To "Like" or Not to "Like"

"To be, or not to be..." is the opening phrase from Shakespeare's play, Hamlet that has become one of the most widely quoted phrases in the English language.  Ever since the advent of Facebook and other Social Media tools, the one thing that pops up in everybody's mind is "To Like, or Not to Like…”.  It seems to be the simplest way of acknowledging one’s presence on social media; apart from ensuring that a similar thumbs up is reciprocated on your Facebook page when you post something!  But do all these Likes and Comments add up to anything?
Enterprise Social Media, as it is known when such tools are used in organizations to crowd-source ideas, generate opinions, and solicit solutions to problems also have these ubiquitous “Like” buttons to record user participation.  However, what do these translate to, and how one can make meaningful measurements about the impact it has on creating and disseminating knowledge within the organization is a subject of intense study in all organizations.  Here are a few measurements commonly used to analyse traffic on your social media page:
Page Likes: This includes the number of people who “Like”, “Comment”, “Tag”, “Share” or in some manner indicate that they have viewed the content you have posted on your social page.   When any of these actions are performed, this invariably serves up as a notification on the user’s page, thus allowing people who follow this to be notified of content that may be of interest to them.  This is especially useful, when someone is following a topic of interest.  For example, as a curator of several topics on Social Learning Theory, I compile lists of content from various sources that are of interest on the subject.  When I create several lists of such topics (categorized based on complexity, or topic), it becomes easy for someone who is following me to gain access to such content.  The count of such Page likes, their frequency, and half-life are of interest – they provide insight into the longevity and importance of a topic, often giving clues about the shelf-life of some topics.   Of special interest is the “Viral reach” – an indicator of how far and wide the content has spread.  A topic of organizational importance spreads across the entire organization, whereas a topic that is of interest to a limited circle spreads only within that circle.  When such a topic moves across circles, it is an indicator that a new idea has possibly been generated.
I have used the term “Page Likes” in a generic manner.  This could be a comment or reply to a post, or a tag, a share or any such action that can be performed when you post content.  Similarly, each of these actions could individually spawn several measures, many of which when seen in perspective, can provide valuable insight into the nature of collaboration that occurs within an enterprise.  For example, in an enterprise some of the measures that are of value could be:
·         The number of employee-to-employee relationships spawned through various knowledge sharing activities
·         The re-use rate of frequently accessed content
·         The capture of key expertise – key concepts that make the transformation from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.
·         The dissemination of knowledge to appropriate individuals – here the definition of “appropriate” could be nebulous and depend on specific scenarios.  However, the general intent is that when a content is used in specific context, then it is considered to have reached the appropriate individual.
·         The number of new ideas generated – captured in specific forms, or deduced from new projects that are created with the key concept
·         The number of new lessons learned and best practices created – identified by changes in Package of Practice, or discussions in Communities of Practice, or content which find their way into structured lessons
·         New case studies that are presented based on experience shared
·         The number of apprentices one mentors – the earlier concept of a lesson portfolio or lists that are maintained and accessed by employees with a lower skill or competence level
Several of these measures can eventually be tracked to operational measures – those that define business performance.  This in turn provide some indication of the impact knowledge management processes have on organizational performance.  However, there is a need to understand that business performance measures are usually far more complex in terms of the factors that affect them, and any correlation can at best be tenuous.  However, over longer periods of time, it is possible to empirically ascribe significant weightage to knowledge and learning initiatives on the overall impact in the business.  In the short term, specific instances have clearly been identified which have provided quantum breakthroughs in performance – either in the form of cost reduction, improved productivity, or entirely new products and services.   

Meaningful measures in Knowledge Management #Knowledge-Management #Knowledge-metrics #enterprise-social-media 

And now The Mentalist shares his wisdom...

“Long before we stuffed knowledge into graphs and charts, we used older, and in some cases more entertaining ways to remember things.  Grids, Lists and Classification is a nice way of organizing things.  But it is not the way the world works; and it is certainly not the way the brain works.” ~ Patrick Jane in “The Mentalist”

Predictive Analytics and Big Data are the buzz words making the rounds today, as organizations – especially online organizations try to get better at predicting customer tastes and preferences.  The entire supply-chain then bends backwards trying to fulfil the prophecy, and works overtime making and stocking the shelves with what has been forecast.  In an earlier post, I had mentioned about the over-dependence on data – grids, lists, charts and graphs – the elusive hunt for that pattern which reveals how a whole host of people are thinking or what is influencing their purchase decisions.  No doubt, all of this is very useful. Today, the ability to collect, collate and analyse data from so many different sources has gotten better.  However, I suspect the ability to interpret this in a meaningful manner – has somewhat diminished – decision makers are trying to replace the critical element of personal knowledge, emanating from skills and experience with mechanically interpreted data.

So, I am drawn into wondering how personal knowledge that emanates from skill and experience can coexist with the interpretations and conclusions that we draw from charts and graphs.  Do they predict the same thing – or are they too many variables for either of them to be reasonably accurate.  More importantly, how can the two work together to improve the ratio of successful predictions.  Like the apocryphal story about the old worker who charges $100 to fix a boiler by tapping it with a  hammer (read that here) where personal knowledge is shown as being extremely important, to the other story about Wal-Mart placing diapers next to beer because sales patterns revealed increase in sales (read it here) where analytics is shown to be the hero – we are left wondering where the twain can meet.

Personal knowledge – that intricate mix of learning, practice, sharing and experiencing – is what goes into creating organizational knowledge.  The ability of the expert to share that knowledge in a vivid and memorable manner enables the organization to embed that knowledge – institutionalize it.  In a similar manner, when patterns emerge from the way the organization interacts with its ecosystem, the ability to identify it, and make it available to the expert to create another memorable story is what analytical tools should become good at.  A picture is worth a thousand words – they say; with data visualization getting better by the day, it should be possible to create memorable images that then become stories that get embedded as part of organization’s knowledge. 

Have you come across any graphs or charts that have helped you change the way you work?

Knowledge Sharing - Lessons from Grey's Anatomy

“Dr. Richard, today’s lecture day…and I have one open spot”.

I had been idly surfing channels on a lazy Sunday afternoon, when for no particular reason I paused to see what this all about.  It was a scene from the American medical drama television series Grey’s Anatomy stopped me in my tracks.  It seemed like it was right out of some Knowledge Management lecture, that I was tempted to sit and watch more.  Here are some interesting insights and thoughts that occurred to me as I watched this episode.

“You brought back lecture day?”  

Probably an age-old custom of this hospital which quietly disappeared as people became too busy to learn.  So, Dr. Richard seems rather incredulous when he is offered a slot to speak – which incidentally happens to be his “swan song” lecture.  Very often, good initiatives that were intended to create knowledge, promote best practices, and stimulate collaboration peter off into meaningless ritual – more because of apathy than because there is nothing to be gained from it.  The very senior management that initiated such good practice within the organization often end up sabotaging it by pulling out people from such activity, thereby sending a strong signal that it is after all “not that important”.  Of course the flip side to it is just that – it becomes a ritual – something to be gotten over and done with – the inability to inspire people to tell a good story often rings the death knell for such initiatives.

·         “We are a teaching hospital.  We learn by doing.  We can also…should also learn from others’ experiences.  Their mistakes saves you mistakes…their losses saves you losses…their victories will inspire yours. “

Every organization needs to have some form of formal learning mechanism; be it classroom led lectures, webinars, blended learning models or a pot-pourri of other learning technologies, the one sure-fire way to ensure that the lessons learned from an organization’s experience need to be shared so that everyone can learn and benefit from it.  With a rapidly ageing workforce, especially in some of the older industries, a lot of knowledge that was gained through the experience of people who have done the same kind of tasks for over 20 to 30 years seems to be going away.  In the medical field, for example, where doctors could just look at patients and make an intelligent diagnosis, today’s physicians need the aid of scans and images, blood samples and what have you, to make a tentative guess of what the probably symptom could be.  How can organizations preserve that expertise and skill gained from the experience of so many years of work?

"Eyes forward and pay attention. If you are caught dozing you get chalk on your face. Ask Dr Yang! my aim is exceptional.  If you answer right you get a chocolate! "

Although Dan Pink may disagree, at least during the initial stages, the carrot and stick approach often is quite a strong driver to ensure that there is sufficient participation in such initiatives.  While, of course, as can be seen, chocolates are seen more as a means to make it interactive and fun, rather than sit back and snooze off without getting caught.  The other interesting aspect is that Dr. Miranda Bailey makes it very interactive by inviting the audience to become real characters in her story.  As the story unfolds we see other doctors actually trying to guess how the story would end.  Goes without saying that for knowledge to get strongly embedded a good story that can hold it together is an important aspect.

"Single most important step in the treatment process…patient history…thank you. Catch…"

Dr. Miranda Bailey quizzes the audience on what they think is the most important aspect of diagnosis.  Knowledge is about knowing…and what better way to know than to understand what has happened.  In business parlance, that would translate to looking at the information available so we get a measure of the issue on hand.  Quite often, this will also involve going back in time to identify trends and patterns that could indicate what could potentially be the problem.  This, in essence, is where experience meets data – where the numbers tell the story which forms on the basis of experience and skill….more about this another 

   “…..every test I could think of – negative.  I did what I told you all to do when you are stuck.  I hit the books. I hit them hard"

A good knowledge repository is like “sitting on the shoulder of giants”.  In present day context, knowledge repositories enable two aspects of knowing – it connects people to people – helps you identify the experts; it also connects people to content – enables you discover content.  When an organization’s knowledge base is organized well around a well-defined taxonomy, then discovering content, connecting content to content, and people to content becomes easy.  It makes the prospect of “hitting the books hard” a pleasurable exercise.

 "If you looked further and talked to the patient…your patient who has been sliced nine ways to Sunday has porphyria…you know the difference between you and me…I learned."

As organizations get adaptive and responsive, they are building a knowledge ecosystem that brings in all players in the ecosystem to collaborate and come up with a solution.  The customer (in this case the patient) is often the one best equipped to provide you with inputs and insight that could lead to innovation and process / product improvement.  Keeping the communication lines open and collaborating with the customer is as much if not a more important aspect of knowledge sharing than any other I can think 

"Good Morning! Once upon a time long before I was chief of surgery, I was a resident…just like you.  You learn from everything in your residency. But you don’t realize how much you learn from each other. Look around…the biggest influences in your life are sitting next to you…in this room"

The one who shares knowledge best, is the one who can tell a story well.  And here, we have Dr. Richard telling a compelling story – and even better – exhorting the doctors to rely on each other, share ideas and collaborate.  The biggest influences in your life, are after all the people you get to see every day, and spend quite a lot of time with.  If you cannot rely on them to enhance your skill and experience, who else will be able to do that.  The most important lesson in knowledge sharing is about getting your team and your colleagues to inspire your victories…and learn from your losses.  This is clearly a message that needs to be driven home strongly in every organization that intends to 

The Hippocratic oath (The declaration of  Geneva)

This aspect of knowledge sharing I see whenever I interact with microfinance and self-help groups.  The self-help groups and joint liability groups develop a strong sense of sisterhood (more than 90% of borrowers are women)! J  And one way they do this is to wear uniforms and take a pledge at every group meeting.  Over time, this helps create a strong sense of identify and also helps in bonding.  While the Doctor’s oath, is slightly different, it sort of reinforces the inherent need to practice their profession with conscience and dignity.   

Watching this episode I got the impression that there were several important lessons one could take away and it touched upon the essence of Knowledge Management.  It also brought to fore the art of storytelling as a key tool of Knowledge sharing. Do you know of any other tele serial from which there were some nice knowledge nuggets you took away?   

Note: Grey’s Anatomy is an American medical drama television series.  You can find more information about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey%27s_Anatomy . This was Episode 15 of Season 6 titled Time Warp.