KM World 2014 will be held in Washington DC at the Grand Hyatt from November 4 to 7. It is great event. I used go regularly and highly recommend it to anyone interested in helping workforces perform at their maximum levels. There are many useful sessions including the ones described below.
On Wednesday, November 5, Katrina B Pugh, Academic Director, Columbia Univ Info & Knowledge Strategy Masters Program AlignConsulting leads the session: “Knowledge Is the Business.” It is described as follows:
The new frontier for knowledge practitioners is just that—the frontier, the edge, the face of the organization. As Tom Stewart and Pugh have written, “Knowledge is the Business—In leading knowledge-driven businesses, knowledge is what customers buy. Whether that knowledge is built into a product (e.g. a ‘smart’ phone), sold as knowledge itself (e.g. research reports), or embodied in people (e.g. a legal counselor), the customer is aware of it, pays for it, and judges it in making a buying decision.” Knowledge-driven products are everywhere, and success rides on a mix of business acumen and knowledge-integration skills—an ability to see a market possibility and to drive knowledge into product. Pugh discusses results of studying knowledge-based innovation, looking for two things: What made it competitive? What skills and processes did knowledge leaders bring to bear? She shares insights for sustaining a competitive edge and common differentiators, such as reducing transactions and search costs; providing access to inaccessible data or people; educating the customer (e.g., on regulation, market patterns); integrating with customer workflow; decision making processes; and helping customers improve their social capital, assets and attractiveness.
That afternoon, Lesley Ann Shneier, Alumni Knowledge and Social Media Coordinator, World Bank Group 1818 Society, runs the session, When Knowledge Walks Out the Door. It is described as follows: “Many enterprises will lose, in the course of the next few years, a large part of their workforce (an estimated 76 million Baby Boomers) while a new generation of employees will arrive. Steps can be taken to avoid losing the organizational expertise, along with the corporate memory, of retiring employees and to ensure knowledge transfer to new employees. Malaison explains the 10 essential stages involved in creating the memory of an enterprise using 2.0 tools in order to transmit critical expertise. In the second presentation, hear what the World Bank alumni did when challenged by World Bank Group president Jim Kim to capture, curate and share their vast development knowledge with current staff. Alumni and retirees gathered to figure out just how to meet this challenge. A working group determined they could offer just-in- time trouble-shooting, project advice, mentoring and case studies—all pro bono. Social media played a role, even though many retirees were not that computer-savvy. Hear what they did, the lessons learned, and critical success factors to engage and involve former staff and to encourage current staff to draw on “old” knowledge.”
