CAE Weblog

Get Started with Knowledge Sharing

I don't want to set expectations that knowledge sharing initiatives are easy and inexpensive but you can get started with relatively little effort and budget. 

I participated in a panel on Knowledge Management at the annual conference of the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) in New Orleans yesterday.  Also participating were folks from the BloodCenter of Wisconsin and GE Healthcare.

Russ Neumeier handled the case study for GE Healthcare. I was impressed with what this global organization (100+ countries) with 46,000 employees has done to foster knowledge sharing with very few resources in a relatively short time.  They prioritized their effort and focused on a few, simple, easy-to-use tools to stimulate conversations across the organization.

The primary tools they selected were:

MediaWiki 

 for corporate wiki

• In 3 years, they have 30K unique visitors, 2.4M pageviews, 6K pages of content 

• Used for meeting minutes, project updates, content launch pages, event organizing, historical info, product development

WordPress for blogging

• 220 blogs (50 active); 730 registered users (several multi-author blogs)

• Used for project updates, team/division communications, podcast feed, personal/team diaries

phpBB for discussion groups

• 1150 posts within 279 topics among 400 registered users

• Used for non-real-time discussion, anonymous feedback, event notes, polls and questions

Yammer for micro-blogging (i.e. internal Twitter)

• Over 2,300 users and 125 groups in less than 1 year and growing fast

• Used for non-real-time discussion, sharing status updates, asking questions, links to relevant information, and announcements

• Free version is hosted so they are careful about what is shared

As one user at GE Healthcare put it: 

“I really love the fact that I can share and when people have time or really connect with the issue, they can join in and participate with no problems of time constraints, physical location issues etc. “

I would encourage organizations to invest in a more deliberate and disciplined process for implementing a knowledge sharing solution.  Some essential compoments such as enterprise search and employee profiles may involve more complex solutions.  However, this goes to show what one large corporation can do with little budget and support.  There is no excuse not to get started.

Redesigning the RFP Process

I proposed two sessions for the Association Technology Conference 2010.  The first is on Intranet Best Practices.  We all get to see lots of good and bad web sites but most have little exposure to intranet sites as they are generally protected behind firewalls.  This session will go behind the walls of several good sites designed to meet the information, networking, knowledge sharing and collaboration needs of staff (and sometimes volunteers).  If you have a good site (or perhaps just an intranet widget or concept) that you would like to share, please contact me.

The second session addresses an issue that I raised in an earlier post, concerning the enormous resources that are currently wasted as associations try to exercise due dillegence in selecting vendors to do work and with vendors attempting to respond.  Except for the cases where detailed requirements can be well-defined (discovery and requirements are often included in RFPs), associations tend to include a long wishlist of high-levels features and get apples-to-oranges responses from vendors that are impossible to evaluate.  This session invites senior professionals from both associations and technology firms to a workshop where, together, we will attempt to identify the current challenges and redesign a process that may result in more effecient, effective proposals and technology projects with well-defined scope, clear expectations, and the best possible client/vendor team.

If you are up for this challenge, drop a note to Megan Denhardt at ASAE and the Center to express interest and support this session concept.  The Technology Council's Education Committee will be meeting soon to review session proposals and set the agenda for the 2010 conference.

Tweet Summary from #AssnChat

Here is a summary of the tweet stream from our weekly #AssnChat Twitter chat from today (6/23/09).  These chats are open to anyone interested in association issues.  Today's topics included:

• Integrating Social Media with other marketing efforts
• Balancing your own communities (on your site) with 3rd party communities (Facebook, etc.)
• Feedback on #AssnChat events to date

Tagged: #assnchat association Twitter chat
 

Buzz 2009

If you are like me and can't afford to get to Cannes Lions later this month, I recommend that you consider Buzz 2009 on July 9th in DC.  Maddie and Lindy of Social Fish have pulled together a great agenda and some quality speakers, including Andy Sernovitz (who created the Word of Mouth Marketing Association) and Guy Kawasaki (author of nine books and co-founder of AllTop.com).  This may be the social media event of year for associations and nonprofits in the Mid-Atlantic area.

They have also allowed me to offer a $100 registration discount if you use this link to register.  Hope to see you there. And, in the meantime, follow the Buzz on Twitter (#buzz2009).

Tagged: Buzz 2009 Social Fish Guy Sernovitz Guy Kawasaki

Government 2.0 Camp

Looking forward to attending this Government 2.0 Camp unconference Friday and Saturday at the Duke Ellington School School of the Arts in DC.  500 people attending and it is sold out.  The organizers have tried their best to leverage the web 2.0 tools to market the event and solicit session ideas.  The event includes the U.S. premiere of the UK film, Us Now, Friday night.

The only other unconference I have attended was a social media event organized by Jeff De Cagna.  But that was a much smaller group.  It will be interesting to see how well 500 people can somewhat self-organize with the use of these geeky tools.

I plan to tweet observations both days.  The Twitter tag is #gov20camp.

Tagged: Government 2.0 Camp #gov20camp Us Now 

DigitalNow Group on LinkedIn

If you are planning to attend DigitalNow 2009 (April 15-18 at Walt Disney World), you may want to join the DigitalNow group on LinkedIn at http://tinyurl.com/cneecf.  This continues to be a great meeting for association teams that want to better understand the opportunities to build their constituencies via emerging technologies.

For all the talk, I see very few associations who have developed a robust social networking platform that engages a significant percentage of their constituents on a regular basis. There are some exceptions including those Don mentions that can serve as models. While the technology is relatively simple and inexpensive, there is real effort required to nuture these networks.

It may be helpful for some associations to look at these initiatives less as social media projects and more as e-knowledge programs. If you focus on helping your members find knowledge resources (including content and people), assimilate this knowledge (prioritize what is important and relevant) and incent the sharing of knowledge (reputation points, awards, status; etc., you may stand a better chance of long-term success.

One final suggestion...we have all been to a dozen or more sessions about social networking. But don't give up, there is much more to learn and the social media environment continues to evolve. Best wishes for another great conference!

Tagged: DigitalNow technology conference social media e-knowledge   

Information Architecture Institute

It was an honor to be invited to serve on IAI's Board of Advisors this year.  This professional association serves the community of web and software professionals who design user interfaces.  We all recognize a good user experience when we see it but assuring that all users (often with very different needs) get one is another matter.  The Information Architecture Institute has lots of good resources on its website.

The IA Summit is happening this March at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, TN March 20-22, 2009.  IAI's Andrew Hinton, Livia Labate, Matthew Milan and Joe Lamantia will be presenting a preconference session on "Beyond Findability: Reframing IA Practice & Strategy for Turbulent Times."

Tagged:IAI Information Architecture Institute IA Summit

Risks with Social Networking

Jennifer and Jessica from ISTE did a great job with their 25 Tips for Social Media session at ASAE. However, one can almost count on a question from the audience regarding legal risks. Legal risks should be considered, especially within highly regulated industries. However, it is often offered as a reason not to use these tools. The risk of not doing it and loosing members and/or mindshare to other groups or ad hoc communities is often greater than any legal risks.

What Makes Great Nonprofits Great

There are factors identified by the speakers' research. The biggest two for me support each other: 1 - They nuture nonprofit networks of individuals, businesses and government using innovation to collaborate and 2 - They use these networks to turn donors, members and volunteers into evangelists for mission/cause of the organization.

Secret Session

And the winner is... (in my humble opinion).