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As Time Goes By
We've been very busy on Knowledge Street lately. So much so that in last month's newsletter we forgot to mention something we
usually acknowledge each September. September was the month of Knowledge Street's formation, back in 2002. The month we looked long and hard at our situation and decided to try something new. We've never
looked back. Not often, anyway.
And that means we've just started our tenth year in business, and eleven months from now we'll be celebrating a full decade of entrepreneurial splendor (fingers
crossed). Who would have thunk it? We couldn't have done it without the support of our friends, family, associates and (of course) customers, so consider a glass raised in your collective honor. You know
who you are.
Getting the Right Things Right
In 2002, in the early days of the Bloomberg Administration, New York City announced plans
to modernize its HR systems by merging eight separate applications in a $63 million, Web-enabled New York City Automated Personnel System (Nycaps). After nine years, the cost has soared to over $363
million and Nycaps is still a work in progress. (Note that this is not the CityTime time reporting project, another disastrous IT effort that's been heavily covered by the local press.)
What's instructive here is that the problems that have plagued Nycaps have been primarily operational, not technological. And throughout, those in charge seemed unable to learn from their mistakes. There was no clear statement of objectives, and a general lack of leadership. There was a willingness to delegate control to consultants rather than manage the project closely. There was squabbling among the users, with one agency implementing changes and another agency cancelling them. The result was a time-consuming and expensive process of management by committee. Nycaps is a classic runaway project.
It goes to show how important is to get a few things right in any complex initiative. Some organizations may expect too much from vision and mission exercises, especially if they're not taken
seriously by management. But without a clear sense of purpose and direction, it's hard to get the right things done.
We Shall Overcome
The protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street is only a few weeks old, but it seems to have caught the world's attention. Since the street protests in Zuccotti Park only
started in mid-September, is it too early to consider it a movement? Maybe not. Ostensibly leaderless, apparently grass roots, it's certainly catching the attention of the pundits. It reminds us a little of
the John Doe Movement, as wonderfully captured in Frank Capra's Meet John Doe. We love that movie.
According to an article at ABC News, Professor Yochai Benkler of Harvard
University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Occupy Wall Street is very much a movement in the making. "One of the beautiful things about it," he says, "is that it is a movement
defining itself as it becomes." And even the New York Times has opted to weigh in, noting that rather taking
the Facebook approach favored by the Arab Spring (and others), Occupy Wall Street has gone for something that could hardly be less structured. They've hooked into a Web-based tool known as Pastebin.com, originally designed as way to let programmers share snippets of code. It's become the de facto, open-source platform for whatever Occupy
Wall Street turns out to be.
There's a lesson here for KM practitioners. When you build too much structure into Knowledge Management systems, you may think you're making it easier for users to
find things. But you may simply be building a system that's most suited to capturing the knowledge you already had anyway. To capture truly emergent knowledge, you may need to start with a blank page.
Making Human Connections
According to a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, an increasing number of adults prefer text messages to telephone calls. Most of us still favor calls, but 31% of adults say they prefer text messages, even though 27% never text at all. Texting is more popular among younger people, and the typical 18-to-24 year old sends or receives 50 messages a day. That's more than double the comparable figure for 25-to-34 year olds, and 23 times higher than those 65 or older.
Preferences seem to correlate to usage. That is, heavy text users are most likely to prefer text messages, which is probably no surprise. Once you get the hang of it, there are some advantages. Texting is more private, since there's no conversation to be overheard. It encourages briefer, more efficient
information transfer, and there's less pressure to respond immediately. You have to answer the phone when it rings, but you can glance at a text and reply later, without being considered impolite.
It's interesting to see how our communications preferences evolve with the technologies available. How long will it be before someone starts selling an implantable communications device? There's probably a market for it.
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