.

Linked In Update

I'm a little late with this...it has been 2 1/2 weeks now of being Linked In. During that time I have established 24 people who are 1 degree of separation from me. These connections means that I am connected by 2 degrees of separation to some 1300 individuals, and 3 degrees of separation from 64,100. Wow.

While my connections to all these folks through Linked In has not meant any real outcomes, I am finding that as I need something, I am looking to those who are one degree of separation from me for help. I'm communicating with these people more too. This has led me to help from Jack Vinson and most recently from John Barrett (both, Knowledge Management experts). So at this point, it's not so much the Linked In network, as it is my focus on my connections as a source for problem solving. It's a great change of perspective and I'm encouraged by the results.

Done in less than 24 hours!

I guess online social networks are pretty fast. My apologies for ever doubting. 

Yesterday I posted some thoughts with regards to my Linked In network. I was trying to contact an attorney 4 degrees of separation from me through Linked In connections.

Alert friend, blogger, and Knowledge Management pro Jack Vinson, of Knowledge Jolt, Inc (1000+ miles away from me) saw my post and came to the rescue, contacted a Patent Attorney he knows (1500+ miles away from him), and with the attorney's consent that he could help, forwarded the contact information to me...It's not Tampa, but for what I need, it works perfectly. Thanks Jack!

While I'm still interested in finding out if I can connect to an attorney through Linked In, for now, the problem is solved.

Random associated thoughts for future consideration: I guess online connections through trusted associates can move quickly if you contact the right person or make your needs and wants known through the right venue (this is way to elementary to be blogging about, but one day I may forget about how this all went down). Is this harnessable? Time for a Social Network Analysis?  I'm left pondering that if I just talked to every associate, or contact, that I ran into today (in person) and told them of my situation, would I have found a solution so fast? While I've had some good feedback about the blog, and comments made on my postings have been useful, helpful, and thought provoking, I think this is the biggest "result" I've experienced from the blog.

I think I'm thinking about this too much, I should probably just be thankful that someone was watching, and willing to take some action to help. Help is contagious, time to pass it on!

Four Degrees of Separation

How fast does an online Social Network operate?

On Monday, I isolated a need for a Patent Attorney. Not thinking that there were many in my area (Tampa, FL), I decided that my first plan of action (after ignoring the Yellow Pages as an idea) was to see if my Linked In network would be of any assistance.

Using Linkedin, I found that there were a few local Patent and IP attorneys. No one was within 4 degrees of separation from me. The Linkedin service allows me to send off a request for connection through my 1st degree (I like this idea, and it is easy to use). I selected 2 attorneys and fired off a request for contact (through 2 different 1st degree business associates) in the hopes of interviewing one or both of the selected attorneys.

In theory, I like this plan of attack. It allows me to utilize a trusted connection to connect to another connection and see if we can create a trusted business relationship.

Well, two days is obviously not enough time to traverse my Social Network online....OK...I'm still thinking it's better than the Yellow Pages...just not as quick as picking up the phone and calling.

Let's see what happens...

Missing Links

There is something to be said for the power and speed of connecting people via Linked In.

Just today I have connected with someone that I fell out of touch with about six months ago and connected with a business person whose blog I recently became acquainted with. I've also gotten a request to write an endorsement, and received a request for someone else to link to me. Its all happening pretty fast.

That said, there are a lot of people with varying degrees of experience with Linked In, or who have insightful thoughts about the system. Today's blog message will hopefully help clarify a few of these for my own edification.

The LinkedIn User Manual blog seems to be there with plenty of tips and advice. Its stated purpose is to help people use the resource to their benefit. NOTE: there is some political or social commentary, but wade through that and there is some good knowledge there.

It was very encouraging to read JagWire who has been a member of Linked In for over a year. While he experienced a slow period in his activity within Linked In, it has recently picked up. His overall experience has been good, but things can heat up and slow down as the network ebbs and tides. This is important to know if the network seems to have died in the process....it may rise again.

Then there is HorsePigCow, who has been involved with Linked In for less time, but has created some powerful connections and a strong network. She also has some insights into business-social relationships and hierarchy and how to make Linked In work.

Still, there are newer users of Linked In, like me, and like Chad at Chad's Blog. Chad is in the early stages of use, and his blog notices will be interesting to follow (as I hope mine will be).

Hopefully I can chart some answers here. I have charged 2 friends with providing feedback. One is a new business start-up owner, and the other is a business friend looking for a job/work.

Linked!

Social Networks, getting connected, connecting to business associates, finding friends, linking trusted associates, discoving knowledgeable acquaintances. Leveraging my six degrees of separation....Is it all there?

My business-related Social Network expanded this week as I start to play around with Linkedin. 

Linked In is a social networking web site; a place to connect to existing, former, and long-lost friends and associates for fun, business opportunities, and/or job/employee searches. You can invite your connections to join Linkedin (it's free for now) and you can search for anyone you might have lost contact with (they have to be a member of Linkedin, and they have to be within 'your network' - more on this in a later post).

Note to self: catalog the "activities/features" at Linkedin (in another post).

This week I signed up, entered a short paragraph about my work history for the last 15 years, and through their system emailed 3 business associates/friends (2 of 3 accepted my invite and joined Linkedin within 24 hours). Also by the next day, a business associate whom I have not spoken to in a couple of years had emailed me...he somehow located me in the entirety of the network. I accepted the "connection."

This was all pretty interesting, so I thought I'd try a new action: I searched for someone I thought would be pretty well 'linked in' - Jack Vinson of Knowledge Jolt. Sure enough, he was. I emailed him (using their email), Jack accepted, and by the end of the second night, my network was growing. 4 - 1st degree connections, 200+ 2nd degree connections, 1000 (or so) 3rd degree.

Exhausted from making all those connections, I waited until the third day and decided I would invite a couple of other business associates to the network. That took all of 5 minutes...so I went to look at Jack's list of connections, and found he knows a few people that I know (I actually knew that, but the fact that they were 'linked in' was interesting). So knowing some of their email addresses, I was able to email them directly to see if they would join my network. Bingo! the network is growing.

I did the same thing with one of my other connections, finding 3 more associates and asking them if we could connect on the 1st level.

My stats at the end of the week 1: I've invited about 20 people to either join LinkedIn or connect with me (they're already members). 10 have accepted (and I have about 15 invitations outstanding), so I have 10 people as 1st degree connections. Through their connections, I am 2 degrees of separation from about 1100 people, and 3 degrees of separation from over 52,000 people.

What good is it?...time will tell.   

Back to Social Networking

I guess before I delve deep into social social networking, I wanted to catalog a few components of knowledge from some of my usual suspects.

First, off to Jack VInson's blog to check out Social Networks...Jack has several notes, but specifically, he cited Strategy+Business magazine (October 2002) that describe the six types of social networks. For the most part, excellent knowledge that can be added to what I had learned in my previous projects on social networks. A step in the right direction.

I find when analyzing something, it is helpful to define as many different aspects as possible in order to understand similarities/differences and to compare and contrast. In the end, they may all be lumped in one category, but in pulling the subject apart, I can better see different applications and hone in on the more useful (or maybe it's better said that drawing distinctions helps find the right tool for the right job).

After a couple of non-productive stops with my usual suspects, I went over to another reliable website for the Association of Knowledgework, and was quickly forwarded to the Fast Company article, "The People Are the Company" (Nov. 95), which provides great incite into Social Networks and Communities of Practice.

Both visits were good starts for getting me deep in the Social Net mid-set...

...now is there anything to learn - for business practice - from 6-degrees of separation.

Simple Social Network Analysis Project

Simple SNA Project

My first interest into Social Network Analysis was as a VP of HR, interested in using SNA as a means to help retain key knowledgeworkers during the coming employee shortage caused by aging baby-boomers retiring and the declining birth rates (there are numerous articles on this).

Then there was the next troubling set of statistics that came from three separate reports. Approximately 80% of training budgets get spent on formal training, which accounts for only 20% of corporate learning (to be fair, one report had it at 70/30).

In fact, there is the 75/25 Rule of Learning (studies by Digital Equipment Corp, and another by the US Dept of Human Health and Human Services) which indicates that 25% of what someone needs to know to do his or her job is learned in formal training, the other 75% is from informal sources.

Knowing the social networks of an organization, then, would result in discovering who in the organization is trusted and gone to for knowledge (and therefore devastating to lose).

While there is software and a number of ways to study an organization’s Social Network(s), the simple, and perhaps fast, answer of “how to” in researching your company’s social networks is to survey. There are at least three critical factors that have to be considered before entering into discovering your company’s social networks through the use of a survey. These three factors depend on the type of organization.

1) The section/department/company a wide open, trusting, and completely team oriented group.

2) There some trust and openness in your friendly organization. Or,

3) It is a hierarchical command-and-control company.

The survey can be this simple; simple as asking these questions:

1)                  When you need key information concerning your job, from whom (within the company/department/team/group/section) do you get help?

2)                 When you need help of any sort, from whom (within the company) do you get advice?

In an open organization you should ask for the employee's name on the survey. In a company where there is a fair amount of trust and openness, but there are some barriers in this area, your survey would ask the same questions, except that you have to promise that this is a completely confidential survey. Do not put a place for the employee to supply their name when responding. You only want the data…the names of those who people go to when they need help solving job related problems.

In a command-and-control organization, the dynamics are different, but the social nets still exist. The difficulty is that in actual practice, the questions provided to discover a company’s social nets usually result in the name of a manager, director, or other company executive, as that is the way information flows (I learned a lot from doing this wrong). The command aspect may also dictate that the employees give an obligatory answer of a manager’s name, which may be the trained, reflex response, orientation of where someone would go for information and help.

In order to get past a hierarchical response to the question, the above questions must include a limiter along the lines of, “When you need help of any sort, from whom within the company (other than your manager) do you get advice?” Any and all questions must have this in order to take way the senior/subordinate element out of the response. You may still find that a certain manager is a key holder and sharer of knowledge, but you will get different results if you run the survey first without the question limiter, and then adding the limiter afterward.

Once the survey is done, tabulate the results, and it will be evident who the real knowledgeworkers are and where employees go for key information to do their job and assist the organization.

In “high trust” organizations, you can get an exact chart of who goes to whom for help and advice. In an organization with less trusting lines of communication, you can at least get the most helpful and trusted employees as a vote of confidence.

Social Network Analysis

Caught the article, this weekend, in Business 2.0 (www.business2.com) on Social Networking (http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1060100,00.html ) that highlighted the success of the Indie music social network site MySpace (www.myspace.com) and the college connection site www.thefacebook.com .

Orgnet.com ( http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html ) defines Social Network Analysis (SNA) as “the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, animals, computers or other information/knowledge processing entities.”

Having done a couple of Social Networking Analysis projects in business, my thinking is that it’s catching on in the mainstream, and time to update the old knowledgebase on this subject.

Rob Cross, Associate Professor at McIntire School of Commerce, has highlighted the key benefit of doing SNA, “Organizational network analysis (ONA) can provide an x-ray into the inner workings of an organization --- a powerful means of making invisible patterns of information flow and collaboration in strategically important groups visible.” http://www.robcross.org/sna.htm

Time to get an updated view of Social Networking and Social Network Analysis. The MySpace model is particularly interesting given the reported power of the connection between the band (the organization) and their fan-base (customers).