Working Smarter

Posted on August 11, 2008 by Dave Pollard

Last week in Quebec City I had the pleasure of meeting with about 20 senior librarians and information directors at a workshop to discuss the trends in and future of Knowledge Management and research, and the evolving role of Information Professionals.This included an interesting debate on the different “information behaviours” of most members of Gen Millennium, such as:

Their preference for just-in-time, conversational, real-time knowledge exchange (e.g. face-to-face, voice-to-voice or IM rather than e-mail or voice-mail). In this, they are much like their grandparents, except they use technology (such as videoconferencing with screen-sharing) to expand their reach to anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Their aversion to e-mail, groupware and other one-size-fits-none and over-engineered tools.
The fact that their learning style is self-directed and self-motivated; they don’t expect or wait for their employer to tell them what learning programs to sign up for.
The fact that they mark a return to an oral culture, and lack the patience (and some think, the ability) to craft well-articulated written research or arguments; they do have a skill for telling stories more effortlessly than previous generations however.
They expect to have 12 different jobs during their career; the downside of this is that they’re unlikely to ever know the business of their employer (as distinct from their particular area of specialty) well enough to know how what they do fits with and adds value to (or could add value to) what everyone else in the organization does.

Over the past year I’ve been writing about KM 2.0 (I’ve given up calling it KM 0.0 — a little too cute I think), and last week’s discussion refined my thinking somewhat about what this will entail. I’m now convinced that “knowledge workers” in the 21st century (i.e. anyone who spends a significant portion of their time processing information, which these days is most of us) need skills (S), tools (T) and processes (P) in six areas, none of which they currently possess:

Personal Content Management (S,T,P): Help, and tools, that enable workers to organize their own knowledge (on their hard drives and wherever else they keep it), and ‘subscribe’ to others’ content and ‘publish’ their own. I put the terms ‘subscribe’ and ‘publish’ in quotes because this is simple, informal, RSS-based publishing of and subscribing to informal content (blogs etc.), for no charge. This is the model that is replacing the old KM 1.0 process of ‘submitting’ information to large, centralized, indexed repositories.
Simple Virtual Presence and Enabling Conversations (T,S,P): Real-time, intuitive technologies that enable recordable IM, VoIP, desktop video, file-sharing and screen-sharing, and allow users to switch between them simply, and to find and connect with the people who have the knowledge they seek. This technology is needed to help people self-organize communities of passion and converse easily and competently with people in these communities.
Environmental Scanning and Sensemaking (S, P, T): The capacity to add meaning, sense and value to information, in at least five ways:

Alerts and Briefings: Filtering the firehose of new information to decipher what’s both new and important, and prÈcis what people in the organization need to be aware of
Research: Asking the right questions about information to distil what it all means, what it implies, and the risks and opportunities it presents
Guidance: Competent, understandable, practical, strategic advice on what actions are recommended in the organization
Events: Peer-to-peer, community-of-passion-organized and -managed events (physical and virtual) that allow knowledge-sharing and collaborative conversations among the people who care about the issue
Self-Assessment Tools: Means by which those affected can self-assess their knowledge, skills, strategy, and capacity to act on an issue

Professional Research Capacity and Risk/Opportunity Assessment (S,P): Everyone needs to be a competent researcher — this is essential to innovation. Most people think research is the same as search, and very few schools teach how to do research properly. Information professionals need even deeper research skills, to teach and assist the other employees of the organization, and they also need to learn their employer’s business, to make effective use of the research they do. In doing so, they develop the capacity to understand and articulate the risk implications and innovation opportunities that emerge from new information, and the cost of not knowing. Some current examples of risk areas for assessment: The impact of climate change, the threat of pandemics, exposure to currency collapse, interest rate spikes and oil price spikes and shortages, business continuity and reputation risks, and the threat of disruptive innovations by companies not currently seen as competitors.
Just-in-Time Canvassing (P, T): Only rarely do front-line employees have sufficient lead time to obtain precise, accurate, detailed information, and most of the time they don’t need it. They need a fast, approximately-right, summarized answer, now. To get it they need a process for quickly canvassing all the people who might provide that approximately-right answer, in next to real time.
Story Crafting, Story Telling, Story Collecting and Story Recording (S,P,T): We are learning that one of the most effective ways of conveying information with the necessary context to know what it means is through stories. Crafting a story entails re-creating it in an understandable, visual, concise way. The new book Back of the Napkin presents a simple and compelling way to do this, but there are many other methods. Also needed are multimedia tools that collect and record stories and anecdotes, and the skills to use them.

I see the role of Knowledge Management and of Information Professionals in the 21st century as facilitating the development of these skills and introduction of these processes and tools in their organizations. I’m not sure what we call it. Probably not KM. I’ve referred to it as Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), Work Effectiveness Improvement, Personal Productivity Improvement (PPI) but none of these accurately encompasses the six enabling roles above. Maybe we should call it Working Smarter, and staff it with a cross-functional project team with a five year mandate to measurably improve these six capacities in organizations. A couple of years ago I wrote about creating a magazine called Working Smarter that would address this capacities; perhaps it’s time to resurrect this idea, and not fuss about whose function it is.

This would be a big undertaking in most organizations. In order to free up resources for it, many organizations would have to face the distasteful prospect of admitting that their KM 1.0 investments and infrastructure, including intranets and websites, are ineffective and could be substantially dismantled at a considerable saving and without significant consequence to the organization.

I don’t expect to see this happen overnight. Many organizations are quite wedded to their existing websites, groupware and centralized repositories, and have employees whose full-time job is just indexing, maintaining and creating search tools for all this content. But in order to rise to what Peter Drucker identified as the greatest business challenge of the 21st century — improving the productivity of “knowledge workers” — we will have to make the transition from content to context, and from collection to connection.

Category: Personal Productivity Improvement

PS: Several of my readers have asked me why I bother writing about knowledge and innovation when I’m predicting cascading crises and the collapse of civilization in this century. It’s a good question, and here’s how I answered it in a recent comment thread: I have no difficulty bifurcating what is happening and what needs to be done in the short-term (which, human nature being what it is, will be business as usual until we have absolutely no choice but to change everything we do), and what will inevitably happen in the longer term (and I’m learning that most predicted crises happen later than when the brightest prognosticators think they will, but ultimately end up changing things more than they think). What happened in 1929, and in 1939, and in 1989, and in 2001, were all predictable decades in advance by those with foresight and the knowledge of history. We will continue to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic even after the first of the civilization-ending catastrophes befall us, because that is what humans do — we concern ourselves with the needs of the moment, and prolong the inevitable as much as possible. I don’t think we’ll see any sea-changes in behaviour in my lifetime (statistically another 20 years) and that’s a whole generation. So I think it’s useful, and fun, to prognosticate about technology changes over that period. My guess is that we’ll face another Great Depression in the 2030s (although there will be some grim recessions before that) and the cascading crises will increase thereafter until it becomes impossible to deny that our civilization is coming to an end (about 2060s or 2070s). By then it will be too late. This is essentially what John Gray says, and I find his argument compelling. I’m not depressed about it, nor do I think it’s avoidable. Just going to do my best to create some working models for the (few) survivors to follow, which is now taking up half of my time. The other half is having fun, here, now, in the context of all the ultimately irrelevant issues, toys and inanities of the day. Short of suicide, it’s the only way I can see to deal with things. Musicaldeck chairs, anyone?

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4 Responses to Working Smarter

mattbg says:

August 12, 2008 at 08:19

Dave, I have a different perspective.Their preference for just-in-time, conversational, real-time knowledge exchange (e.g. face-to-face, voice-to-voice or IM rather than e-mail or voice-mail). In this, they are much like their grandparents, except they use technology (such as videoconferencing with screen-sharing) to expand their reach to anyone, anytime, anywhere: except that their grandparents went through rigorous grammatical and critical thought training, had a relevant grading system, had consistent and united parents and a society that provided structure, and weren’t hobbled by a system that necessarily (because of its deterioration) has no tolerance for concrete and illiberal views.Their aversion to e-mail, groupware and other one-size-fits-none and over-engineered tools: because their patience for anything that they can’t grasp at first sight is limited. You might as well praise the tendency of some boomers to use Excel for writing letters instead of a word processor because Excel is all they know. Why structure a document using Word when Notepad will let you put words on a page just as easily? They’ll get an A either way, and employers know not to upset their self-esteem if they want to keep them as employees. G.M. is another reason to outsource to India if at all possible, from my perspective. And, guess what? You need precise technical specification to complete an outsourcing deal. Storytelling and napkin drawing (although I did buy that book on your recommendation and think it will be very useful in some contexts) won’t cut it.The fact that their learning style is self-directed and self-motivated; they don’t expect or wait for their employer to tell them what learning programs to sign up for: in other words, they only have patience for what they’re interested in. In that case, how do you get told by someone else what you NEED to know about something, rather than just absorbing the pieces that Google told you were most popular?The fact that they mark a return to an oral culture, and lack the patience (and some think, the ability) to craft well-articulated written research or arguments; they do have a skill for telling stories more effortlessly than previous generations however.: storytelling gets a point across, just as anecdotes always have. But storytelling is fictional, leading, and doesn’t demonstrate an ability to comprehend detail. In fact, it tries to tell you that detail is meaningless and that the abstract is what’s important. That might work in a presentation or an introduction, but it’s not sufficient for detailed analysis. If you’re saying that G.M. are good at imitating marketers, I’d say you’re right. They grew up surrounded by marketing, after all. Marketing is about telling a story that says just the right words in order to lead people to believe something about a product that may or may not be true, but which was never explicitly stated. “Never admit you’re wrong”: amongst the sound advice I’ve been given by G.M… and he genuinely thought he was passing down useful wisdom.They expect to have 12 different jobs during their career; the downside of this is that they’re unlikely to ever know the business of their employer (as distinct from their particular area of specialty) well enough to know how what they do fits with and adds value to (or could add value to) what everyone else in the organization does: I agree with this. I know people that change jobs every 1 or 2 years. As soon as they get a bit bored, they move on. There is no loyalty to the employer, even though loyalty is sometimes warranted. They believe they have an excuse to have no loyalty because the meme has been passed around that employers have no loyalty to their employees. This is no good as a blanket statement because some employers (and even supposedly big, evil ones like banks) invest in their employees, take an interest in their development and further their education, etc. Regarding 12 jobs, I was told the same thing about my own career, but who really cares? I don’t think about it. I know that a job isn’t certain, but I have a sense of what I owe to my employer. My accountability to them doesn’t begin and end with a salary. If I wanted to have a job with the same employer for a long time, I could find such a job and keep it. “12 different jobs”. Well, some people may not want to have that many jobs. It’s an average, and some may have 23 while another will only have 1. Unless you’re average, the number doesn’t mean much. It’s also very field-dependent. If you’re going to flip burgers and wait for your inheritance to come along, you will change jobs a lot (this is not something I’m pulling out of thin air — there are people in that generation who have gone to school and acquired a degree and are now working retail out of choice because it’s the only environment they’re comfortable in, and they don’t want to get a real job and assume they will get an inheritance at some point).There’s no way that the Millenials can be as bad as a group as I’m suggesting, but my experience with them has not been that good. There’s a vacuous element there — an emptiness that doesn’t give you much to grasp onto. They are masterful at diversion and manipulation and making you think that they know something that they don’t. They know just which easily-acquired skills to drag out to impress older people in order to give an impression that they’re much more capable than they really are.I’m 31, so I’m not far from that generation. One thing I am interested to see is how they react to the boomer legacy and boomer retirement when they’re given control. We are seeing a more pronounced destruction now that the boomers have the remote control, and I don’t think they’ve fully absorbed it yet. Many still think they will have more than what their parents had…somehow. I have a strange suspicion that we should prepare for a conservative backlash. It won’t be the conservatism of the past (they will not be wanting to be hypocritical about their having screwed like drunken monkeys for a large part of their life). I think it’ll be more of a tough love liberalism where you’ll have to earn your dole.Have you seen the transformation of Adam Giambrone (30, maybe 31 years old) since he became TTC chair? He was in charge of the youth wing of the NDP, and he is now something quite different… and not just in his official capacity, but outside as well. It’s impressive to see some realistic conviction forming around his views.
mattbg says:

August 12, 2008 at 08:21

Oops…bad formatting.Dave, I have a different perspective.Their preference for just-in-time, conversational, real-time knowledge exchange (e.g. face-to-face, voice-to-voice or IM rather than e-mail or voice-mail). In this, they are much like their grandparents, except they use technology (such as videoconferencing with screen-sharing) to expand their reach to anyone, anytime, anywhere: except that their grandparents went through rigorous grammatical and critical thought training, had a relevant grading system, had consistent and united parents and a society that provided structure, and weren’t hobbled by a system that necessarily (because of its deterioration) has no tolerance for concrete and illiberal views.Their aversion to e-mail, groupware and other one-size-fits-none and over-engineered tools: because their patience for anything that they can’t grasp at first sight is limited. You might as well praise the tendency of some boomers to use Excel for writing letters instead of a word processor because Excel is all they know. Why structure a document using Word when Notepad will let you put words on a page just as easily? They’ll get an A either way, and employers know not to upset their self-esteem if they want to keep them as employees. G.M. is another reason to outsource to India if at all possible, from my perspective. And, guess what? You need precise technical specification to complete an outsourcing deal. Storytelling and napkin drawing (although I did buy that book on your recommendation and think it will be very useful in some contexts) won’t cut it.The fact that their learning style is self-directed and self-motivated; they don’t expect or wait for their employer to tell them what learning programs to sign up for: in other words, they only have patience for what they’re interested in. In that case, how do you get told by someone else what you NEED to know about something, rather than just absorbing the pieces that Googletold you were most popular?The fact that they mark a return to an oral culture, and lack the patience (and some think, the ability) to craft well-articulated written research or arguments; they do have a skill for telling stories more effortlessly than previous generations however.: storytelling gets a point across, just as anecdotes always have. But storytelling is fictional, leading, and doesn’t demonstrate an ability to comprehend detail. In fact, it tries to tell you that detail is meaningless and that the abstract is what’s important. That might work in a presentation or an introduction, but it’s not sufficient for detailed analysis. If you’re saying that G.M. are good at imitating marketers, I’d say you’re right. They grew up surrounded by marketing, after all. Marketing is about telling a story that says just the right words in order to lead people to believe something about a product that may or may not be true, but which was never explicitly stated. “Never admit you’re wrong”: amongst the sound advice I’ve been given by G.M… and he genuinely thought he was passing down useful wisdom.They expect to have 12 different jobs during their career; the downside of this is that they’re unlikely to ever know the business of their employer (as distinct from their particular area of specialty) well enough to know how what they do fits with and adds value to (or could add value to) what everyone else in the organization does: I agree with this. I know people that change jobs every 1 or 2 years. As soon as they get a bit bored, they move on. There is no loyalty to the employer, even though loyalty is sometimes warranted. They believe they have an excuse to have no loyalty because the meme has been passed around that employers have no loyalty to their employees. This is no good as a blanket statement because some employers (and even supposedly big, evil ones like banks) invest in their employees, take an interest in their development and further their education, etc. Regarding 12 jobs, I wastold the same thing about my own career, but who really cares? I don’t think about it. I know that a job isn’t certain, but I have a sense of what I owe to my employer. My accountability to them doesn’t begin and end with a salary. If I wanted to have a job with the same employer for a long time, I could find such a job and keep it. “12 different jobs”. Well, some people may not want to have that many jobs. It’s an average, and some may have 23 while another will only have 1. Unless you’re average, the number doesn’t mean much. It’s also very field-dependent. If you’re going to flip burgers and wait for your inheritance to come along, you will change jobs a lot (this is not something I’m pulling out of thin air — there are people in that generation who have gone to school and acquired a degree and are now working retail out of choice because it’s the only environment they’re comfortable in, and they don’t want to get a real job and assume they will get an inheritance at some point).There’s no way that the Millenials can be as bad as a group as I’m suggesting, but my experience with them has not been that good. There’s a vacuous element there — an emptiness that doesn’t give you much to grasp onto. They are masterful at diversion and manipulation and making you think that they know something that they don’t. They know just which easily-acquired skills to drag out to impress older people in order to give an impression that they’re much more capable than they really are.I’m 31, so I’m not far from that generation. One thing I am interested to see is how they react to the boomer legacy and boomer retirement when they’re given control. We are seeing a more pronounced destruction now that the boomers have the remote control, and I don’t think they’ve fully absorbed it yet. Many still think they will have more than what their parents had…somehow. I have a strange suspicion that we should prepare for a conservative backlash. It won’t be the conservatism of the past (they will not be wanting to be hypocritical about their having screwed like drunken monkeys for a large part of their life). I think it’ll be more of a tough love liberalism where you’ll have to earn your dole.Have you seen the transformation of Adam Giambrone (30, maybe 31 years old) since he became TTC chair? He was in charge of the youth wing of the NDP, and he is now something quite different… and not just in his official capacity, but outside as well. It’s impressive to see some realistic conviction forming around his views.
Jon Husband says:

August 12, 2008 at 13:20

mass-customised participative work design .. where a purpose and an organization’s objectives meet a networked knowledge worker’s brain, cognition, style of working, belief systems and emotions.
Samuel says:

August 27, 2008 at 09:39

Nice post! There’s one thing I don’t understand. You say:”I’m now convinced that “knowledge workers” in the 21st century (i.e. anyone who spends a significant portion of their time processing information, which these days is most of us) need skills (S), tools (T) and processes (P) in six areas, none of which they currently possess:”What do you mean by: “none of which they currently possess”? Your proposal to start a magazine called “Working Smarter” is great. I’d subscribe right away.