Personal Learning Networks

We sit by the banks of a limitless stream of information.  At any moment, you or I can dip our virtual hands in and grasp insights and learning we never dreamt we’d have access to.
If you don’t know what you’re doing, of course, you can repeatedly retrieve fistfuls of weed and dross – so some guidance on how to fish and filter is useful.

Our panel for #LIKE69 at The Green in Clerkenwell helped us navigate the channels of Personal Learning Networks:  we wanted to learn from their experiences of creating and maintaining learning networks and pick up some tips on selecting sources of trusted information.

Elizabeth Charles,  our host for the evening, is in charge of e-Services and Systems at Birkbeck, University of London.  She’s hooked on lifelong learning and found the discussion forums attached to the various MOOCs  she’s completed to be rich sources of personal learning.  In common with the panel members, she’s a big fan of Twitter as a Personal Learning Network resource.

Her colleague, and Birkbeck’s resident Learning Technologist, Leo Havemann,   relies heavily on Twitter and follows a range of people who are his filters of useful information.  He advised us to be smart in our use of Twitter – for example by making use of hashtags to filter and find what’s useful.

Kate Arnold, Information Services Development Manager at The Francis Crick Institute, has been nurturing Professional Learning Networks for decades.  She started by subscribing to professional Listserv services and, when she was at the BBC, making exchange visits with fellow media librarians at The Times, CNN and other organisations to learn about their ways of working.  As well as professional networks and associations (such as LIKE and SLA ), she learns from others on Twitter.  She told us it takes discipline and perseverance to create Personal Learning Networks.  Her advice was to schedule time during the day to “indulge” in personal learning – Kate uses the journeys to and from work, and her lunchtime breaks to check in with her Personal Learning Network.  And, she said, follow people from outside of your sector as well as those with similar interests.

Adjoa Boateng,  Head of Reference Services at The British Library, is another active Twitter user – one of her friends described her as a “professional lurker” – as she determinedly focuses on specific topics, follows and learns from proponents on Twitter and uses the gained knowledge as a springboard for further learning.
She’s also active in person-to-person learning networks and started developing them when she first graduated and kept in touch with a small group of fellow graduates so they could continue to support one another.  Adjoa draws on the practical advice of a Leadership Foundation  learning set and casts her net even wider to pursue knowledge.  Even when she can’t attend conferences, she’ll check out the programmes to glean what she can and, as a member of IFLA she took herself off to a conference in Puerto Rica where she learned about the networks of people she met and tapped in to an even wider Personal Learning Network.

Adjoa reminded us of the importance of generosity – that to maintain successful learning networks you need to give as well as seek information.  And, like Kate, she said it was essential to follow Twitter users from other sectors.  She also advised us to follow some people we don’t agree with:  you can learn a lot from discordant perspectives.

Sarah Parry   had been listening closely to the panel of speakers and told us that much of what they’d described aligned with the practice defined by John Stepper as Working Out Loud.

In his Tedx talk, John Stepper described the evolution of STEMettes,  an inspiring social enterprise that started with a straightforward ambition: to help combat the lack of women in STEM.  It’s a great success story, and illustrates how much can be achieved when you put an idea into action that engages others.

LIKE was just an idea a few years ago, and now it’s one of my most valued Personal Learning Networks.  It’s a lot of fun too!

Achieving the balance between bashful and brash

How do you see yourself?  Do you find it easy to explain your achievements, tell others what you’ve done and what you want to do?

At LIKE68, with the expert guidance of Simon Burton,  we explored ways of creating CVs that did justice to our careers and discussed the importance of managing our digital reputations.  Most of us started by acknowledging how challenging we found the construction of our personal narratives.

There were lots of reasons:  some spent their working days just doing the job rather than reflecting on the skills and experience they deployed, others hadn’t revisited their CV for years and were daunted by the prospect of revising and reworking it, and a few people with longer and more varied careers weren’t sure how to shoehorn all they’d done into a couple of pages!
And then there’s the problem of taking ownership of achievements.  How do you do that without coming across as an arrogant braggart?   Simon explained this was a very British dilemma – he reassured us that even the most experienced and most senior professionals he meets find it difficult not to stumble over the STAR technique.   But so many interviews are competency-based, and to get as far as interview your CV will usually have had to pass through relentless screens and filters that focus on keywords and key achievements.  Being ready with answers that specify a situation, a task, your actions and the positive results won’t come across as bragging – you’ll simply sound articulate and confident.

As we were all thinking about putting time and effort into laying out our clear, concise, achievement-led, spell-checked, jargon-free compelling CVs….. Simon mentioned another important personal responsibility: “make sure what you say in your CV matches what you’re telling the world about yourself on LinkedIn”.  He said most prospective employers will check out your online persona.  Of course they will, why wouldn’t they?

That straightforward statement, however, opened a discussion of some seriously profound questions such as “who are you?”, “how are you perceived?”, “what would you like people to think of you?”, “how are you coming across online?”.   Sobering stuff.  And then there’s the relationship between your professional profile on LinkedIn and how you project yourself on, for example, Facebook and Twitter.

There are plenty of good reasons to actively manage your digital presence.  The near certainty that your current or next employer will look you up online is a pretty compelling one.

By the end of the session everyone seemed more determined to actively manage their professional profiles and online interactions.  As each person took a turn to speak about themselves, it was inspiring to listen to thoughtful professionals – neither bashful or bragging – clearly explaining their STAR qualities.

LIKE and the value of knowledge

When I worked in broadcasting I’d often find myself surprised by colleagues that had a high regard for opinion.  Even the most hard-nosed Harrys would look grave, nod sagely and start “it’s a fact that……” then go on to state an opinion: either theirs or some borrowed wisdom.

Running training courses, I was constantly asking hapless journalists or producers to “tell me what you know, not what you think”.  And sometimes they didn’t seem to realise there was a difference.

As we moved into a new century, I moved into the online world.  I found that people who spent their days in the orderly universe of the algorithm could be equally entranced by opinion.  Sometimes, familiarity with an inadequate software product would influence opinion, and make someone argue in its favour despite its evident shortcomings.

A few months ago, at LIKE 65, Stephen Dale guided us through workshop sessions on evidence-based decision making.  Steve put us into groups of four or five and set scenarios for us to work through.
The room was full of analytical brains – knowledge professionals, information scientists, business researchers, education specialists, even an ombudsman. Yet each group jumped to conclusions, misread details, surrendered to cognitive biases.  As we retraced our steps through the maze of our misconceptions we were feeling pretty sheepish.  But, and this is what I love about LIKE, instead of arguing the toss or trying to justify our conclusions we got engrossed in a fascinating discussion about cognitive bias and the weighting of evidence.

A knowledge network LIKE no other

A small group of us started LIKE (the London Information and Knowledge Exchange) in 2009.  We wanted regular, informal, get-togethers for knowledge professionals.  Seven years and nearly seventy events on, we’ve covered an astonishing range of topics including:

Storytelling and knowledge sharing, the ROI of KM, Information behaviour and cultural change,Taxonomies and Folksonomies, Reimagining records, Transliteracy, Civil rights in the digital world,  Making the leap to open source, Organising terrabytes of information, The evolution of mobile information access, Information literacy, Future of history: digital preservation, Copyright, Hargreaves and the Digital Economy Act, The business of social media, The UK web archive, Coaching, Open data and Open economics,  Big data and little apps, Gamification, Data Protection in Europe and The business case for collaboration.

To lead most of the events we’ve been able to draw on the knowledge of our members because many are experts in their fields.  Who needs opinion when you can access real experience and first-hand knowledge?

I was discussing the role and value of LIKE recently with members of the Association for Project Managers Knowledge group.  To prepare for the discussion I reviewed the professions and roles of more than 1,350 LIKE members.  The top ten (i.e. job titles held by the largest number of members) are:

1. Knowledge Manager
2. Consultant
3. Researcher
4. Learning Resources Manager
5. Digital Manager
6. Business/Research/Insight Analyst
7. Data Analyst
8. Sales Director
9. Project Manager
10. Marketing Manager

That’s just the top ten.  There are so many more.  I’m not certain that some of the job titles existed when we started the network (and I’m still not sure what a Creativitor does!)  It was fascinating to visualise the brilliant range of brains that make the LIKE network:

In my opinion it’s a privilege to be part of LIKE.

LIKE 43 – Coaching without the Why

It’s been my experience that only the most expert of practitioners can explain the basics of their discipline in simple terms.
Where those who are less-than-expert blather and quote theory at you, the expert converses with you, sharing their personal knowledge in accessible language.

Karen Drury  is an expert Executive Coach, and at last week’s LIKE she provided us with an impressive and accessible introduction to Coaching.

LISTENING

Karen started by getting us to listen to her explanation of four levels of listening we engage in:

Cosmetic Listening: Familiar territory for nearly all of us!  The kind of listening that engages your face and body (so the speakers feels you might be listening) while leaving the mind free to roam from shopping lists to planning the next hour or the next holiday.
Engaged Listening: During which you actually listen, but with maybe half an ear – whilst preparing what you’re going to say when the speaker draws breath.

Active Listening: These conversations progress quite slowly, because the listener is really listening and, when they speak, asks relevant questions – rather than making statements or offering unsolicited advice.

Deep Listening:  The intense level of focused listening that professional Coaches are capable of.  This deep level of listening entails noticing not just what is said but the way it is expressed, the accompanying non-verbal signals and the thoughts behind the words.
it’s skilled and difficult work, because the Coach is not simply a sounding-board, but a trusted guide – helping the person they’re coaching to investigate issues, examine options, decide on courses of action and find the resolution to act on those decisions.

So the questions asked by a Coach must be carefully chosen and worded.  Karen told us it was important to ask open questions (those which begin, for example, with ‘What’ or ‘How’), and very important to ask only one question at a time .  And, she explained, a Coach should avoid beginning a question with “Why…..?”.  “Why” questions are likely to throw those questioned onto the defensive – implying they should justify a decision or action.

 

REFLECTIONS AND INSIGHTS

Karen then got us to examine the balance in our Life Wheels (similar to this one) where the outer rim was 10 out of 10 and the inner scores decreased to zero in the centre.

When we’d all completed our wheels, Karen pointed out that it was as much an exercise in identifying how blessed one was, as it was in noting areas for attention.  And she was right – we all had a number of high-scoring spokes near our wheel rims.  But if we’d taken any of the wheels on the road, they’d have made juddering progress, as specific spokes, such as Self-image and Recreation/Fun, dipped toward the hub.

 

 

So we paired up and, using our new awareness of active/deep listening, discussed with each other what could be done about these neglected areas of our lives.

As Karen had predicted, being listened to in such a focused way was enough for some of us to diagnose the problem, examine optional actions and come to a resolution – while the listener barely uttered a word.

It’s amazing what you can get done in the hour before dinner.  Especially with the help of an empathic ear and an expert guide.

Before we settled to dinner and further discussion Karen gave us lots of tips on free online resources to follow up on – but those notes are lost………I’m still working on the “organise your note-taking” resolution!  Just don’t ask me “why is it taking you so long?” – you might undermine my resolve 🙂

LIKE 39 – Archiving the Web

In a professional landscape increasingly populated by vendor cheerleaders, one-trick product ponies and garrulous ‘gurus’, it’s refreshing to spend some time with LIKE professionals.

It was great to gather at our new home for dining and learning, the upstairs room of The Castle (just by Farringdon station), and explore the monumental task of creating a web archive.

The debate was timely – a recent Economist article drew attention to the danger of cultural amnesia as contemporary record, in the form of web content, disappears in cyberspace.

Dr Peter Webster is the British Library’s Engagement and Liaison Officer for the Web Archive.  LIKE’s new dinner venue has the great luxury of a projection screen, so Peter was able to show us slides of some of the sites his team are capturing for posterity.  These included the late Robin Cook’s website, and David Cameron’s 2005 election site.

He told us about the “lost web” – sites that become victim of the disorderly disappearance of organisations and campaigns, and the “orphaned web” – sites that have served their purpose, and are abandoned.  There was a nice example of a formerly lovingly-tended site dedicated to Charles Darwin’s house, not updated since 2006 because English Heritage had taken custody of the house and, in turn, its online representation.

Since 2004 the Web Archive team have fulfilled their brief, of archiving websites of cultural and scholarly importance from the UK domain, by capturing 11,000 sites (16 terrabytes worth).  They are collaborating with other libraries, archives and collectors to get the job done, but it’s still a daunting task.  Automated domain harvesting helps, and there are collections we can all agree future historians will be glad to have: the Credit Crunch, the Jubilee, the Olympics……..    However, at this stage, predicting the exponential growth of the archive, and how easy it will be to browse is challenging to say the least.

Some questions are very hard to answer: how do you decide what is published in the UK?  The URL doesn’t necessarily give you a clue.  How do you find the owners of content to verify copyright?   What are the full implications of the non-print Legal Deposit Regulations?

 As the discussion continued, I was very glad not to have Peter Webster’s job!  But I was delighted he’s doing it, and that he and other historians and archivists are on the case.  It would be horrendous if our collective neglect caused late 20^th and early 21^st Century culture to become a growing black historical hole.

I say collective neglect because Peter made it clear that the content our organisations are generating now will be of importance to historians in the future.  So his message, to all of us, was plan your digital archiving strategy.  And if you want to nominate a website for inclusion in the archive – do it.

REVIEW OF LIKE IDEAS 2012 – THE BUSINESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

The Aim

In the weeks running up to LIKE’s first Conference (on 29^th June), we asked people we met “how do you judge a successful professional event?”  Of all the answers – from seasoned conference-goers to occasional event attendees – three signs of success featured most prominently:

• If I’ve learned something worthwhile
• If I’ve met and talked to interesting people
• If the presentations have been relevant to my work and interests

Of course there were numerous other responses, including the quality of the freebies, the lavishness of the venue, the quantity and excellence of the food and refreshments….  But most people we spoke to were more interested in the content of the overall programme than the content of their glass or their  goodie bag.

As organisers of LIKE Ideas 2012 we found that reassuring, because our aim was to run a conference that fellow professionals would find both enjoyable and worthwhile.  When you ask people to invest some money and half a day of their time, you don’t want them to feel in any way short-changed.

The Event

We knew the focus of the conference – The Business of Social Media – was relevant and timely:  Increasingly we’re using social media tools and platforms to engage with our colleagues and clients, and we’re eager to learn from others’ experience about innovations and best practice.

And, in LIKE, we’re incredibly fortunate.  Not only do we have talented, imaginative members able to plan the conference programme (and design the logo, write the literature, scout for the venues, co-ordinate the team workload etc…) – we’ve also got an enviable network of knowledge to tap into:  half of the expert practitioners we asked to speak at the conference were already LIKE members (and since the conference, most of the others have joined!).

We were very fortunate, too, in the support we were given by our sponsors.  Many of them are also LIKE members, and they wanted to help us ensure the event was consistent with LIKE’s ethos – affordable, informative, relaxed and enjoyable.

When the day came, we believed we’d fulfilled our aim.  But we knew that confirmation could only come from the people who attended LIKE Ideas 2012.

The Attendees

48 of the 100 attendees completed feedback forms.  And we were delighted to discover that for more than half of them, this was their first LIKE event.

Interestingly, social media played an important role in alerting people to the conference – more than half had learned about it on Linked In or Twitter:

How Did You Hear About LIKE Ideas 2012?

 

And, as we’d hoped, the topic was a big draw:

What Most Attracted You To The Event?

 

Their Verdict

In spite of some on-the-day disasters, such as the main ladies toilets being out of action, the venue’s WiFi dying and the projector’s cooler fan providing unwelcomed sound effects  – the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

More than half of our respondents thought the venue was, overall, a good choice.  The refreshments were rated as good by most people too.  And, when asked their opinion of the speakers, the verdict was a universal thumbs up:

How Would You Rate The Speakers?

 

Great news for the team, who’d worked hard to select and brief a range of speakers they believed would deliver excellent sessions.  And the responses to the feedback form’s last question were equally heartening:

 How Would You Rate The Conference Overall?

 

We’re grateful to those who took the time to answer our post-conference questions – and come up with so many excellent suggestions for future LIKE events and conferences.

 LIKE is run by its members for its members.  So we will, of course, be following up on those suggestions and using them to inspire our future event and conference programme.

Thank you to everyone who sponsored, supported, presented at and attended our first LIKE Ideas Conference.

An especially BIG  thank you to Emma Steenson, Sarah Wolfenden, Emma Davidson, Nova Dobb, Lena Rowland, Nicola McGinty, Jennifer Smith and Ben Summers – for turning a LIKE Idea into a successful reality.

Oh – and the content of the conference bags and the wine glasses?  We did well with those too: quality quaff and much-coveted goodie bags!

LIKE Ideas Conference: The Business of Social Media

Did you know there’s an Institute for Social Media?  Well, some enterprising Australian Soc Med evangelists have started one.  And they point out  that “Social Media is not about platforms, paradigms, tools, or a contemporary stage of the ongoing development of the Internet. Social Media is a Movement!”

LIKE has been part of the movement for a few years.  Early in 2009 we set up our London Information & Knowledge Exchange group on Linked In and announced our first meet-ups. Thanks to social media – through word-of-web – we’ve run dozens of successful information exchange events, and have grown to a membership of nearly 900.   Each year we use web applications to survey our members, and tailor our events programme to match demand.

So when they asked for a conference, the obvious focus for the event was The Business of Social Media.  On the afternoon of 29th June a hundred or so professionals will gather in Clerkenwell’s Old Sessions House for sessions examining the practical, business-building uses of social media.  We’ll learn about ways to use social media for external engagement and to support research. We’ll hear first-hand experiences of making business social, and get some straight-talking legal advice on safeguarding reputation when using social media.  And we’ll explore the future of social media in business.

In the spirit of LIKE we’ll enjoy each others’ company (and continue to pick one another’s brains) over drinks and dinner after the conference.  Just like social media, LIKE is a movement – and the organisers, the conference speakers and sponsors, and those who’ll be attending are all part of that knowledge-sharing collective.

As are the writers contributing to our pre-conference Blog Carnival.  Follow the links to learn more from them:  Kathy Ennis   Suzanne Wheatley    Sarah Wolfenden  Karen McAuley

Pillars of Strength in the Workplace

I’ve been feeling very fortunate lately. My day job’s with an extraordinary organisation, where I witness my colleagues work daily wonders: helping others to help themselves and others.  Their willingness to share and build our collective knowledge makes my role a pleasure to fulfil.  And my involvement with LIKE  gives me the chance to learn from my brilliant Information Profession colleagues about  ways of working and thinking.

LIKE 31 on Thursday evening focused on Information Literacy. Dr Susie Andretta was in the Chair, and kicked the panel discussion off by   explaining that “Information Literate people are those who’ve learned how to learn”.  Then we heard from three LIKE members whose jobs include imparting literacy.

Adjoa Boateng  illustrated information literacy issues facing students in higher education with a problem that was fresh in her mind: she’d prepared her talk and uploaded it to her dropbox, ready for the evening.  Unfortunately she’d neglected to download the PowerPoint application to her Samsung reader.  So although her presentation was ready to use, she couldn’t access it!  Her point was well made – the learning society we have now is hyper-complex, and you have to navigate many different mediums before reaching the information you require.  Students need to deal with many platforms and pathways –and  the Librarians who support them have a responsibility to assist with overcoming those hurdles as well as helping develop the critical skills students require to analyse the information they retrieve.

Spcialist databases,impentrable jargon and fast-changing technology are all barriers to information literacy.  So Adjoa feels her role must include the teaching of digital literacy as well as supporting students’ information requirements: going beyond the original seven pillars model for information literacy.

Adjoa also pointed out that information literacy is not free – the databases and eBooks her institution needs to acquire are expensive, and the decisions she (and people in similar roles) makes determine how information literate students will be.  And that’s a crucial ethical decision, as it directly impacts the quality of skills available to the professions those students move into.

Rachel Adams deals with some of those graduates.  She’s  worked in the legal information sector for five or more years.  Rachel said that, like many other businesses – such as accountancy firms and consultancies – law firms  trade off their knowledge.  Information literacy is, therefore, vital as it informs the quality “product” sold to clients.
A colleague told her that information literacy matters because it saves time, money and stress.  For example if fee-earners direct their research effectively: frame their research query well, know what resource to use and are able to interpret the result,  they work more cost-effectively.  Information overload is as common in law firms as anywhere else, so being able to understand the process of research and present results in a timely manner makes life better for everyone.

But how to sell information literacy to busy colleagues who don’t necessarily ‘get it’ ?  Rachel’s found he best way is to call it training in research skills, refresher sessions etc.  However, the training needs to be relevant – ‘just-in-time’, at the point of need.  Most of the firms she’s worked with focus only on induction sessions for trainees  at the beginning of their time with the organisation.  By the time they come to need the knowledge she’s imparted, they’ve almost certainly forgotten it.   So Rachel’s learned to take advantage of opportunities as they arise.  In October she was running three information literacy sessions a week.  The reason: in order to continue practicing as a solicitor, fee-earners need to record a certain amount of CPD each year.  Some of this can come from training on legal resources.  As the deadline loomed, lots of her lawyer colleagues phoned to book a session – and Rachel used the time with them to increase their information literacy.

Medical Librarians, Caroline De Brún  told us, have slightly different challenges to deal with. Health Information Literacy isn’t a common phrase in Medicine, they’ve tended to use the term “Evidence based Medicine” – meaning decisions should be based on best research evidence and clinical expertise.  Health Professionals need information literacy skills to fulfil this, but there are a number of barriers to this.  Time is one – GPs have few spare minutes between patient appointments to devote to research, and in emergency wards they have little opportunity to stop what they’re doing to search for information.  Resources are another barrier: Caroline is now based in a medical school library and has some great resources.  But she used to be a Librarian for GP services, and the variation in access and resources across the practices she visited was very wide: some had great tools and excellent internet access, others had dial-up.

Even if the resources are there, the skills may not be.  Some GPs don’t know what search terms to use,  or what databases to choose.  So then, as now in her new role, the solutions to these problems include outreach.  Caroline works with clinical teams to support their needs, giving them training and providing research skills when they need it.  She takes the teaching to their desktop and offers “ten minute” training sessions, adapting her approach to their needs and available resources.

As Susie widened the debate to include those who’d been listening it was clear that most LIKE members in the room, dealing with similar issues, were working hard to find practical ways to help colleagues improve their information literacy skills.  Some were daunted by the scale of the challenge, but  nobody was willing to “give in to Google”!

LIKE 30: Knowledge Transfer – making it work

It’s often easier to talk about best practice than to just get on with it.  I’m sure lots of us have sat in after-action reviews or meetings where projects have been comprehensively analysed and “ways to do it better” have been skilfully identified.  Then everyone returns to their desks and carries on as before!  There are many reason it happens – change takes time, teamwork and, often, training.  Business as usual can dictate the pace of work (even if that work entails time-consuming activities such as trawling through over-loaded email inboxes to find important information).   Introducing new and more effective ways of working can prove to be ‘too much hassle’ – particularly if senior team-members consider themselves exempt from adopting new practices.

Maybe that’s why we’re more willing to invest external agents with the authority to make change or perform services that we could, if we chose, do for ourselves.

Gary Colet is the Facilitator for the Knowledge Retention and Transfer special interest group at the Knowledge and Innovation Network of Warwick University Business School.  He has a strong aversion to the term “Knowledge Management” preferring the description “Organisational Learning”.  It’s not difficult to see why he has a problem with the KM handle – it’s not exactly explanatory, and when practitioners (as they often are)  are called on to explain it, the descriptions of KM’s value and impact can vary widely.
So, organisational learning is what Gary facilitates.

The LIKE evening started with Gary calling on four volunteers to assist in illustrating how ‘knowledge’ rapidly degrades when passed along a human chain.  The first volunteer was told a story that contained a number of facts.  Their job was to relate the tale to the next volunteer, ensuring the facts were transmitted.  That volunteer then had to relate the story to the next person to enter the room and so on.  Surprisingly, one of the participants asked if she could take notes – Gary said that was the first time anyone had ever thought to do so (maybe not so surprising that a LIKE member should think so practically :-)).  His point was well illustrated though – facts evaporated in the telling, and the name of a publication morphed into another (the New Scientist became the New Statesman).

We moved on to analyse the shelf-life and value of various examples of knowledge/information transmitters:

• Transactional information such as emails = low value, short life
• Round-tables and seminars = high value, short life
• Meeting minutes, FAQs, check lists =  low value, long life
• Partner contracts, design rationales, projects decisions = high value, long life

Transient knowledge fits into the high value, short life category – and the high value makes this knowledge well worth eliciting.  Gary is often called in at times of change in organisations: when a round of redundancies is taking place, or when acquisitions and mergers are in progress.  He facilitates meetings or dinners during which the outgoing individual (always a key team member or senior leader) is encouraged to pass on their knowledge and experience.
Gary calls his approach to achieving this ‘O.P.E.C.’: Open, Probe, Examine, Close.  So his questions begin with “Tell me about your current role?”  or “Tell me about the project you’ve just completed?” – deliberately broad and open queries aimed at opening the dialogue in an unchallenging way.  With the discussion initiated, he moves on to the probing questions: “What were your particular successes in…..?”, “What were you trying to achieve in doing…..?”,“What didn’t go so well in…..?”, etc: the kinds of enquiry aimed at garnering facts and details.  Then come the ‘examining’ queries: “Why didn’t it work so well?”, “Why did you choose that approach?”, “Who was your most useful contact?”.  These questions focus on clarifying details and encouraging the individual to make their implicit knowledge explicit.  Finally he asks the important closing questions – for example “If there were three main things you’d speak to your successor about, what would they be?”

As anyone who’s facilitated these exchanges can testify – the process is not easy or comfortable.  The last thing a person who is feeling bruised and cynical may want is to share their professional knowledge with the organisation that is discarding them!  So, as Gary pointed out, the approach you take is vitally important.  Even if the organisation believes they own, or have a right to, that person’s knowledge, the individual is likely to see things very differently.   These structured exchanges do, however, offer them something worthwhile: respect for their professionalism and the value of their know-how; acknowledgment of their contribution and importance to their soon-to-be former colleagues.  By making this respect and appreciation clear to the individual at the outset, exchanges which begin with hostility and suspicion can quickly become positive and rewarding experiences for both parties.

It may seem trite to say “do as you would be done by” – but it’s a fact that this sentiment underpins good practice in Organisational Learning (or KM, sorry Gary).  The moment you allow yourself to believe that time is too precious to invest in enabling individuals to exchange knowledge and information is the moment you step onto the wheel of organisational amnesia and recurrent mistakes from the past.

LIKE 29 – Connecting Information with Innovation

There was an enthusiastic response to our announcement that LIKE 29 would focus on the findings of a recent report by the specialist professional services company TFPL:  so enthusiastic that the evening was quickly over-subscribed.  The only way to satisfy demand was to run the event twice.

On both evenings the very lively discussions were skilfully led by John Davies , Head of Consulting at TFPL and co-author of the report.

The title “Connecting Information with Innovation” was chosen because responses to the survey forming the basis of the report showed organisations are increasingly linking information services with corporate purpose.  And the purpose of the report was to take a fresh snapshot of the Info Pro landscape.  (Back in 2006 the TFPL team had worked with Hazel Hall to produce “Who’s Managing Information?”)

Of ten thousand questionnaires, two hundred and twenty were returned.   35% of respondents worked in the public sector, 48% in the private sector, and the rest in education and the third sector.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, most respondents classified themselves as senior managers.  But more interestingly only half worked in core info management service, while the other 50% said their services were dispersed across the organisation.

Most people reported little change from 2006 in Knowledge and Information (KIM) staffing levels.  But there was much evidence that organisations were reallocating responsibilities – for example with business information being moved into the remit of business intelligence. And there was   strong evidence that organisations were looking for increased value from their information services, with more accountability and pressure to contribute to the organisations’ strategic plan than there had been in 2006.

Many of the respondents could be classified as Librarians, Records Managers, Content Specialists, Information Services providers, Business Analysts…..  but such things as  information security, information governance, communications, competitive intelligence and digital preservation fell outside of their responsibilities.

John said there are approximately 30 million people in work in the UK.  And, based on work done in the US following Drucker, around 60-70% of us are classified as “knowledge workers”.  However, for every million knowledge workers, there are maybe one thousand with recognisable qualifications. And, it seemed, qualifications still matter to recruiting businesses.
So he wanted to know how LIKE people saw their profession – what distinctions they made, and who they thought were “KIM” professionals.

It was clear from the comments people made that we’re not doing a great job of explaining to each other what we do, or feeling particularly comfortable with the KIM umbrella term:

“Business Intelligence is all about coding”. “Business development people get my goad”. “Archivists, Records Managers and Librarians have a similar mindset, but KMs come at it from a very different angle”.  “Knowledge Managers don’t need a qualification but librarians do”. 

Some people were bemused (and amused) by the increasing pressure to ‘professionalise’: “ If someone sees themselves as a KIM professional, they pretty well are”.  “In  Government there’s a move for civil servants to be part of a profession – IT Professional, Lawyer, Statistician etc – so that’s led people like Immigration Officers  to say ‘well I use information a lot, so I’m a KIM professional’”. 

John told us recruitment specialists are having a hard time keeping up with the demands of employers.  Job specifications are getting broader, deeper, more demanding.  The old distinctions between the junior and more senior roles were being blurred as everyone is expected to demonstrate business acumen, project management ability and IT knowledge.

Five attributes that were key to recruitment, came out in the survey.  He described them as:  Visionary, perseverance, logical, pragmatic, collaborative.  He wanted to know what we thought of these, and which of them we’d prioritise.

Several people said they’d never heard two definitions of ‘Knowledge Management’ that were the same.  Others confirmed that the same went for ‘Information Management’.  So how would it be possible to attain definitive descriptions, or prioritise attributes?
One Consultant had stopped putting job titles on her CV entirely.  She found they confused her clients and didn’t add value – her skills and experience were more important.

Someone said most Information Managers are just Librarians by another name.  And a professional from the British Library said “I work in the biggest library in the country – not a single post at the British Library is called Librarian.  Titles are meaningless!  I’m a Reference Specialist – what does that mean?  Even within the reference team there are different interpretations of what a Reference Specialist does and is.”

This was one of the areas of consensus on both evenings.  Lots of people felt it was pointless to define terms when each organisation had its own definitions.  Every organisation has its own jargon – “So you read the job description and interpret – then you repeat their language when you fill in your application for a job.”

Someone said “we’re good at collaborating among ourselves, but maybe not so good at doing it within our wider businesses”.  And it was suggested that some Librarians see themselves as Librarians first, then employees of their specific business.

But of the five key attributes Collaboration, Vision and Pragmatism were seen as the most important.  So we proved to be pretty good at prioritising!

John told us that since 2006 training on the job had fallen by the wayside.  In-house training is increasingly in demand, while external courses are being cut.  LIKErs confirmed that they were being directed to develop or use in-house resources for training.  Some are making use of online courses.  And, of course, transferred knowledge inside the organisation is an important element of Knowledge Management, so there’s a case for looking inside for skill development.

On both evenings the discussion about training and development inevitably led back to the issue of professional qualification and its importance – both to the professional and the employer.  Although “Some people are professionals in the field without having professional qualifications”, it was agreed that these individuals usually have years of experience to support their ‘claim’.  For others, especially those just starting out, it was seen as essential to have a professional qualification “so you have credibility and can demonstrate that you know what you’re doing.” “It’s a badge of honour, showing you can do the job” Some people also saw professional qualifications as a means of gaining a broader understanding of their specialism than can be gained in an isolated role “it gives you a structured core skills base”.  But there was a rider to the importance placed on qualifications: “courses really do need to link up with reality”.    And qualifications alone wouldn’t cut it in modern business: “inside the organisation it’s your success stories and the reputation you’ve built up.”  “It all comes down to demonstrating you have the skills to do the job”. 

During our discussions we briefly revisited a question that comes up pretty regularly at LIKE meetings (and elsewhere) – the value of professional bodies.  It’s always an interesting debate.  The specialised roles (such as Law Librarian) need to have their own knowledge networks.  It makes sense doesn’t it?  But what doesn’t make sense to many KIM professionals is to have professional bodies that are out of tune with their members’ requirements and experiences.

John Davies was very complimentary about LIKE – he said it was invigorating and refreshing,   a model for how professional bodies could develop “rather than the ossified, committee-ridden groups I’ve been so familiar with over the years”.

If LIKE is any kind of model, that’s brilliant.  Our primary focus, though, is on providing LIKErs with what they tell us they want – open, inclusive discussions about issues relevant to them.

We seem to have done that with LIKE 29, and LIKE 30 should fit the bill too!  Gary Colet from Warwick Business School will be getting us thinking about how to make transferred knowledge stick.