denotes premium content | Dec 5 2008 Inside Knowledge Magazine /Knowledge Management Magazine Archive
Volume 9 Issue 5
Welcome to the February 2006 edition of Inside Knowledge. In this month's profile, Sandra Higgison talks to Mary Lee Kennedy about KM at software giant Microsoft, Danny Budzak introduces the final part of his Masterclass on conducting a knowledge audit and our cover feature focuses on the challenges of collaboration - not within organisations, but between them.
Such collaboration is a vital, yet much under-reported activity. Most organisations of all sizes do it, but there is little guidance on best practice or the risks that participants need to be aware of before they become involved. Those risks include security and the level of control that needs to be exerted - or not - over such ventures.
I would also like to take this opportunity to draw your attention to some of the events that Ark Group will be running in February, from Electronic Records Connect to Embracing Collaborative Coaching. Not only do they offer an opportunity to learn from your peers, but they also provide an unparalled networking opportunity. However, we have far too many events running in February to list individually here. To keep up to date with all our conferences and seminars, please bookmark the following URL: www.ark-group.com
And if you have any questions, queries or responses - or, indeed, if you have any case study or feature ideas - then please email me to discuss them directly: gburton@ark-group.com
Graeme Burton
Managing editor
Features
Cover story: Cross-border collaboration
When European aircraft manufacturer Airbus Industrie started work on the mammoth A380 ‘super-jumbo’, it realised that it would need the help of engineering companies from all over the world if the aircraft were ever to take to the skies. Quite simply, the A380 was several orders of magnitude greater than any project that it had ever undertaken before, but it did not have the resources in-house to design and build every component itself.
Masterclass: Conducting a knowledge audit part III
In the final part of the series I want to concentrate on the following issues: outcomes; conclusions and recommendations; measuring success; learning from the audit; and presentation.
Case study: DVLA
When deposed Rumanian president Nicolae Ceausescu decided to build a grand new palace in downtown Bucharest – a building that would become the third largest on Earth, even bigger than the Palace of Versailles – something obviously had to give way.
Case study: EBRD
Knowledge management (KM) can be a difficult concept to implement at the best of times. It depends on a combination of people, culture, management, budgets, technology and, most important of all, the willingness of teams and individuals to share their knowledge. If you can overcome all of these challenges, then implementing a KM project is easy…
Case study: KBR Production Services
Establishing Communities of Practice at KBR Production Services was a necessity due to the changing nature of its business. By Alan Thompson.
Regulars
Trend tracker: Information access
Information retrieval is a perennial problem. Information and knowledge needs to be accessed in many different ways, depending on what needs to be done. One task might require the retrieval of all the information on a particular project, another by topic, another by author, for example.
KM toolkit: Online customer forums
Even if they do not realise it, today’s consumers frequently rely on some form of peer network to guide their purchasing decisions. They turn to family members for advice on holiday destinations, poll their friends about the relative merits of a new model of digital camera and quiz their colleagues on the reliability of home internet services.
The knowledge: Mary Lee Kennedy
After six years leading the global knowledge network group of software giant Microsoft, Mary Lee Kennedy left to form The Kennedy Group. Sandra Higgison finds out how her resolute focus on the user and understanding of how people share knowledge, ideas and expertise has put the world at her fingertips.
Opinion: Verna Allee
A few weeks ago I was at a small gathering of human resources vice presidents. Our purpose? To explore the future of talent at their organisations. The session kicked off with a series of video interviews asking people of all ages what kind of job they would like to have in the future. As the film started, it suddenly struck me that this was completely the wrong question to ask. The idea of a “job” was born with the industrial revolution. What if our future is a world where there are no “jobs” in the traditional sense?
Thought leader: Chris Collison
I’m writing this on a flight back from Norway where I’ve been running a knowledge management (KM) workshop. During a quiet moment after lunch, while the class was engrossed in an exercise, my eyes settled momentarily on the view outside; and I was shocked to see that is was nearly dark – at 2.30pm – and it was not even December. I wonder how many Norwegians suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD), AKA the ‘winter blues’?
