I’ve been invited to take part in the OpenTeams group at LinkedIn. OpenTeams is a SaaS collaborative software that offers a pretty ambitious value proposition. The strange thing is that at first glance OpenTeams offers just a tool (a kind of improved wiki), nothing else. So, how will this value be delivered? I assume that it will not be delivered: there is no indication of success stories on “enabled innovative enterpreneurial organizations” or similar examples on the website.
At second glance (and to be fair) there is not only the tool but a new management model which has been implemented at OpenTeams LLC. Tory Gattis, the founder and president of OpenTeams, calls himself a social system architect, a role which he plays e.g. in his hometown Houston (Texas) and describes in his blog Houston Strategies.
Collaborative innovation powered by a tool?
Written by Felix on March 2nd, 2009Knowledge Zoo
Written by Felix on February 22nd, 2009Arthur Shelley, the Global Knowledge Director of Cadbury Schweppes, has presented a bunch of slides on using animal metaphor for understanding behavior and building relationships during the most recent SIKM call.
The good thing is that he has clearly stated that each of us is typically a mix of some of the identified characters (see also the following presentation). I’m always averse to pigeonhole somebody based on a few characteristics. Arthur’s point is that it’s in many ways easier to discuss on the impact of the behaviour of a specific “animal” than to discuss about a specific person. The metaphor helps to separate between the person and his behaviour. Thus, avoiding unnecessary confrontation. According to his experience the usage of the organizational zoo method
“creates an environment where trust can develop and stress reduced, leading to improved knowledge sharing and more interactive people.”
Another good point in his presentation (slide 11) has been the multidimensional definition of performance. I’m looking forward to Artur’s next developments; e.g. he will soon start an organizational zoo character profile (beta version).
Visualizing complex information
Written by Felix on February 15th, 2009
One of my favourite magazine, the German c’t, has recently published a story on the visualization of complex information. The article contains a lots of interesting links to information visualization sites that I would like to share with you. Thanks to André Kramer who has written this excellent article. Information design offers a lot of interesting insights for knowledge managers. Please have a look:
- The visualcomplexity.com site offers more than 600 examples of information design. Of them, nearly 100 belong to the “knowledge networks” domain.
- Andrew Wande Moere, a senior lecturer of the University of Sydney, offers information design example on a continuous basis in his blog information aesthetics.
- Chris Harrison has also collected some interesting visualization projects.
- Have you ever wondered how a chess computer thinks? Just try it out with Thinking Machine 4.
- The Cyberspace Atlas offers various views on internet’s visualizations.
- The Twingly Screensaver shows new blog entries just in time on the globe.
- The TouchGraph Navigator visualizes relational information (free software).
- WinDirStat is a treemap file explorer. Each file is represented by a colored rectangle.
- LiquiFile could be the file explorer of the next generation. The good news is that the inventor is based in Germany. The bad news is that’s available for Mac only.
- I’m not sure if somebody will like AnyMails. To treat each mail as a microbe with different shape and size is certainly an interesting methaphor, yet not so viable in daily life. The same applies to the tree icon as a new way to show the age and size of files.
- Who ever wonders what top managers think about in tough times may have a look at the EnronExplorer. The 200′000 e-mail archive offers insight into the lives and preoccupations of Enron’s top executives during the 1999 – 2002 period.
- Last but not least Gapminder shows really astonishing relationships that debunk myths thanks to historic statistical data. The powerful visualization combines three types of data in one chart plus the timeline for each combination of countries in the world. Hans Rosling offers the most useful information design tool (see video).
Knowledge Management 2.0
Written by Felix on February 4th, 2009
Each knowledge manager in Germany, Switzerland or Austria (hopefully there will be an English version) should have a closer look at the series of presentation on “Enterprise 2.0 Enabled Knowledge Management” by a T-Systems team. The three presentations are visualized in an excellent way; it looks like they applied Garr Reynold’s best practices.
The third presentation on how to implement knowledge management 2.0 is the best one. It also shows that the frameworks and experience of knowledge management 1.0 programs can be leveraged, e.g. the content of the slides 26, 46, and 60 have been also part of knowledge management 1.0 presentations. Therefore, use the best of both worlds, implement it step by step, embrace the change management issues and your company will stay ahead of competition (it sounds more like an evolution than a revolution;-).
Exploring the Toyota Way
Written by Felix on January 27th, 2009
Toyota set up a long-term strategy in 2007: Toyota Global Vision 2020. The very generic “Toyota Way” outlines the two most important values: “Respect for People” and “Continuous Improvement”. The current rough economic situation shows that this is not only a “happy day paper” but it has really been embraced in the regions. One example outlined in this post from the Evolving Excellence blog is the reaction of the North American plant managers to the industry’s downturn in Q3 2008: they trained the people instead of sending them home. However, the unprecedented crisis seems to make job cuts unavoidable – the first time since the 50ies. Therefore, titles like “Will This Economy Finally Push the Toyota Way Into Software Development” become ambiguous. Anyway, it’s far too shortsighted to put agile software development on a level with “the Toyota Way”. So, let’s have a look at KM at Toyota in one of the next posts.
Sustainability Why Not?
Written by Felix on January 22nd, 2009Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker for the first time in 2008, offers a new collaborative website on “sustainability” innovation. The site combines appealing visualization, marketing for its own innovations, and last but not least a contest to elicit even more ideas for safety, water, land, air, community, and energy topics. Well done, however, the site is just collecting the ideas with only limited interaction opportunities. It goes along with the current US marketing campaign. A background on the campaign is given e.g. in this blog post.
Thanks to Jens Hoffmann for pointing me to the “Lean Thinking” group at Xing where I came across the link in a recent post.
What can knowledge managers learn from lean management?
Written by Felix on January 18th, 2009SAP is going to introduce lean management methods and tools this year (see news in the German business magazine Manager Magazin).
So, what may I as a knowledge manager learn from companies that have applied lean management for years, e.g. Toyota? The good thing is that I came across one brief and very good introduction on strategy deployment on the SAP website. Pascal Dennis from the Lean Enterprise Institute introduces this lean management tool in a webcast with examples from Toyota.
Based on this introduction I see the following learnings from a knowledge management point of view:
1. Plan
Tell a short concise story on what you plan to do and visualize the strategy
Avoid “power point chunks” to convey your message
Go see for yourself, i.e. talk to the people in the processes
2. Do
We can’t tell people how to do. Involve them in each improvement step.
Better arrange “catch ball meetings” than “happy talk meetings”
Create simple standards and visualize them. Less is more.
Don’t ship “junks”, i.e. don’t accept poor quality contributions
3. Check
Make problems visible. “Problems are gold”.
4. Adjust
Everybody solves problem. Enable a simple, shared problem solving approach.
Create opportunities for reflection and learning points
Develop the “Book of knowledge” (i.e. best practices and lessons learned)
In one of the next posts I’ll take a closer look at KM at Toyota.
Expectations for 2009
Written by Felix on January 11th, 2009
Black Swan at a pond near Wädenswil (Switzerland)
What may you expect from this blog positioned somewhere in the “long tail”? I appreciate blogging as a channel to accompany my continuous learning. Therefore, I would like to find some answers to questions like:
- Which are good ways to combine collaborative innovation and knowledge management?
- What may knowledge management contribute to lean management execution?
- Which change management methods are most useful for knowledge management?
- How to position knowledge management in a rough economic environment?
- Where has knowledge management been applied for sustainable development?
- Who has developed which new methods to improve the handling of complex systems?
- How far is the unknown manageable?
Happy New Year
Written by Felix on January 7th, 2009
View from La Sombaille in direction of Le Chasseral (January 1st 2009)
I wish you – the casual reader of this blog – a joyful and shiny new year full of verve. I spent quiet days with my wife, children, family, and friends in Germany and Switzerland. I particularly appreciated the 3-day-trip to La Chaux-de-Fonds: the town of my childhood.
“Nobody Knows Anything”
Written by Felix on December 16th, 2008says the controversial author Nassim Nicholas Taleb in “The Black Swan”. This is also the chapter in his excellent book (even though the tone is sometimes exasperatingly arrogant) where Taleb offers some hints on how to leverage the unknown unknown.
1. Avoid negative-Black Swan business where the unexpected can have a huge impact (e.g. Madoff) and expose yourself to positive-Black Swans (e.g. research or venture capital).
2. Invest in preparedness rather than in prediction (Black Swans are unpredictable anyway). Instead e.g. of trying to predict the next earthquake in San Francisco, prepare the citizens and the infrastructure necessary to mitigate the impact of the earthquake.
3. Therefore, seize any opportunity to be exposed to a positive-Black Swan. Taleb advocates for living in cities and going to parties to gain exposure to the odds of serendipity. Please have a look at the long list of examples of serendipity in science and technology.
Interested? The following video gives a short introduction to the current financial crisis viewed through the eyes of Taleb and his mentor Benoit Mandelbrot.
