in this one I think KM has taken a back- seat, and again technology has pushed away and thinks ‘we don’t need knowl- edge management now’. The problem is that knowledge managers often aren’t doing what is needed on this front. They aren’t doing the lessons learned, focus groups, knowledge sharing, the real tac- tile stuff we used to do because of more remote working. No ‘lunch and learn’ or getting people into a room, sharing and communicating. And I don’t think virtualisation and the push on hybrid working is helping with that either.” However, despite the downsides of virtual, he does see the proliferation of online collaborative tools as a big opportunity for KM to demonstrate its value and the value of the human element in technology, connecting the two together.
Opportunity
The pandemic has meant working from home and the implementation of many solutions and the creation of what Hank
September 2021
calls the concept of the ‘hybrid worker’. In most cases though, he thinks the reality is digital chaos: “Workers are fatigued by the multitude of collaborative digital tools suddenly thrown at them. It happened so quickly with no direction or strategy about what tools to use where or when, about the governance, and the policy stuff about behaviour and change manage- ment. That, I think, all comes within the realm of KM and a lot of it has just gone out of the window. Maybe we should have been more forthcoming, saying ‘here, this will make your life easier – if you use this toolset, like this, with these supporting ways of working’.”
The problem of IT implementations clashing with human culture pre-dates Covid, but the pandemic and lockdowns have accelerated and highlighted the reasons why virtual and digital collabo- ration is unlikely to work without KM. “We’ve missed opportunities in the past with collaborative tools. As the likes of Yammer, Teams, and Slack, and the plethora of other collaborative tools
appeared, they should have been part of a KM model but instead they’re managed by IT departments who don’t see KM as adding high value to technology. We lost a huge opportunity there. In some for- ward-thinking organisations these tools and their implementation do come under KM, but in 90 per cent it’s IT.” However, Hank sees the current digital chaos caused by the unmanaged adoption of these tools as an opportunity for KMers to raise their profile in digital transfor- mation. The battle will not be an easy one though: “I think Knowledge Managers should focus on the digital workspace, the collaborative thing. That’s our area: Learning, communities, networks and knowledge bases. But if you ask a digital transformation manager about KM, my guess is that it won’t be on their radar at all. I think that’s a huge gap we need to close. One of the questions out there is about humanising digitalisation and I think that is the role of KM. It’s a fantastic opportunity for KM if we can embrace it urgently and prove our value.” IP
INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 19
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
