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Welcome to the first issue of Directions
This is the first issue of
Knowledge Street's long-awaited electronic newsletter -- long-awaited by us, anyway. We appreciate that you, our readers, haven't been losing any sleep about it, but we've had plans for a newsletter
since the beginning, and Directions has been on our drawing board for several months. So we're just happy as clams to get this first issue into the bit stream.
If you're reading this, it's because
you're a friend, relative, colleague, customer, site visitor or someone else who already knows who we are. Going forward, Directions will be an opt-in newsletter, but the opt-in process has been a little
casual for the first issue. We're sending Directions to everyone we think might like it, but our feelings won't be hurt if you decide to unsubscribe. Honest!
Starting today, Directions will be published on the second Wednesday of each
month, and will be about the same size you see here. It won't be a threat to your In Box, and we'll try to keep it both short and interesting. We'd like it to be an engine for two-way communication, too,
so if there's something you like, or not, let us know. Maybe we can add a "Letters to the Editor" column.
Our intention is to keep in touch, and help you all remember that we're out
there. And maybe (fingers crossed) Directions will help you recognize a place where Knowledge Street could be of service. We're not trying to sell you anything, but we love those referrals! Comments are
always welcome...
What have we been up to lately?
You can meet two of Knowledge Street's clients right through your web browser.
InSys Consulting is a professional services company based in Clark, New Jersey (USA), proud of its ability to deliver "the right people for the right results." Knowledge Street has been engaged
with InSys on a full-scope KM & Communications program, the most visible aspect of which is the new InSys web site at http://www.insysus.com. In
addition to the site, designed and built by Knowledge Street, we've helped InSys with message development and marketing collateral. We're also facilitating an on-going effort to turn the knowledge of
InSys consultants into a framework of go-to-market service offerings. That's been a very interesting exercise, working through a K Street process designed to establish the all-important alignment
between sales and delivery. If you want to hear more about the process, drop us a note.
Kinek
Technologies is a specialty software company based in Saint John, New Brunswick (Canada), with a product set designed to make remote commerce more efficient, more reliable and more secure. Knowledge
Street has been engaged at Kinek in a kind of organizational "storytelling" exercise, seeking to clarify Kinek's value proposition and holistic approach to its market space. Consensus is very
important in Kinek's culture, and K Street has helped the company move forward with a program of structured interviews, knowledge capture sessions, and an iterative, but fast-track approach to
the development of key positioning documents. We also designed the look and feel, wrote some and edited all of the copy for the new Kinek website, visible at http://www.kinek.com. Kinek's tech staff built the site to K Street's specifications, and did a heck of a job, too!
Knowledge as Network
The title of this article is inspired by David Weinberger's "Knowledge Narratives" (JOHO, February 5, 1999). Therein, Weinberger suggests that "stories are to
information as information is to data." If we can tell the story of something, we can reasonably say we understand it. If we can't organize what we know into some kind of narrative structure,
perhaps we don't really know what we're talking about. Neat idea.
We learn early that success isn't just a matter of what you know, it's also a matter of who you know. That's the Knowledge as
Network idea. Our ability to tap knowledge directly, without some kind of human assist, will always be limited by the technology. We've come a long way from stamping our thoughts into clay tablets, but
we still have some of the same challenges. Once cast into clay (or papyrus, or paper, or silicon), those thoughts get kind of rigid. Sometimes what we want to know is just a little to the left or the
right of what's there, and if we can explain that to another person, it's a big help. A Q&A approach has more bandwidth than the printed page, so to speak.
This person-to-person mode of
Knowledge transfer is very important in business transactions. Most of us, looking for a new dentist or accountant, would like to get that personal element into the mix. We'll ask a friend for a
referral, rather than just pick someone at random. So it's not surprising that there are scads of business network groups. We've recently gotten involved with two, with very different styles.
Business Networking International (BNI) is an up close and personal bunch. It was founded by Dr. Ivan Misner in 1985, and is organized in local, geographic chapters of about 20 members. Each chapter gets together for breakfast once a week, to swap tips, practice their sales pitches and (most of all) trade referrals. As a member, you're expected to learn about the businesses of the other folks in your chapter, understand the kinds of leads that are most valuable to them and then help them find customers. They're doing the same for you. It's pretty low tech, built on a few basic ideas about human nature, and a commitment to cooperation and mutual reward.
At the other end of the spectrum, we're also part of The Ryze Network, a group that couldn't exist without the web. It's using the Internet to
connect people in a six-degrees-of-separation kind of way. When you join Ryze, you create a home page, describing who you are, what you have and what you want. Other members find you, and if they like
what they see, they sign your virtual guest book. You can list them as "friends," thereby establishing a link between their network and yours. Sort of tribal, in a way. Being part of Ryze is
primarily an on-line experience, but some of the tribes have geographic constructs (like “San Jose Small Business” ), and hold face-to-face events as well.
It's too early to tell how these
models will work in relation to each other. In the end, it's not the size of the network, but the quality of the connections. Whether built in the virtual space of the Internet, or developed over a
weekly plate of scrambled eggs, it's the level of understanding and trust that matters. Like lots of other things in KM, one size doesn't fit all.
This Month’s Special
We're always working on new kinds of services on Knowledge Street, and are in the
process of beta testing one right now. We think it offers a classic win-win proposition for our clients, and for us, and we're pretty excited about it. It's an offering for Knowledge Base Support.
“Knowledge Base” is just a fancy name for a collection of stuff. Everybody's got stuff, and everybody has at one point or another felt their stuff was getting the better of them. Big companies may
have this problem to a larger degree, but not necessarily so. Hopefully, big companies can at least afford the staff to keep things in order; small companies have to rely on a combination of luck and
good intentions. In either case, we can help.
Web technology opens the opportunity for companies to extend their enterprise: lots of things which once had to be done internally can now be done
remotely. That's the case here. What we do is build a secure database (using Lotus Domino), and host it in the Knowledge Street environment. We work with a client to define the kinds of materials that
are worth capturing (proposals? presentations? contracts? resumes?), and we map the client's business processes to add trigger points for catching them. Then we develop some kind of categorization scheme
for the stuff being collected, and lay down a base of foundation materials.
Going forward, all the client needs to do is remember to email things to us. When a new item comes in, we review it ,
catalog it, "contextualize" it by linking it to the rest of their stuff, and give the client access through the web. No more lost knowledge, and no more reinventing the wheel. We act as virtual
Knowledge Librarians, and keep everything organized.
This offering is actually an extension of Knowledge Street's ProjectShare repository, built to support our own virtual team. It's working out
very well for us, and we're ready to expand. Interested readers can find out more by contacting us at info@knowledgestreet.com.
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