Does Location Matter in KM?

Recently I found an interesting book by an author while researching a little bit more about KM. The book is called "Who's your city?" by Richard Florida and he brings up the point that even though all of the new technologies allowing us to collaborate across continents and telecommute to work, location really is still important to our careers. He even feels that location is more important than ever. I read the first chapter of the book and although it touches on many things beyond just sharing knowledge based on location, I completely agree in feeling that Knowledge Management is becoming increasingly important in our globalized "flat" world. A lot of the articles these days touch on using KM in order to bring employees on different continents closer to each other. It's amazing that technology can make us feel like we are closer than ever and at the same time continue to make us realize how we really are worlds apart. The book brings to light an important theme often lost in the excitement of technology: culture. We talk about organizational culture often, but many people forget about the cultures of the countries/societies we are working in. Since our culture has been given so much more mobility people are now taking advantage of it. Therefore we can even venture to say that where we live tells a lot about our lifestyle and ultimately our values. I believe that companies can benefit by this and are going to start capitalizing on this theory. Some may call it discrimination but isn't it the same as picking someone based on the fact that they fit into the company culture better? Ultimately Richard Florida discusses location as a key factor in creating a "creative class" for an industry and attracting the best of the field to one location. I am interested to find this book to read more....

Richard Florida's Book Website

Flirting with Google and Scaring the Bejesus out of Microsoft

Wow, amazing timing for our class to be finishing up our case analysis on Google. The article Professor Jang sent us is very interesting:

P&G Flirts with Google Apps and Scares the Bejesus out of Microsoft

The only thing that I thought the article didn't address was probably a major factor in P&G's decision: security. Briefly mentioned in my last post about Google, security is a major factor in Google's entry into the Enterprise world. The security features of Gmail just aren't going to cut it for enterprises carrying extremely sensitive data - for example medical records or payroll information. When everything is going to be centered around web-based applications, security better be as excellent as can be. BUT has Google ever made us think their security is not superior to Microsoft? If you think about how secretive Google has been about their PageRank algorithm, we should not be doubting them at all. Through all of the scares of Google becoming a major competitor of Microsoft I do think that we should be happy. Microsoft now has a competitor to give them a run for their money, maybe they will acutally take a que from Google's innovation and instead of following the pack become the leader of the pack again.

A better question to be asking is if Google is going to become the next Microsoft-like bully...

IBM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_x78XLBBVM

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I have been intrigued by IBM's success and by how they have been one of the early adopters of KM. What is even more interesting is how they are so vocal about its importance and their success. Isn't this a competitve advantage they are giving away? I recently attended a recruiting session for IBM and they listed their Web 2.0 KM tools as a large recruiting tool. One of the ways they explained their tools was in relating them to tools open to the general public in order for the company to feel small amongst its thousands of employees:

BlueTube - You Tube
Dogtagging - del.ico.ous
Wiki - Wikipedia
BluePages - Facebook/Yellow Pages

I also found other tools (more on the enterprise level) when researching a little bit about IBM. I guess we can all learn a lot about IBM's success. They have converted well-liked/used tools widely available to the public into internal tools just for their employees and created the largest intranet in the world. IBM has become successfull because they have basically created their own INTERNET! Imagine that? It is apparent that IBM has realized the power of knowledge and have even conquered social issues that our class as encountered (ex confidence in declaring oneself an "expert" in order to publish their knowledge) and has saved approximately 220,000 hours of practitioner time. No wonder they are bouncing back after their brief loss of market share in the 90's. And no wonder our class and practicaly all of the project's presented in class (including my own on CRM) are studying IBM as an example of success. My question now, is what are they concocting next?

Some articles I found interesting about IBM's success:

http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=16907&PageNum=1

http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/thomas.html

Google That

Isn't it amazing to think that Google has become a household word? I mean 10 years ago if you told someone to go "google it," they would think you were crazy. I found that our last case on Google has been the most interesting and the most relevant to us as a class. Undergrads and Grads alike all use Google in their daily lives, making it the first case this semester that is clearly applicable to us and large organizations alike. Here are some of the main things I got out of the case:

- Google became successful initially due to their PageRank algorithm, but what has allowed them to sustain/grow their success is their company culture of commitment to innovation through technology and the upper management's control of business moves

- Google is committed to "Not being evil" something I found very funny, but also is important to ensure people trust their tools (practically only achievable by large prominent companies)

- Google's tools are not only growing out of their core search functionality but also growing into tools that are "useful" to people in leveraging all that the internet has to offer

- Regarding Google's future, they must be able to tap into the portal domain of Yahoo! and the software domain of Microsoft. BUT Google will only truly be able to achieve this by attacking each from a new angle using their innovation techniques as leverage and by gaining support of the Open Source community

- Google also needs to enter the global enterprise market by addressing the security needs that are not met by their free products as well as addressing cultural differences preventing Google from becoming popular

The interesting thing about Google is that because they revolutionized the internet and search relevance, everyone is looking to them to see what they will come up with next. BUT, Google has to tread very lightly. They have the trust of the public now, but this is the same way Microsoft started. Google must continue their innovation without becoming a dominatory bully. If Google can successfully sustain their innovation and creative persona, they will be able to sustain their growth and hopefully continue to revolutionize the internet in order or users to leverage the knowledge available to them. Such an interesting topic for students to be able to personally witness....anyone download Google Chrome yet?

The Integration of KM into Learning

As the semester progresses I have realized how much the KM tools really can improve knowledge sharing. Until this year, I have really skated by without using much KM technology beyond e-mail, instant messenger, my travel blog and facebook. This is my first time participating in any kind collaboration tools. I have never even had to use WebCT for discussion purposes. This semester a lot has changed. 

The first big change came with the use of the discussion function on WebCT. At first I was hesitant, but it is really interesting to see how everyone approaches such comments differently. I also underestimated the power of capturing those comments. It is amazing how much more I get out of these discussions than those in the classroom because everything is documented so well. 

The second big change is the wiki. I have never participated in anything like the wiki for our class either. My technique of studying has always been much like the essence of the wiki, in organizing my tacit and explicit knowledge onto paper (or in this case computer) so that I may better understand the whole. I really like reading how everyone is taking the class differently and again like WebCT, the documentation allows much better reflection on what we have learned. 

The last and probably most significant change is the use of Web 2.0 tools for my own use. This is the first time that I have been involved in project groups that insist on using collaboration tools. I'm not sure if this is due to never having worked with these people before or if the tools are really becoming that more prevalent and useful. One of my groups is using a wiki to communicate and create project documents while another is using a Google Group. I have to say so far, I am liking Google Group better because the functionality for collaboration space seems to be much more useful (Discussion functions, page creation, file uploading, and so on). It is really making our projects better and since finding time when 5 busy people can meet is so hard, this allows us to share our work as we accomplish it online. Turnover between group members has increased tremendously. 

Lastly I just wanted to note something I found very interesting in the presentations on Monday, EVERY single group presenting mentioned IBM. I know IBM is great at what they do but this is the first class I am learning about their great success, I wonder if anyone else is finding this? And if so, why??