Emerging Trends in Knowledge Management

EMERGING TRENDS IN KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ( Enterprise 2.0, Google Wave & Micro messaging ) Knowledge Management Term Paper Submitted by Nikesh. N M.Tech 3rd Semester International School of Information Management UNIVERSITY OF MYSORE November 2009 Contents 1.0 Enterprise 2.0 ....................................................................................................................... 4 1.1 Introduction Enterprise ....................................................................................................... 4 1.2 The Origins of Enterprise 2.0 ............................................................................................. 4 1.3 Communication & Collaboration : The core of E 2.0 (Fertile land for KM) ........................ 5 1.4 Enterprise 1.0 and Enterprise 2.0 : Differences in a Nutshell ............................................... 5 1.5 Pillars of Enterprise 2.0 ...................................................................................................... 5 1.5.1 Web 2.0 ...................................................................................................................... 6 1.5.2 Socialisation of business Applications ......................................................................... 6 1.5.3 Business Cultures ....................................................................................................... 6 1.6 Necessity of Enterprise 2.0 ................................................................................................. 6 1.7 Features of Enterprise 2.0 ................................................................................................... 7 1.8 Benefits of Enterprise 2.0 ................................................................................................... 8 1.9 Enterprise 2.0 in Oracle corporation ................................................................................... 9 1.10 Conclusion : Enterprise 2.0 = Knowledg 2.0? ................................................................... 10 2.0 Google Wave ...................................................................................................................... 11 2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 11 2.2 Google wave layers .......................................................................................................... 11 2.2.1 Product Layer .................................................................................................................. 11 2.2.2 Platform Layer .......................................................................................................... 11 2.2.3 Protocol Layer .......................................................................................................... 11 2.3 How wave technology can assist KM & Enterprise 2.0 ..................................................... 12 2.3.1 Wave: A communication and collaboration mashup ................................................. 12 2.3.3 Enterprise 2.0 is well supported by Google Wave. .................................................... 14 2.4 Conclusion............................................................................................................................. 14 3.0 Micro Messaging ................................................................................................................. 15 3.1 Use of Microblogging in Enterprise ................................................................................... 15 3.1.1 Internal use .............................................................................................................. 15 3.1.2 External use .............................................................................................................. 17 3.2 Key Considerations ........................................................................................................... 18 3.3 Current Players ................................................................................................................ 19 1.0 Enterprise 2.0 1.1 Introduction The term ―Enterprise 2.0‖ (E2.0) describes a collection of organizational and information technology (IT) constructs that enable more flexible work models, knowledge sharing, and community building. E2.0 is not something totally new—rather, it represents the evolution and maturation of best practices for collaboration and knowledge management (KM). Realising the strength of Collaboration and participation, today organizations are re-formulizing their strategies to attain distributed, agile and collaborative environment. 1.2 The Origins of Enterprise 2.0 The spring 2006 edition of MIT Sloan Management Review included an article by Professor Andrew McAfee titled, ―Enterprise 2.0: The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration.‖8 In the article, McAfee posited that a particular collection of technologies was noteworthy because the technologies appeared to address many of the shortcomings of traditional knowledge worker tools used for communication, information sharing, and collaboration. These new technologies (e.g., blogs and wikis) are more platform centric and are widely available on the Internet. McAfee coined the term ―Enterprise 2.0‖ (E2.0) to call attention to social software and platforms that organizations might deploy to improve the productivity or performance of their knowledge workers. McAfee also argues that E2.0 tools make it easier for knowledge workers to author, link, and tag information without imposing preconceived constructs on those users in terms of formal categorization or structure. The notions of ―emergence,‖ freeform use, and network effects are critical underpinnings of the E2.0 paradigm outlined in the MIT Sloan Management Review article. McAfee goes on to state that these new E2.0 tools augment existing communication, information sharing, and collaboration platforms. The article does not focus only on the technology aspects of E2.0. The need to address cultural dynamics is acknowledged, as is the need to alleviate ―walled gardens‖ created in a political or unilateral manner by management (versus valid barriers erected to support security, identity, compliance, and other business requirements). A Refinement In May 2006, McAfee published a modified version of his E2.0 definition. The exact quote is as follows: “Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers. Social software enables people to rendezvous, connect or collaborate through computer-mediated communication and to form online communities. (Wikipedia's definition.)Platforms are digital environments in which contributions and interactions are globally visible and persistent over time‖ Emergent means that the software is freeform, and that it contains mechanisms to let the patterns and structure inherent in people's interactions become visible over time. Freeform means that the software is most or all of the following: • Optional • Free of up-front workflow • Egalitarian, or indifferent to formal organizational identities • Accepting of many types of data 1.3 Communication & Collaboration: The core of E 2.0 (Fertile land for KM) The Gist of Enterprise 2.0 is about communication and Collaboration. The premise is that the more easily people can communicate – with other workers, team members, customers, vendors, clients – the less information will be siloed. When information is free, people can get more feedback and input (collaborate), react more quickly (agility), and make better decisions. This is the opportunity inherent in Enterprise 2.0: a more efficient, productive and intelligent workforce. The following discussions and features depict how Enterprise 2.0 is related with knowledge management. 1.4 Enterprise 1.0 and Enterprise 2.0: Differences in a Nutshell Enterprise 1.0 Enterprise 2.0 Hierarchy Flat Organization Friction Ease of Organization flow Bureaucracy Agility Inflexibility Flexibility IT-driven technology User-driven technology Top down Bottom up Centralized Distributed Teams are in one building/one Time Zone Teams are global Silos and Boundaries Fuzzy boundaries, Open borders Information systems are structured and Information systems are emergent dictated Taxonomies Folksonomies Overly Complex Simple Closed/Proprietary standards Open Scheduled On demand 1.5 Pillars of Enterprise 2.0 The three driving factors of Enterprise 2.0 are 1. Web 2.0 Technologies 2. Socialization of Enterprise Applications 3. Business cultures that enable companies to take full advantage of technology. 1.5.1 Web 2.0 The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications which facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Examples of Web 2.0 include web-based communities, hosted services, web applications, social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies. A Web 2.0 site allows its users to interact with other users or to change website content, in contrast to non-interactive websites where users are limited to the passive viewing of information that is provided to them. The term is closely associated with Tim O'Reilly because of the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but rather to cumulative changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the Web. Social media are now key pieces of the corporate arsenal – from internal communications to marketing plans. 1.5.2 Socialisation of business Applications Web 2.0 is the main facilitator for socialisation of business applications. That is it moves from data-centric models to people-driven applications. Businesses are realizing the value is not in the data itself but in how people are using it. Social applications are meeting this demand – bringing data to the right people, allowing them to interact with it and helping them understand it. The end result is the ability to make better (and faster) decisions – a key differentiator in a challenging economy. 1.5.3 Business Cultures The third key to Enterprise 2.0 – new business cultures –possibly the most important element. By definition, social applications rely on the people using them. Without changing the way corporations and their people behave, it’s impossible to free workers and information and achieve agility and increased productivity. A major obstacle is that Enterprise 2.0 requires management to give up control. It has become unrealistic for corporate communication departments to dictate employees’ every word to customers when communication is happening in real time on blogs, Twitter and forums. Similarly, managers cannot control what employees say on the corporate wiki. But giving employees the freedom to speak their mind and voice ideas is required for there to be a harnessing of collective intelligence. The employees must adapt as well. If they are given the freedom, but do not feel comfortable Participating and collaborating, social applications can never reach their full potential. 1.6 Necessity of Enterprise 2.0 Most new business models are based on mass customization and customer self-service. Organizations routinely outsource activities and collaborate with partners and customers to innovate. Demographics have changed. Customers are very comfortable with technology and are ―always on.‖ Moreover, a new generation of people—one that has never not been connected to the internet—is entering the workforce and moving into management positions. Technologies are open and collaborative in nature; so that end users can combine various tools can by assembling, disassembling and reassembling applications. Across the organization, people want to participate in corporate decisions and prefer to be intensely involved in any form of organizational change. Demographic changes and innovation in business models are highly interconnected. The manager as a digital consumer, the growing importance of information, and the rise of contingent workers are driving businesses to adopt new models. When generated from customers and shared with them, information and instant feedback allows businesses to get the most from their customer relationships. Feedback and information sharing become loyalty instruments, key channels for gathering business intelligence, and new ways for engaging with—rather than simply selling to—the customer. The next-generation enterprise is an extended enterprise, where multiple stakeholders collaborate to deliver results to a shared target audience— the consumers Customers are effectively directing the organization’s processes. They choose which customer contact channel is used at each process step, and they execute those tasks at a convenient time for them Information must not be exclusive to management, but should be seen as a factor of production that provides the glue for a complete and competent performance network. Hierarchical communication of essential business information is no longer effective or efficient. Instead, existing technology should be leveraged to make relevant information available so that all workers who need the information can consume, modify, and replicate it. 1.7 Features of Enterprise 2.0 An Enterprise 2.0 technology strategy combines the different aspects of Web 2.0 capabilities into a secure and comprehensive platform where business conversations and tasks are executed in the context of business goals. The successful Enterprise 2.0 platform is modular in its architecture so companies can add the components, resources, and services that are required as the business evolves and grows. The rich Enterprise 2.0 platform must enable enterprise applications to participate in the business conversation In addition to higher productivity, providing information within its context leads to increased worker participation. That, in turn, generates a richer, improved context for others users to leverage in their work conversations. 1.8 Benefits of Enterprise 2.0 The above figure describes the potential benefits of enterprise 2.0 to an organization. It envisions a bottom up approach where individual worker gets more freedom to express his thought and getting a chance to circulate among his colleagues. A word of appreciation or usage of his content would really encourage him for further collaboration. Areas are wide open and no boundary is fixed on one’s thought. While the chain of command is still relevant for managing people and setting strategic direction, it does not work for optimizing business results and solving problems. The current generation of professionals and managers use social networks within the organization to accomplish tasks and achieve their goals. By their nature, these tools don't involve complex deployment and maintenance. You may be able to install pieces incrementally, starting small with an internal program before opening it up to outside participation. The tools are generally easy enough to use that they require little or no training. Unlike desktop deployments, using the Web to deploy enterprise tools means employees can access their critical data-whether that's documents, RSS feeds, bookmarks or whatever-wherever they are, so long as they have Internet access. Enterprise 2.0 also provides new avenues to open up a conversation with partners, suppliers or customers. Communication flows both ways, enabling you to share information and ideas. With these technologies, you could ask customers for pictures or videos using your products in interesting ways (and thus build brand equity with your customer base). Or you could share information with partners who are working on a project with your company. You can easily start a blog or wiki for a specific product category, enabling a small niche of your market to communicate, a process that would have been much more difficult and expensive using earlier Web tools. Following activities describe how knowledge is captured, stored and disseminated within an organizational setup. Eg: How social software helps in administering a project in an organization a. Collect and prioritize requirements in to wiki b. Post status reports and minutes on the Blog c. Communicate within the team via microblogging d. Remain up to date via RSS Social software facilitates in all domains like process Management, team organization, Documentation, project Management as discussed above, requirement management, platform for posting ideas and innovation etc. Thus sharing knowledge become the side effect of one’s work. 1.9 Enterprise 2.0 in Oracle Corporation Oracle addresses this market need with an Enterprise 2.0 platform that provides the industry’s most complete, open, and manageable portfolio of Web 2.0 and user-interaction capabilities. The platform includes rich Web 2.0 services for communication, collaboration, structured and unstructured information management, and social networking. These Web 2.0 services power Enterprise 2.0-enabled applications that spur knowledge workers to greater productivity and innovation in the workplace. 1.10 Conclusion: Enterprise 2.0 = Knowledge 2.0? Enterprise 2.0 is the perfect environment where Knowledge Management system can run smoothly. With Enterprise 2.0 much of knowledge capture happens as a by product of using transparent searchable tools for common workflow and collaboration tasks. These tools enable employees to give and take information and the flexibility of the tool allows for very dynamic usage. So it can be say that Enterprise 2.0 strategy is a twin brother of KM strategy or Enterprise 2.0= Knowledge 2.0.