About a decade ago Knowledge Management (KM), was the focus of business and technology leaders alike.  But after only a few years in the limelight, KM all but disappeared.  Still smoldering, however, knowledge management morphed, to a series of related applications, technologies and practices.  Among these are/were portals, intranets, BI, collaboration and two that are enjoying much attention of late Web and Enterprise 2.0. With these newly defined applications as arsenal, knowledge management is rising like the phoenix, though some do not recognize it or label it as such. But be forewarned, the focus of these applications may obscure the underlying complexities that still belie knowledge management.  Too many think their applications de jour are so new and revolutionary that they have nothing in common with the past. For those with such a perspective, they are destined to make mistakes already made and not benefit from lessons learned.

A knowledge management implementation, under any name, is, at best, only partially about technology.  This is particularly the case with initiatives that fall under the 2.0 umbrella. Definitions and discussion all too often focus on technology. The inclusion of a technology focus provides a direction, however, you must still define the business imperative behind your initiative. What are the business goals for the initiative and how will they be measured/justified?  I continue to be amazed at the number of KM initiatives (aka Enterprise 2.0), I encounter that fail initially for this very reason.  Indeed, my last client, a major financial institution in New York, had put in place an E 2.0 team and program over a year ago.  Despite the good intentions of business and technical staff, the program never came to fruition.  It took me less than a day to realize the root of this failure.  There was no consensus on what the purpose of the initiative was, the direction in which it would take them, its primary benefactors, and the goals it would achieve – beyond “make us more collaborative, smarter and more aware”.

So, as I look back on the lessons learned as a KM consultant and practitioner, I do believe there is much advice that can be offered. Here are 2 important lessons learned.

Lesson One: Clearly define the intended community and become intimate with its purpose and attitudes regarding knowledge sharing and innovation. Will the initiative allow users to function in a personalized manner, or be the foundation to building community and establishing common practices? Will knowledge production and sharing be viewed as a universal obligation or the domain of a few? Will the opinions and attitudes of some be drivers or magnets to the community? Is security necessary to regulate the community? Consider that the 2.0 Adoption Council, for example, is heavily policed. Admission requires passing the scrutiny of leader Susan Scrupski. This “exclusionary approach” seems to fly in the face of the mantra of E2.0 zealots, “open, transparent and user driven.” But Scrupski regulates community membership for good reason. Scrutiny of community can immediately determine if the practice is a case of Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0, which leads to, typically very different goals, objectives and approaches.  Some time ago I blogged about a Web 2.0 collaborative site, Sermo, that similarly policed admission and participation. The post is worth a (re)read – the community, eventually opened the doors to “outsiders”, but only under strict regulations that included obvious and clear identification of any and all content submitted by these “outsiders.”

Lesson Two: Take inventory of the knowledge sources the community uses/seeks, and those they do not use/seek. Challenge the validity of these assumptions and inclination. Identify each knowledge source as explicit or tacit.  Determine the best means to organize the collection of explicit knowledge and make it assessable.  Whatever approach is taken to collaboration and knowledge exchange, capture the knowledge in as much a facilitated fashion as possible and tag it appropriately. The value of the exchange will hopefully have a very long tail – well beyond the initial exchange. But remember knowledge captured but not findable is captured in vain. The goal should not just be to make it accessible however, but to shed light on its history, validity – its context. This is where understanding how community members place emphasis, faith and value on content is critical – aka context is critical.

Several months ago I was called into a company in the Boston area, Impassioned by the market promises of social collaboration inside the firewall. Using a popular (unnamed) product, they had a collaborative online community up and running in 15 days. But, this success quickly turned to failure when the user community abandoned it as quickly as they took it up.  The site lacked a clear objective, had a poorly defined audience (“everyone”) and mostly consisted of random content.  It was a technology success – but a business failure.

Despite the fire that has re-ignited KM, ala Web and Enterprise 2.0 initiatives, an effective KM initiative (no matter under what rubric it is brought in) requires the coordination of the cultural, technological, strategic and personal facets associated with a well-defined organization/community. The truth today is the same as it was 10 years ago: for knowledge to be managed it needs to be defined and quantified.

Information Architected Market Alert (IAM Alert):
Invention Machine (headquartered in Boston) announced yesterday the availability of Invention Machine Goldfire 6.0 with integrated collaboration and expert identification technologies to further accelerate product innovation. (see press release from Invention Machine)

Beyond Individual Innovators

Historically, Invention Machine’s Goldfire has been oriented towards providing an individually focused innovation “workbench” for the lone researcher or inventor. The offering combined (and continues to offer) advanced techniques and technologies such as semantic search capabilities, process modeling (typically in support of the assembled artifact of a product), knowledge mining, and knowledge re-use to decrease the amount of time it takes for individual engineers (much of the environment is modeled in support of physical rather than intellectual property inventions) or inventors/innovators to analyze a particular problem or set of problems, and uncover the ripest areas to go forth and solve the problem.

The offering has been and appears to remain one of the most advanced convergence of these technologies and techniques that we have seen in the innovation management space, and in many ways, is truly a solution with no direct, out of the box, commercial competition.

This is both a blessing and a curse, as markets are not typically made up of a company of one, but an ecosytem of competing products.

Innovation Market Maturity

As the company and it’s offerings have matured, and frankly, as the general awareness of innovation management has matured as well, there has been more of a push, alongside the rise of Enterprise 2.0 (meaning in most cases, collaboration) to support team-based or collaborative efforts at digitally supporting and scaling innovation capabilities.

With Goldfire 6.0, Invention Machine has added the collaboration-oriented ability to:

• Automatically identify and connect innovation workers with domain experts within their network
• Empower the community with precise “innovation intelligence” (similar to the “relationship intelligence” brought about by social network analysis and social computing I’d begun writing about in 2004 – see “Death of a Salesman? Birth of Relationship Intelligence” – now read over 4,000 times on Scribd) by leveraging undocumented expertise from problem-sharing dialogues, capturing and processing those discussions as reusable corporate assets.

From the managerial (top-down) aspect of Innovation Management, v6.0 provides:

• The ability to measure company-wide innovation initiatives and trends in real time.

With this third component, they have now begun to straddle three distinct layers – tools providing benefits to individuals (the original offering), to teams, and through to managers/executives.

Trend Watch

This offer is indicative of a two-part growing trend, collectively defined as “convergence”:

1. The convergence of tools to deliver value to individuals up through the executive suite (traditional enterprise software tends to focus on only one extreme or the other)
2. The convergence of process, information, content, knowledge and search techologies into a unified and pre-packaged business application (as opposed to a technology focused on a specific issue/problem)

Keep an eye open for areas where these trends are surfacing as business needs within your own organization, as this convergence is happening more and more, particularly as the realities of competition in the current economic environment continue to be challenging.

Combine those trends with the rising trend of innovation management maturity, and we’re (finally?) witnessing a triple convergence for business innovation.

Your Thoughts?

If you are a current or prospective user of Invention Machine, or any innovation management related solution, please weigh in with your feedback. Are current offerings serving your needs? Running ahead of where your organization is? Where your budget is? Just right? If not using Invention Machine’s Goldfire, but solving similar problems, what solution are you using?

How We Can Help

These trends, and solutions such as Invention Machine’s Goldfire 6.0, are an argument and opportunity for the explicit focus of our business practices and expertise, which is in creating strategies to provide for flexible information architectures and applications (technologies) that support the business architecture (roles, goals, people, processes, skills and culture) that, when combined, can deliver significantly greater value than a single business problem and isolated tool by itself. We call this an Innovation Architecture.

If we can be of help via our assessments, consulting or workshops, contact us now to schedule a private 30-minute executive briefing on how we can most effectively work together.

Schedule a private executive briefing now

Yesterday I tweeted (@carlfrappaolo) about a Boston Globe article on ECM search company, Endeca. I was going to let it go at that; congratulations Endeca for getting the attention of the Sunday Globe and for having the popular press cover the fact that search is more than just findability and Google, that search can be used as a form of business intelligence (BI).

But then this morning, serendipitously I heard a story on NPR about the dramatically changing world of television watching and the impact that is having on the services provided by Nielsen.  For decades Nielsen has had a monopoly on this market; reporting on the “popularity” of television programs based on eyeballs on TV sets at a particular time.  This data is extremely valuable because it provides potential advertisers with insight on how much a spot on a given program is worth, and to which audience. But television watching just isn’t what it used to be (echo newspapers and magazines).  Television content consumers have  alternative ways to access content (e.g.TiVo and Hulu) via alternative viewing devices that include smart phones and laptops, to name just a few.  (I know my kids are forever watching TV without the TV on.)

The viewing audience, including the way they view is changing. Nielsen customers (i.e. advertisers) are demanding that Nielsen keep pace and monitor these viewing habits. The television ad market is not dying – it is morphing and as a result is potentially more valuable.  Through ECM-based technologies,  it is possible to compile BI on multiple consumer habits, at unprecedented levels of granularity. In the case of television viewing, for example, not only what viewers are watching, but also when, where, what was skipped, re-played and shared.  As Nielsen’s president Steve Hasker put it. “”We’ll be able to tell what type of video they watch, what type of sites they go to, how they interact on those sites, what they buy on those sites, what types of news articles they’re reading.”

That is BI at a far lower and wider level of granularity than Nielson provides today.  Now think this new proposition through. Advertisers, using more ECM-based technology (e.g. e-publishing and DAM) advertisers can deliver more personalized and granular messages, in a timely manner – ads in context. Yes, once again, CONTEXT is king, and BI is the keys to the kingdom.

ECM is at the foundation of great new opportunities and challenges for organizations. I recently completed an article for Ron Miller in which I focus on the circle between ECM, KM and Innovation Management. This triumvirate will soon become a requisite to remaining competitive in virtually any  market. The article discusses this concept in some detail, more than here. Here, I draw attention to the tie between Innovation Management and ECM (in that order). In a phrase: get innovative with ECM.  As highlighted in this blog post, the integration of new content types and new means of content distribution and consumption, coupled with new approaches to BI creates amazing opportunities; truly personalized real-time publishing, contextual publishing and a constant loop of feed back (including web 2.0 emergence) that allows the content provider to continuously fine-tune the presentation and make-up of content.  The future for advertising and marketing is ripe with positive change, and ECM is at the foundation of this.

OK, I admit it. I do not spend all my weekends sitting around thinking deep ECM and KM thoughts. I enjoy hanging out with the kids and indulging in some mindless TV watching.  Its amazing though how the KM/ECM geek in me will sometimes connect the two – mindless TV and ECM/KM that is.

Last night I was wrapping up the weekend watching The Simpsons with my 2 daughters. Sure, occasionally there is a poignant message or two – usually lost on the kids. But in last nights episode there was a strong and important message directed right to every KM, ECM and E2.0 manager. Intentional or not – it was there and you did not have to think to deeply to catch it.

The Simpsons find themselves in Machu Pichu (don’t ask why – its not worth it). The narrator is explaining the significance of the site and states something along the lines of “This great civilization built a great wall around its people to protect it from the outside and keep their culture pure. But great walls also lock out knowledge, (Seriously that is the word he used.) and as a result the Incas were not adept at understanding the rest of the world or dealing with change. When the conquistadors appeared they were confused, ran and were destroyed.”

OK – you all got it right? “But great walls also lock out knowledge.” (Yes, the historical accuracy is off here – but the tie to ECM, KM and E2.0 – nonetheless poignant and worth reiterating.) “But great walls also lock out knowledge.” I spared my kids the thought that popped into my mind, “EXACTLY and that is the mission of every KM, ECM and Enterprise 2.0 manager”, to manage the BALANCE between security and collaboration. It is a topic I have spoken, written and blogged about many times. IAI published a primer on this very subject. I am currently in the process of working with Susan Scrupski, and members of The 2.0 Adoption Council on this very issue.

A group of the Council members who had to deal with strict privacy laws in Europe could have taken the “Machu Pichu” approach and erred on the side of security. But in the interest of collaboration to support agility and innovation, they worked a bit harder and used techniques and technologies to strike a clever balance between security and collaboration.  Sure – some of us may look at such approaches and say “D’oh”, or even “Duh”, but far too many have yet to really embrace this balancing act as the primary focus of long term success in the world of Knowledge Management, ECM and E2.0.

If you haven’t, I again invite you to read the primer on Content Security, and the 2.0 Adoption Council report when it is available next month.

Today I had the great fortune to attend the Center for Information Management Studies (CIMS) program at Babson College.  I almost didn’t go – having just returned from the Enterprise 2.0 conference, I was feeling a bit “full” of talk on collaboration and technology. But luckily three things coerced me into attending.

1. The event was being produced by Kavin Moody of CIMS, who I had worked with a few weeks back on a similar symposium at Olin Innovation Lab (Olin College of Engineering), and was impressed with the group and his work.

2.  The speaker, Karen Sobel Loeski was highly recommended by my colleague Joe Wehr, whose opinion I respect and value greatly.

3. The topic was just a bit left of center – Leading the Virtual Workforce.

So I decided to go. WOW – OMG am I glad I did.

Karen Sobel Loeski was not only a dynamic, engaging and entertaining speaker, but her message was fascinating.  As those of you who follow my work know, when I address collaboration and knowledge management audits I utilize an 8-dimension model. Using a variety of techniques I measure the effectiveness of (and obstacles caused by) these 9 facets.

In performing these assessments leadership style is assessed – as part of team structure, communication and structure. But, Karen’s work focuses deeply  on leadership.

While I  pontificate on the value of leadership and best practices in leading collaborative teams – and the need for a different approaches when teams are virtual – Karen actually has come up with something called the virtual distance, an approach by which one can measure the reach or gap that exists amongst a virtual team.

I will not go into her talk and work in detail here. I recommend that you buy her 2 books – really.

I will summarize my favorite points.

1. The need to address the issue of virtual distance is critical in this era of Enterprise 2.0.  One of the biggest value propositions of E2.0 is the ability to support and facilitate effective team-based collaboration regardless of time and distance between team members. This is empowering, but as we migrate to a virtual workforce, we need to realize that the approach and role of team management needs to be adapted. All too often we hear that E2.0 is about collaboration without leadership, anarchy, and the destruction of business management. Karen (and I) averts that this simply is not so. Teams – virtually any team (no pun intended) – begs for leadership – of some sort. The leader of a virtual team faces different challenges and requires different sensitivities and skills but is as critical as a “traditional” team leader.

2. Although typically associated with geographically dispersed teams, virtual distance can occur between 2 people sitting in the same car (you had to be there to appreciate this comment). Virtual distance is a cognitive and psychological distance as well as a physical distance. Karen provides a 10-dimension model to assess the virtual distance of a team.

The Virtual Distance Index^TM

3.  Glocalization of our workforces has changed many issues for business – not just leadership style. We need to reexamine how we evaluate the value of our workers and the work they perform. ROI models steeped in “cost/time of widgets produced” models simply do not work any longer.  Karen offered many great examples; one:  Adobe Reader makes no money directly for Adobe, so it has no value right? – We all know the answer is “wrong” – it is “new value”.  Although “its not about the technology” – technology is changing the economic models of the past.

Interestingly enough, I was speaking with Michael Idinopulos of SocialText the other day. SocialText  provides a host of services (including assessments) along with their E2.0 technology, because (as a virtual company themselves) they appreciate that the value derived from technologies that enable virtual collaboration and teaming is only maximized if the culture AND LEADERSHIP associated with the technology usage are specifically adapted to leverage the technologies and the environments they create. Michael addresses the issue of “leaderless collaboration” very well in his post Transparency, not Anarchy.

I think part of the reason we are having such a difficult time getting through this transition is partially based in our lexicon. Perhaps we need to think of another term for technology-enabled teams and collaboration  that transcend time and distance.  We call them virtual – but there is NOTHING virtual about them.  They are very real, and they are very powerful.  I’ll wrap this somewhat lengthy post up by stealing a quote from Karen’s presentation – she quoted Albert Einstein “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive.”

Yesterday I was preparing for an Innovation Management training session I will be doing later this week. The sponsor, after reviewing my credentials asked “How you make the leap from information and knowledge management to coaching/developing innovation
skills?  … Your background seems to be IT.”

I provided what I hope was not too lengthy a response. In essence it stated that I view Innovation Management as a fully ingrained component of KM, and IT as a strategic facilitator of both. It’s interesting, but to many friends, family and colleagues my background appears disjointed. To me it is completely synergistic and logically intertwined.

Well, this morning I saw an article that pulled it all together.  It seems that the State of Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Transportation (EOT) has initiated what it calls “The Developers Challenge.”   This program facilitates the creation of new applications for public transportation riders, utilizing newly released state-owned data.  Several challenges exist. One for example calls for the creation of a mobile phone/web-based app that makes it easier to navigate the Boston subway system – or “T”.

Eureka I thought, – this is the perfect blend of IT (apps) in the form of Enterprise 2.0 technologies (mashups), in a collaborative and knowledge sharing environment (More E2.0 and KM), being used to foster and drive innovation – in an emergent fashion (again E2.0).  The challenge even leverages one of the basic tenets of KM – Incentivization (the  winner of each challenge gets free T rides for a year.)

To today’s casual user of “apps” it may just seem like a tool – but for me it is my life, my  career, the perfect blend of IT, KM, E2.0, ECM, information management, collaboration, information architecture, findability, taxonomies, user interfaces, process management …

I have said it before, as have many others, Enterprise 2.0 is not just about technology. As I have commented on, this was a common theme at this year’s Enterprise 2.0 conference. Indeed, if web-based collaboration were only about the technology, then any organization with even a modest IT budget would be doing it and doing it well.  But this is not the case.

As stated over and over,  its not about the technology – its about culture.  But perhaps we stuff far too many issues into that “box” labeled culture.  What exactly does it mean when we say Enterprise 2.0 is mostly about culture?

As you might expect it means many things. Culture is not only fundamental to but a multi-faceted aspect of Enterprise 2.0 execution. This post focuses on one of the aspects of culture – the basic approach used by a community to collaborate (e.g. networking, communication style, establishing trust and knowledge exchange). This aspect of culture is particularly relevant to Enterprise 2.0, because, as I have blogged about before, one of the primary end games of Enterprise 2.0 is collaboration. Thus, like Enterprise 2.0, collaboration is not just about technology.  If it were, we would all be doing it  – well. While Enterprise 2.0 technology can facilitate and support collaboration, the underlying collaborative environment has to be managed.  The degree of management is partially dependent on other aspects of culture – but I digress.  Back to collaboration itself.

One of the things we have to realize is
that there are many ways to collaborate. Even if you are fortunate enough to have a supportive culture in place, you must determine what needs to be shared through collaboration, and what the goal or focus of the collaborative effort is.

We at Innovation Architected, believe that there are three basic types of collaboration (Interpersonal, content/content, and procedural), and 5 basic models or goals (COP/I, content, process, project and goal-oriented).  I provided a web-based lecture on this several months ago, sponsored by Google. You can view that presentation here.

These ideas are further discussed in a great article in the December Harvard Business Review entitled, “Which Kind of Collaboration is Right for You?.”  You can download a free copy of the article.  One of my favorite insights in the article is the strong case it makes that collaboration can occur in a closed environment, in spite of the  “open transparency” mantra of Enterprise 2.0 zealots. The article addresses the need for incentives to attract collaborators – another favorite topic of mine, one steeped in the Knowledge Management best practices.

In another Harvard Business School paper,  best practices in orchestrating and managing collaboration in an outsourced, or extended enterprise setting are provided. The bottom line of this article, for me anyway, is that collaboration needs to be deliberately designed and managed in order to maximize effectiveness and the value of the outcome.

In my own
work as a knowledge management and innovation management consultant,  I know that there is not only corporate culture to consider, but also the personal approaches or personality types of the individuals in the community, to creative problem solving. Yes, there are many different personality types or inclinations to collaboration and innovation. One is not better than another, they are just different.  In fact, the different approaches are symbiotic and complementary. Best practices in innovation management indicate that as part of the management of collaboration you should ensure that a range of “collaboration personalities” are deliberately brought together to achieve higher quality output.

So while it is nice to think that Enterpirse 2.0 and collaboration are all about viral and organic growth, research and experience indicate that there is ample room for some control and management of the processes and systems used, as well as teh knowledge and content captured in the process. In deed we have built entire practices around services for innovation management, effective collaboration and knowledge management.

As I blogged about in my summation of the
Enterprise 2.0 summit, innovation was a popular term being tossed around at the conference.  New web-based social networks provide new, wider, leaner and more agile environments in which to collaborate, group think and brainstorm, leading to innovation.

But there is (obviously?) more to innovation than simply being able to collaborate, just as there is more to collaboration than providing a forum in which it can occur. Innovation and collaboration are tricky.  A study published by the Harvard Business School in 2007 found that most organizations who attempt collaborative innovation all too often get it wrong.

That is why, building on our extensive experience with Enterprise 2.0 and Knowledge Management, we at Information Architected, Inc. have extended our services into Innovation Management.

BUT – the purpose of this post is not to announce the new line of services, but to ask for…

Your insights in a SHORT survey

What is the state of innovation management in your organization?

Even if you are not sure what the term means, or believe it is something your organization has not undertaken – we would like to hear from you. It should only take no more than 10 minutes of your time.  We will share the results with all survey participants.

So, how about a little collaboration on your part?

Share your opinion, take the survey and we will all be the wiser for it.

In marketing his most recent white paper for KMWorld, Andy Moore wrote:

“For decades, it’s been a promise. But knowledge management is finally possible. That’s because social networking MAKES it possible. By allowing fast, easy and lightweight collaboration between individuals and workgroups, tools such as user forums, blogs, wikis and their ilk have finally made good on the promise of KM.”

Oh my where do I begin.

Maybe Andy was only going for shock value. If so, it worked with me. I was shocked all right. This is a man with whom I have collaborated in the past, a man who has made a living based on the phrase “knowledge management.” And now he is saying that it was all just a pipe dream, marketing hype until now?

Not only does Moore state that social software now makes knowledge management possible, he goes on to state in the paper itself: “ … it [social networking ]  is also freeing many of them [companies] to achieve something they hadn’t quite reached:a state of pure knowledge management.”  “Pure knowledge management,” what is that?  Up until now what have we been achieving,”impure knowledge management?” Suddenly I feel so dirty.

What of all those “best practices in KM articles” published by none other than KMWorld? Were these successes impure, false? And how about those pioneering organizations we always pointed to, whose leaders touted the success they had with KM:  companies such as Ernst & Young, Hallmark, Buckman Labs, and Shell Oil? Were these individuals legends in their own minds, false prophets?

And wait – is Moore saying that what suddenly makes all those “KM promises” “real” is the advent of more technology. Really Andy, “…tools such as user forums, blogs, wikis and their ilk have finally made good on the promise of KM.” I know you don’t believe that – right? I mean are you stating that it was just a matter of the right technology?

OK – Ill give you that there was much ballyhoo about knowledge management circa 1999, and some wanted us to believe at that time that it was fully realized. In some cases, we were told that KM was something you could buy from a software provider. But to claim that KM was not possible until now is irresponsible to the market and insulting to its advocates and pioneers. To state that what makes it now possible (and pure) is yet another genre of technologies is just ridiculous. In fact this statement is as wrong as the claims made a decade ago regarding “knowledge in a box”. Search engines, content management systems and taxonomies no more provide a knowledge management system, then does social software.

Knowledge management is a business practice and ecosystem, that evolves over time. Technology plays a role. It is an enabler and facilitator, but not the answer.  This is why I was among those at the Enterprise 2.0  conference that voted Enterprise 2.0 is evolution not revolution. Each new generation of users (through experience) and technology (through improvements and advances) make knowledge management simpler to achieve and broader in reach.  But, never possible until now?

But before I go to far – let me say, in spite of how this post may sound, the white paper is worth a read (and not just for entertainment value). The white paper is predominately a series of articles written not by Moore, but software vendors, namely: OpenText, EMC, NewsGator, PTC, and InMagic. (Whitepaper or advetorial?) This series of articles is preceded by a 2 page intro by Moore, with ample quotes from OpenText. But, within some of these vendor articles, there is some very good advice and insights.  My favorite is written by Cheryl McKinnon of OpenText – very insightful. But, perhaps my favorite quotes are from Phillip Green of InMagic, “knowledge management is an awfully broad term and an awfully big bucket that no one technology,
product,process or service defines.” and “Simply implementing blogs and wikis into an
organization is no guarantee for success.” This seems to fly in the face of Moore’s editorial, but supports my argument.

Overall, as I said the paper, (be  sure to download the full pdf version to get the vendor articles) is definitely worth a read, but I would just take Moore’s pages with a grain of salt – or hey – exercise some KM of your own, and just ignore them.

But he is obvioulsy entitled to his opinion, just as I am mine, and of course you are yours.  What do you think?  After you have read the white paper please share your opinion here. Evolution or revolution? Is KM suddenly possible or it it still evolving?

And for those of you who are a bit confused by all of this, or simply would like to better understand the impact KM and Enterpirse 2.0 can have in your organization, you might consider our integrated consulting and training on KM.

Is your Information Architected for Enterprise 2.0  and Knowledge Management?

Contact us at 
617-933-9655 to discuss how you can reap the benefits of an architecture that will enable you to maximize the value of your content, information and knowledge without pursuing a painful and expensive re-architecting of your systems.

More details on our practices in these areas can be found at:

• Information Architected for Enterprise 2.0
  
• Information Architected for Knowledge Management

Is the legal industry ready to change their standard practices in billing, particularly given the economic climate of 2008-2009 and at least the short-term future?

If they do change that model, will it least, or go back to “business as usual” when the economic smoke has cleared?

Knowledge = precedent = expertise. Why not efficiency and effectiveness as well?

Is the industry that should have been the poster child for Knowledge Management finally going to see more reasons to be time and cost efficient, just as most other industries have had to do so to remain competitive and retain clients?

Listen to the podcast interview (below) between Christopher Marston, Esquire, CEO and Founder at Exemplar Companies, and Dan Keldsen, Co-founder and Principal of Information Architected discussing the pros and cons of the traditional law firm model, and how that model is evolving and even being flipped upside-down in a disruptive innovation sense.

If you are currently a client of a traditional law firm – have they adjusted their model in recent months? Do you feel they should?

If are a knowledge management practitioner within a law firm, how do you handle cost justification and Return on Investment (ROI) for knowledge management practices within the firm? Only in certain pockets? Firm-wide?

What are the pros and cons that you have seen?

War stories you’d like to share from any side of the fence?

Please feel free to contribute your comments, concerns and questions, and together, perhaps we can all be that much wiser as the market overall, and awareness of Knowledge Management itself matures. It’s not dead yet – and we haven’t even gotten started yet, particularly in the legal industry.

Listen now!

Download

Download the MP3 of this podcast

Is your Information Architected for Innovation Management and Knowledge Management?

Contact us at 
617-933-9655 to discuss how you can reap the benefits of an architecture that will enable you to maximize the value of your content, information and knowledge without pursuing a painful and expensive re-architecting of your systems.

More details on our practices in these areas can be found at:

• Information Architected for Innovation Management
• Information Architected for Knowledge Management