KMWorld 2000: An Exponential Experience

Information Today, Nov, 2000 by Rebecca Jones, Stephen Abram

The knowledge management trend is stronger than ever

The KMWorld 2000 conference (http://www.kmworld.com), held September 13-15 in Santa Clara, California, was praised by many attendees for its quality program, strong production, and coordination. With over 2,900 participants, attendance was up 60 percent over last year, and most everyone, including speakers and exhibitors, was pleased with the event. Interestingly, this was the first KM (knowledge management) conference for 80 percent of the attendees. Although some business analysts are sounding the death knell for KM, describing it as a management trend that's on its way out, the buzz of activity and interest evidenced at this conference proves otherwise.

The key term that was mentioned throughout the conference was "exponential." This was the theme of Curt Carlson's keynote the first day, and it was brought up repeatedly during the next 2 days. Carlson's premise was that exponential growth means that jobs change significantly every 6-12 months. An exponential economy requires exponential improvement processes and an active partnership between organizations and their employees. Interpersonal relationships, respect, and trust are critical, and become magnified in-the communities of this types of economy. "It's funny to talk about people in a technology speech," Carlson joked, but he's seen repeatedly that respect and trust are the keys to change and growth.

KM: It's the People

As so many presenters pointed out, KM is all about change, growth, and people. The track focusing on KM Strategies was packed, and by the afternoon it was being broadcast into a second room. Speaker after speaker emphasized the critical people issues. One of the most popular presenters was Susan Mohrman, of the Center for Effective Organization (CEO) at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business (http://www.marshall.usc.edu/ceo/index .html), who addressed "Organization Design for KM." A survey conducted last year by CEO, with support from executive search agency Korn/Fery (http://www.kornferry.com), identified a number of factors--including time, turnover, and distance--that inhibit KM's progress within organizations. Mohrman began by asking the audience members, "What's the number-one thing lacking in your organizations?" Their answer: time. Mohrman concurred, and said that when people have too much to do, KM activities won't get done. What's more, many employees are unsure of their organization's business direction or the competencies required of them in the future. Uncertainty leads to turnover, with employees taking their knowledge with them.

Compounding the time and turnover dilemmas is the trend in organizations to replace physical work teams with virtual teams. As soon as people are dispersed, Mohrman said, they focus more on their own work than on sharing what they learn or know. Yes, they'll use technology networks, but only when these are within their interpersonal networks. People must be allowed to know each other, in person, before they can effectively work with technology and share their learning and knowledge.

Taxonomies Rule!

Another area that was packed to overflowing and had to be simulcast to extra rooms was the content-management and taxonomy track. Who would have predicted that cataloging, organizing, and indexing internal Web sites and intranets would be the hot topic this year? Nazhin Zarghamee, vice president of marketing and alliances at Documentum, gave an excellent overview of the content management process and focused on the issues that ensure quality and timeliness in an e-business environment. Her talk dovetailed very nicely with that of Ovum, Ltd.'s Alan Pelz-Sharpe, who discussed some of the main content-management solutions and noted which ones most closely approximate an end-to-end solution for organizations. He mentioned such providers as Documentum, Open Text, Vignette, Broadvision, and Interwoven. Pelz-Sharpe's insights into the whole process were particularly timely given several recent mergers, like Broadvision's acquisition of Interleaf this year.

The second afternoon was spent focusing on the specifics of taxonomy creation, maintenance, and design. Speakers such as Wendi Pohs of Lotus Development Corp. and Mike Crandall of Microsoft discussed their large intranets and Web sites and the hybrid development of handcrafted, organizational, and content-specific taxonomies while using the automation tools as required. Claude Vogel, founder and chief technology officer at Semio Corp., spoke about automated taxonomies and the various methods to ensure quality while still dealing with the growing morass of information in a timely manner. Each speaker talked about the role of uncovering hidden insights in content as a key result of a well-managed taxonomy. Many agreed that the market is now ready for international taxonomic standards, perhaps developed and maintained in vertical industry groups.

Overall, the entire track paid close attention to the role of work flow and the information supply chain in creating, moving, and decommissioning content in the electronic environment. Allen Clark, of NCompass Labs, presented a session on user-centric KM in content design. He also offered a cogent argument that the relationship of content to end-users is taking a broader form. The same content that an organization collects and makes available to its employees, partners, prospects, and customers can also be made available from a central repository using similar processes, such as knowledge management, customer relationship management, e-commerce, and channel management.