Building the best system

To leverage the full potential of digital technology it is essential that you hold meaningful conversations with the various parties, interests and customers. It is here where most interventions go wrong. Any change in technology requires an agreement on what needs attention from a wide range of people.

This means having a team-based approach to the design, implementation and evaluation. We need to remember that digital technology should not be an IT project; it must be a business project. As has been discussed, winning the knowledge game is about having a sharp business and customer focus driving the change. As a result you will need to bring together people who have a stake in its success, so that vital decisions and system requirements can be discussed. In larger businesses this will often mean setting up a team of managers, customers, human resources, IT and senior executives. If you are using external services and hosting, they must also be part of the conversation. Partnering is the name of the game. You must ensure that the driving issues are shared collectively and key players are actively involved.

These discussions will require skilful facilitation and senior executive backing. Each party will need to understand the specific constraints and opportunities being considered . Current hot issues will also need to be clearly understood . You will need to build flexibility into your plans by ensuring that you have a new digital platform that can be easily updated with changes in software, networks and bandwidth. This means making sure adequate consultation, user support and integration is organized and carried through.

In some cases expertise will need to be hired or recruited to make the process happen. Again the big danger is that the process is hijacked by a single function, person or vendor and the shared purpose required for committed implementation is lost. Digital technology is too broad and important for that to happen. Business imperative, teamwork and leadership are the name of the game.

Here are ten questions that you may need to spark during these exchanges:

• What is the business challenge?

• What existing technology systems and plans are in place?

• Which capabilities must we develop as a matter of priority?

• What style and type of digital approach do we need?

• What are the learning styles and needs of the people involved?

• What are the benefits to staff, customers and business partners ?

• How open are people to new technology?

• What percentage of your budget is spent on new system development?

• What protocols and ground rules are we going to use?

• What are your system requirements?

As you would expect with so much change in digital technology, keeping a handle on what constitutes a good knowledge-based digital technology system is not easy. However, pooling expertise, building shared understanding and testing assumptions are the precursors to developing a better solution.

The good news is that as standards and protocols improve, so will the flexibility to build a better system. Knowledge management digital platforms already include many capabilities such as:

• access, retrieval and storage of documents

• appropriate security

• communication and collaboration

• competitive intelligence

• content repositories, archives and management

• chat rooms/discussion/file sharing

• course catalogue and on-line registration

• customer relationship management and feedback

• electronic news, content and multimedia feeds

• e-mail and collaborative capabilities

• facilitating and supporting communities of practice

• filtering and upkeep of learning resources

• launching and tracking learning

• new learning and knowledge creation

• integration of business systems and work flow

• mapping tools that help you find the right person/expert/authority

• performance support

• search and retrieval engines.

As has been discussed, expect major changes in how knowledge is being shared. It will be done in a far more entertaining, engaging and immediate way. The whole premise of learning and keeping up to date will have a different look and feel. Watch in the near future how the fields of knowledge management, learning, competitive intelligence, entertainment and customer service will become increasingly merged into a single architecture or platform. For the employee and customer this means immediate access to knowledge that has never been experienced before.

For the record, the current approaches for knowledge management for business could be broadly summarized as a database approach using providers such as Oracle, Sybase and Siebel or a business building an extensive archive of contacts, files and records with a search engine on top of it. Lotus would be an example of a provider who helps in this approach. As was discussed in Chapter 4, people can now download vital files and messages from remote or business premises. In the marketplace there are many commercial and public providers who can help you search and organize your knowledge. If you would like to learn more, visit www.searchtools.com, www.vignette.com and www.broadvision.com to study this emerging field.

Of course, if a system is full of poor archives and content, a wonderful infrastructure will not help you. Remember it is not the glitz that matters but careful planning, consultation and evaluation. As you would expect, the criteria for building good digital systems include not only the common ones of cost and speed, but also issues such as the capacity to present knowledge in a variety of short and meaningful ways.

Now more than ever, digital platforms are helping people shape a different approach to their business and fundamentally change corporate culture and relationships with customers. In a recent case study in the Institutional Banking division of Westpac they described their goal as being for single-desktop users to be able to source all relevant customer details while also detecting who else had been doing similar searches, in this case leading to a higher potential for future co-operation and smarter thinking within their business. Advances in searching, mapping and understanding customer preferences via data mining will also continue to lead to breakthroughs in how customers needs can be addressed as well as providing greater opportunities to discover unnoticed pearls of wisdom. Pfizer Inc., for example, discovered through searching millions of screened compounds in clinical trials that Viagra had interesting side effects which generated a new line of investigation. Viagra was originally the subject of trials to fight angina before being used as a sexual stimulant.

Without doubt, digital technology is having a profound impact on how knowledge is shared, stored and accessed. This new and modern world of cyberspace is one that opens up enormous possibilities for connection, collaboration and teamwork. Gone are the days when a business could rely on its own small network of a trusted few to get things done.