Our ability to connect instantly, constantly, and globally is altering the exercise of power with dramatic speed. Governments, corporations, centers of knowledge, and expertise are eroding before the power of the individual. Based on ideas from his recent book, internet pioneer Mele provides insights and ideas for building collaborative organizations using revolutionary technology and more!

World Bank speakers will discuss renewed KM momentum provided by a new World Bank president, including insights into their journey of becoming a “knowledge and solutions bank,” and specific initiatives such as the Knowlympics competition, internal KM benchmarking, social KM and external knowledge platforms. U.S. Army Medicine has learned many lessons and has been creative on its journey to create a new KM division for its 90,000 employee Army organization. They discuss the importance of governance and implementing a full governance structure; The KM “Footprint”— you can’t “do” KM for an entire 90,000-plus organization, so you have to engage those people who will carry the flag for you; managing the team, including mediating between violently opposed philosophies and personalities— type A scientific management types all the way to “kumbaya” collaborative share-a-holics and everyone in between.

Knowledge continuity (retention) is one of the most important assets contributing to employee’s success in work. Knowledge continuity management focuses on passing critical knowledge from exiting experts to their replacements and colleagues, shortening the learning-curve and making knowledge assets accessible when needed. Hear about this practical and structured process, 5–75: preserving 5% of the mapped knowledge which benefits 75% of employees. The process is led by a professional facilitator with a team of experts who are trained to continue the process by themselves. Like other organizations, IAI, is experiencing a large percentage of employees retiring in the current decade. This case study of IAI’s knowledge retention describes the process methodology, demonstrating examples and adding some tips learned within the process.

This session describes two case studies where KM had an impact. The first, IT KM at Boeing, has evolved from a hard-copy format (in 3-ring notebooks!), to a Windows-based knowledge base, followed by an HTML-based unstructured long-form format, and finally to the current model, an article/case-based format. During the past 15 years, Boeing has grown from managing the site locally to an integrated service solution. This increased visibility within the enterprise and led to the development of a Knowledge Standards Board, a Knowledge Governance Model, and a regular report-out to the president of Boeing IT on industry-standard KPIs. Hear about the knowledge mentoring program, internal and external training, process improvement workshops, regular audits across all knowledge collections, and more. The IT KM team is highly collaborative and cross-functional and has evolved over this time into a model of industry standards. Learn their secrets for success! The second KM journey was toward resilience and the challenge of remaining relevant in a complex market. It talks about “doing” KM and developing a KM “solution” for a 8.5K membership organization where knowledge is viewed as a competitive advantage. Hear how, with the help of an expert, they tackled the challenge of connecting, developing, using and embedding competitive know-how through an awarding-winning solution from Switzerland.

McCabe discusses the socially enabled workplace. It developed fast at Unisys thanks to two key factors: a leadership-down adoption model with unprecedented leadership visibility, use and support of the social platform, and the implementation of social collaboration value-case development workshops that demonstrate the value of social collaboration tools and processes at an employee role-level and demonstrate how to effectively leverage these tools in everyday workflows. McCabe illustrates how Unisys practiced a people approach to social collaboration, not technology. 

Wells Fargo has a commitment to assisting their customers to succeed financially, and that focus lends toward constant vigilance on strategic and tactical methods to build efficiency into how we work. As with most large companies, our company is home to a wide variety of networks and communities encompassing a full spectrum of topics and disciplines from diversity to project management to technology and many more. With a global company that employs almost 300,000 team members, communication and collaboration can be challenging. That has led to the natural introduction of social tools and systems to do far more than make Wells Fargo team members be more engaged - it has elevated use of social to become a critical aspect of getting work done. Integration of those tools and systems into the thousands of other software products in use is also a strategic imperative - not just to make use of social seamless, but to lend focus to conversations that have specific ROI.

This session reviews the newly emerging cloud file-sharing and collaboration marketplace. Gain an understanding of the benefits of cloud-based filesharing tools; business scenarios, functional services, and technology services against which these can be evaluated; the current marketplace and its key players; and best practices for selecting the right solution.

This interactive and facilitated discussion begins with two short talks on complementary angles of how new physical workplaces are emerging in response to what digital workers require. Menke talks about connecting people and spaces and how the dramatic shift in the type of furniture OFS Brands sells is due to the spread of the digital workplace. Bradley shares the strategy and practices in bringing information and services to the workforce of AOC.  He shares examples of how physical offices are evolving in the digital era: 80% of the Architect of the Capitol workforce is more likely to carry a hammer, rake, or paintbrush than to click a mouse during the workday. These front-line employees maintain over 17 million square feet of buildings, including icons such as the U.S. Capitol, U.S. Supreme Court, and the Library of Congress. Buildings are spread over 460 acres of land and reach hundreds of feet into the air and below ground into a warren of passageways and utility tunnels. Many don’t have a fixed work location, and if they do, it’s often a workshop, not a desk. Bradley shares the strategy and practices in bringing information and services to the workforce of AOC.

Knowledge societies and knowledge economies thrive in environments where communication is open, collaboration and sharing are encouraged, leadership rather than control is the norm, innovation and ideas flow, and everyone is valued for their potential. Behavioral change is at the heart of any knowledge-friendly environment. To change behavior, we have to change organizational culture—no small challenge. Behavioral change is easier to achieve if we have a positive example on which to model our changed behavior. This session is grounded on the idea that strong role models and positive archetypes of good knowledge behavior are important tools for shifting the culture of knowledge organizations. Based on Patrick Lambe’s 20 archetypes of typical knowledge behavior, this interactive session has the audience work together to describe and label positive archetypes and to learn how to use the results in their organizations.

Does the Apple (iPad) fall far from the Tree (of Knowledge)? Organizations can no longer maintain a workable distinction between knowledge management and professional development if they expect to drive growth in the knowledge economy. Technology is driving change in both the learning and knowledge spheres, and innovation depends on new ways of sharing knowledge, experience, and information. Speakers spark conversation in this interactive session!

Too often, KM professionals do not have a background in quality management, process management, or even project management. Only their ability to “make things happen” is what keeps their influence and KM programs alive. This is what keeps KM from having a seat at the table. Integrating the various KM approaches into the entire toolbox of improvement-speaking organizational improvement language using organizational improvement tools is the way to keep KM relevant. When leadership has already embraced improvement methods other than KM (and most often they will already have), it’s only logical that KM associate itself with those methods and not become a standalone program. How does KM become an equal partner at the table? Through its own mission: collaboration. This facilitated discussion centers around strategies and techniques for making the case and getting support for KM initiatives, technologies, and change in any organization. Bring your stories— the successes and the failures! Guaranteed to provide insights and ideas to try in your organization.