January 31, 2025 • 55 mins
Join us for an enlightening conversation with Edwin Morris, the trailblazing founder of Pioneer Knowledge Services, the first U.S. non-profit dedicated to advancing knowledge management among other non-profits.
Edward and I discuss the essential role of knowledge management in nonprofits, highlighting how it can enhance organizational effectiveness and innovation. Edwin Morris shares insights on his journey into the field, the significance of personal awareness, and the human connection in knowledge sharing.
Our discussion covers among other things:
• Knowledge management explained through personal empowerment
• Importance of communication and trust-building in knowledge sharing
• Insights from military applications of knowledge management
• Value of knowledge management for nonprofit organizations
• Strategies for integrating KM into nonprofit practices
• The need for continuous improvement and innovation in organizations
• Recommendations for fostering a knowledge-centric culture
• Podcasting as an effective knowledge transfer mechanism within organizations
...For What it's Worth
Because You Need to Know Blog Post
The music for this episode, Derelict, is performed by our current artist in residence, #TracyJones from his album #LuckyTime
You can find out more about Tracy by visiting the Blog Post for his episode
From those who know to those who need to know
Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE
Workplace Innovation Network for Canada
Every Graduate is Innovation-Enabled; Every Employee can Contribute to Innovation
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
review us on Podchaser
Show website - https://fwiw.buzzsprout.com
Follow us on:
Show Blog
Face Book
Instagram:
Support us
Email us: fwiw.thepodcast@gmail.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Well, happy New Year and welcome to this week's
episode of For what it's Worth.
I'm your host, blake Melnick,and this is the next installment
in our series, the Many Facesof Innovation.
My guest this week is thefounder of Pioneer Knowledge
Services, the first and onlynot-for-profit knowledge
management firm in the UnitedStates that caters specifically
(00:32):
to the needs of othernot-for-profit organizations.
Please meet my guest, edwinMorris.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hi everyone, I'm Edwin K Morris and I live in
Wicky Watchie, florida.
Hi everyone, I'm Edwin.
K Morse and I live in WickyWatchy, florida, and the
interesting thing around where Ilive is the actual Wicky Watchy
Springs, which is home of theonly place on the planet where
they have live mermaids.
So there's shows there and it'spretty cool and we are about
(01:05):
three miles from the WickyWatchy Springs.
I absolutely love working inthe field of making things
better because part of mymechanism is around identifying
and just seeing things thatcould be improved and, to my
wife's chagrin, I vocalize a lotof it and she's a very patient
woman.
So that's my love.
(01:27):
I love transforming and makingthings better, and that comes
from an old infantry mantraabout making it better for the
next guy.
You have to improve your spacebecause you may not be there
long and somebody else will be,so that's the intent.
Most fantastic job experiencewas probably doing what I'm
(01:50):
doing right now.
I founded a non-profit and Iabsolutely love doing this.
It's a whitewater opportunitybecause nobody else was doing
knowledge management and being acharity in the same breath.
So the last book I read wasThin Air, which is a sci-fi
novel by Richard K Morgan.
I got into Richard K Morganjust recently because another
(02:15):
book of his was made into asci-fi show that I absolutely
loved called Altered Carbon.
The stuff they present in thisfilm and I'm sure the book is so
out there it's so mind-bendingand that, to me, is a key
ingredient to finding out whatthe next is.
You've got to be followingalong these imaginary things
(02:37):
that somebody has figured out intheir mind anyway, and it may
not be applicable yet, but atleast it starts people thinking
of the future and what couldactually be Knowledge management
, organizational structures,leadership those are all things
that I am passionate and have along history with, and I'm
thrilled to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It's great to have you, and it's always nice to
speak with a fellow knowledgemanagement practitioner and
somebody that's as passionateabout it as I am, and so we are
going to talk a lot aboutknowledge management, and we're
going to talk about yourorganization, pioneer Knowledge
Services, but before we do, Ijust wanted to give you a shout
out for your approach to doingguest introductions.
(03:17):
I've basically thrown it backto you the same approach that
you used with me when I was aguest on your show, and I love
it, because it allows yourguests to really talk about the
things that are important tothem, that they're passionate
about, but also to representthemselves in the way they would
like to be represented.
Yes, so thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I'll send you a bill, Okay fair enough.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I don't have to do this on every episode, do I?
I'll put it in the show notes.
Well, listen, we've both beeninvolved in the field of KM for
many years and we both know thepractice is not new.
We talked about this in myinterview and gained real
prominence in the 1940s with thework of Deming, joseph Jernan
and Armand Fagenbaum.
(04:01):
And yet people still have ahard time getting their head
around knowledge management as adiscipline.
In many respects, knowledgemanagement is a siloed
discipline.
It's well known in certainindustries, particularly mission
critical industries militarymining, oil and gas, any kind of
(04:22):
extractive business, anybusiness where there is a high
risk for loss of life,impairment of critical assets.
But outside of those missioncritical industries and perhaps
outside professional serviceindustries like KPMG and
Deloitte, who all have KMpractices, it's still relatively
unknown and I still find thatpeople believe it's a fad.
(04:44):
It's the latest business fadand in all of the time you've
been practicing knowledgemanagement, I still have people
coming up to me, people I'veknown for a long time, saying
Blake, I really don't understandwhat it is you do, and I've
tried to explain it in thesimplest of forms using basic
analogies.
If I share what I know with youand you share with what you
know with me.
(05:05):
We're both more knowledgeable.
Things as simple as that tomore complex definitions, using
examples from industries inwhich I've worked, and still
it's hard for people to gettheir head around the whole idea
.
There's a practice calledknowledge management and it has
value.
How do we get that idea acrossin a simple way?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
It's as complex as you would like it to be.
The definition is hingent uponthe organization that's defining
it for.
So that's the first thing.
So you cannot really have auniversal KM is blank, because
organizations will value thingsdifferently.
If we talk physical assetsbuildings, money, those tangible
(05:51):
assets it's easier to have acommon language and a common
operating system aroundsomething that's tangible.
This isn't intangible, itreally is, and so defining it
for me is more of a personalawareness of personal leadership
(06:12):
, personal value, alignment withthe organization, and on high,
the definition could be you will, you shall, you do these things
.
Behaviors.
We're talking behaviors thatadd value to creating, storing,
(06:33):
making available all the partsand pieces of where knowledge
can apply itself in the personalnetwork.
So the easy answer is knowledge, is knowledge management.
So if you really want to getfined, go look up the word
knowledge and start there,because now we can start talking
wisdom and all these otherthings that are around this
(06:56):
whole swirl of activity.
So knowledge management is theability of a person and or an
organization to create andextract value from
organizational or personalknowledge.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, and that's great, and I'm glad you
mentioned the individual too.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Now for those listening, if you're just fresh
into the concept of KM knowledgemanagement, there's three main
hubs people, process andtechnology.
There's three main hubs people,process and technology.
A lot of the organizations outthere think technology first,
process second, people, last ornever.
I think the hinge point ofsuccess of those KM programs
(07:37):
that have been around and havebeen successful is that it's
people-oriented.
There are behaviors like propercommunication, building trust,
all those things that are feederitems to a good knowledge
sharing culture.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Right.
I want to ask this questionslightly differently.
So you're at a cocktail partyand somebody comes up to you and
says Edwin, nice to meet you.
What do you do?
What's your answer?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I would say I work in a field of learning because
really it's about learning,continual learning, and the
other side of that iscontinually asking questions.
So this all goes back to yourfocus on innovation.
So you've got to have elementsin an organization of
(08:26):
communicating building structure.
So, to answer your question, Iwould say learning and I would
expound on that and I'd wait forthem to ask questions.
So instead of me, you know.
Oh, I agree.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yes, I've done that.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah right, I like to do little tidbits and let them
draw it out, because if they'renot interested, why should I
tell them?
So I make them work for it alittle bit.
I will say back when I startedthis nonprofit, one of the early
folks that helped me inconversation trying to think
about this, she was working on adoctoral degree in Chinese
(09:03):
language.
But the more I told her aboutwhat all this was and I would
get very passionate and bubbly,she said you know, this sounds
like in a Buddhist philosophy,ascension.
It's getting to that point ofawareness and understanding.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
My roots in knowledge management came from the
learning sciences, fromunderstanding how people learn
human cognition.
How do people advance their ownknowledge, how do they acquire
knowledge, how do they transferknowledge and how do they
eventually build their knowledgeso that new knowledge is
created?
That was the root of myeducation and early training,
but I still struggle with itbecause people want an elevator
(09:43):
pitch, and the one that I use isI'm really all about helping
organization make sure thatknowledge flows from those who
know to those who need to knowto support their business
decisions and their outcomes forindividuals and for the
organization, and that's thesimple kind of elevator pitch,
but it still doesn't seem tosatisfy people.
People do understand theconcept of knowledge.
People recognize that we go touniversity, we go to school, to
(10:06):
become more knowledgeable,better educated.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I'll give you both ends of the spectrum.
Recent podcast guests and, ofcourse, I asked this question
also what is knowledgemanagement?
And she says it's this simpleit's a little book, a notebook,
and you want to store someone'saddress in it, so you pull out
the tab that has that initial oftheir last name and you write
(10:33):
in the name and then you writein the address and other points
of interest that you want tohave on the ready so you know
where it is and you can retrieveit easily.
And it was like you know whatthat's it.
That's a lot of it, becausepeople think that databases and
information management andthings like that are knowledge
(10:53):
management and it's not thewhole story.
One of the things I want to goback to is when you talked about
where the birthplace was.
For me it was Peter Drucker In1956, peter Drucker.
For me it was Peter Drucker In1956,.
Peter Drucker, who was anorganizational guy he started
with the term knowledge workerin 1956.
So there was already theseforward thinkers that were
thinking there's more to thisthan just an assembly line or
(11:16):
just making widgets.
There's a lot of pieces to it.
And on the other side of theexample of the old notebook for
your phone contact informationlike who has Rolodexes anymore?
I got to tell you I thought Iwas smart when I got thinking
you know what, instead ofwriting all that junk on a
Rolodex, I would just staple thebusiness card in the role I'm
(11:38):
like boom boy.
I just maximize that.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I did the same thing too.
Yeah Right.
And I was like, wow, I'mprogressive here, look at me.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But the other side of that is it was easier for me to
tell people when they would askabout KM.
I would tell them all the painpoints I said here.
Let me give you some examplesof things that aren't knowledge
management or good knowledgemanagement, knowledge management
or good knowledge management.
And once you start rattling offthree or four organizational or
professional type of painpoints that most people have run
(12:11):
across, they're like, oh, youcould fix that.
Well, we could work towardsthat.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right.
I loved in your introductionthat you talked about this
notion of continuous improvementand always looking at something
with an eye to seeing how itcould be made better.
I'm certainly the same way aswell.
Whenever I do anything,whenever I see it, I think, boy,
that's great, but I bet you itcould be better if we tried this
or added this to it.
That is the same mindset forinnovation, by the way.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
And I'll ask you this you're not walking into a room
and counting ceiling tiles, butyou walk into a place and you're
like why do they have that over?
That should be over there.
And you just that to me.
I've done it more than once.
My wife's like don't tell them,don't come on, don't just leave
them alone.
They're there and I'm like comeon.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
They're probably just waiting for my great goodness.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It's almost like I can't make it stop.
I can't just, you know, so I'dlike to hear your side of that.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
I'm the same way I do with my own work whenever I
finish something, I go I reallydon't like this and I go back
and I constantly revise my work,even stuff that I've written 10
years ago.
I go back and revise that andupdate that Because, of course,
as you learn more, you realize,boy, those things that you said,
the things you wrote about,were either naive or underformed
(13:24):
.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
And you got to go back and fix them.
When you said that, I was likewell, don't let perfection be
the enemy of the good.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Right, right yeah, or an enemy of done yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Because there's a point where I get get things
about 80% and I'm like goodenough, just get it out the door
, let's go, cause it's going tochange anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
So, and that's what the research shows, I had a
guest on the show a couple ofweeks ago who was talking just
very much about that around inthe context of learning is what
you want is to try to get yourstudents at that 80 to 85% level
, and of course it's in businesstoo.
85% is kind of optimalproductivity.
When you say 100%, then itstarts to enter the realm of
(14:03):
diminishing return, where all ofa sudden you miss stuff and
you're trying to manage too manythings at the same time and the
quality of the work suffers.
So that 85% rule is a good one.
I'm that way.
When I initially launchsomething, it's usually
afterwards, when I go back andit's more a personal thing, and
I say, if I'm going to hand outthis article again, I'm going to
change this.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Because you've changed right, Right your
perspective and you are not atthat spot in time on the planet
when that was created andeverything in your brain has a
bit of different perspective now.
Maybe you got a better night'ssleep, All those things that are
factors of cognition.
And yeah, it's easy to startspotting.
(14:43):
I was like, wow, I turned thatin.
It's like what the hell?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Much of the research around innovation and knowledge
building behavior cognitivebehavior suggests that people
that advance knowledge arecontinually going back to old
knowledge and revising it andimproving it and advancing it,
much the same way as a companylike Google does.
They have a knowledge bank.
So people that have really goodideas for which there's no
(15:07):
context yet within the company,there's no product, there's no
service or the company's justnot ready to move in that
direction.
They have a place to keep thoseideas because they've
recognized that sometimes greatideas and great thought die not
because they're not good, butbecause there's no context for
them yet.
And if you somehow can collectthose and keep them, you can go
(15:27):
back to those ideas and movethem forward into time.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, that's a brilliant concept because you're
not kidding.
People will come up with stuffall the time, and if it doesn't
fit, there are people like, oh,what the hell is that?
That's smart thinking.
Holy cow, I did not know that.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Smart as long as you've got a way to tag those
ideas to make them retrievable.
It's not unlike the after actionreview process, right, because
you're documented somethingthat's happened and then you're
actually moving that knowledgeforward in the context of a
military operation, which I knowyou're familiar with.
But you're moving thatinformation forward to the next
(16:04):
team that's going to take on asimilar assignment.
To take on a similar assignment, to take what you've learned
and then advance and improveupon it in the next stage of the
missions.
There are organizations that dothis, naturally, but a number
of companies I've been workingwith recently do this on a very
formal basis.
So they have an idea bank or anidea hopper to collect these
ideas, but of it requires adegree of curation and somebody
(16:27):
has to be aware that it's there,somebody in charge of it.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I just noticed, within the last year, teams
added that in or I noticed itwithin the last year the idea
bank, the idea collector.
So I think there's a brilliancein that.
I want to go back as we havedefined knowledge management.
You know, one of the greatresources for KM, I think, is
IBM, so I draw upon IBM'smaterial often.
(16:50):
So I want to share what IBMdefines knowledge workers,
because I think if you can tellpeople what to look for in the
work, maybe they would get theKM in total a little easier.
So knowledge workers are anessential part of the evolving
digital workplace.
You can find them playing therole of a department lead with
(17:12):
extensive institutionalknowledge, or acting as a
subject matter expert called outto be a consultant on a
specific challenge.
But the definition is a worker.
A knowledge worker is aprofessional who generates value
for the organization with theirexpertise, critical thinking
and interpersonal skills.
I wanted to say that becausethat's the first time I've read
(17:36):
that or seen that where they'rebringing in the person
communication skills.
Being able to collaborate meansmore than just communicating.
It is more of an ability to besocial.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, sure, informal knowledge exchange and knowledge
sharing happens because you'resocial.
In the early days of knowledgemanagement, space or place was
very important.
Organizations would build thesespaces for informal knowledge
sharing, places where employeeswould want to go and work and
they would join other employeesfrom different departments and
they would hang out.
It could be a cafeteria.
(18:10):
Canada Life had this sort ofliving environment in their
building, a living wall rich inoxygen, so it kept you awake and
they'd encourage theiremployees to go down there and
work and have meetings downthere and other people would
overhear what they're talkingabout and that kind of thing.
That was very big in the 90s andthen it sort of went away and
now it's coming back again.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
It's the same in home building.
You went from little rooms andthen open space.
Is the concept now so same inthe work environment?
I can remember quite a fewtimes being a contractor for the
US Army when I got out and it'scubicle farm, it's just cubes.
Nobody talked over the cubesmuch because it was like a
(18:50):
library or an old library whereno talking.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
You know A lot of organizations or people that
have a background inorganizational development.
Knowledge management will lookaround a space, a facility and
see where people arecongregating to have
conversations the old watercooler analogy.
I did this.
We noticed that engineers wouldcongregate in certain parts of
the hallway and so we said well,I wonder what if we put up
(19:14):
whiteboards so that whilethey're talking they can sketch
out ideas, and what if wereplace those with digital
whiteboards so they could takepictures of the things that they
were drawing on the board?
It's really knowledgemanagement by design.
You have to spend time withinthe organization to figure out
where people are actuallysharing knowledge informally and
then try to create those spacesor help enhance those spaces so
(19:38):
that it happens more often andthat it becomes a place where
you can start to identify someof that knowledge that's within
the organization.
It does take a fair bit ofskill to do that.
I want to jump over to talkabout you specifically.
You're a veteran of the USmilitary I'm not sure what
branch Army Army and you had twotours of duty in Iraq and that
(19:59):
must have been a life-alteringexperience.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
And then you became a trainer and a lessons learned
knowledge leader and a knowledgelead for various government
contractors.
How did you find your way intoknowledge management during your
military service?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
How did that all happen?
I was working as a fairly highexecutive, as a contractor for a
new directorate at the IntelSchool, the US Army's
intelligence school, which is inFort Huachuca, arizona, and I
was working for a directoratethat was building distance
(20:35):
learning products.
So I was in constant contactwith our chief knowledge officer
for the post, for the two-starlevel, and the IT guy, the S6
guy, g6, the US Army.
In 2006, timeframe had startedto formally adopt knowledge
(20:55):
management and so in that the USArmy was starting to bring guys
out to do training, to docertification training, and I
had opportunity to becomecertified through Dr Dan at KM
Pro out of DC.
He came out for a week and Iwent through the training and it
just lit me on fire.
(21:16):
I'd never heard of knowledgemanagement until then not
formally, but taking that coursewith Dr Dan just lit gas fire
underneath me like you couldn'tbelieve.
I felt like I found home, as inour earlier discussion about
being that guy, that's like ifyou did this or you made that,
did that, making things better,and that's really the essence of
(21:38):
what Dr Dan said is that you dothat for an organization.
So as soon as I was certifiedin that my first thing was to
find a master's degree in it.
At that point, there was onlytwo colleges that I found in the
US that were offering onlinelearning and knowledge
management, so I ended up atKent State University.
(22:00):
In their informationarchitecture and knowledge
management masters of science, Iwas building stuff for school
that were actual products forwork, and it was just like this
whole confluence of energy andthe creativity and learning and
purpose and everything all cametogether Well.
Out of all that, I ended upbreaking my back in 2012, so I
(22:23):
left contracting and I wasthinking how can I make life
better on a societal level?
And that's when I decided tocreate a nonprofit that did
knowledge management fornonprofits.
There was a John F Kennedyquote or at least he was cited
(22:43):
as the source that said a risingtide lifts all boats, and I use
that framework because if Icould help those that are
underpinning a factor of societysomebody that's giving shoes to
kids or some, what are allthese non-profits out there
filling gaps?
(23:03):
of just humanity, and if I canhelp them do things better,
cheaper, faster, everybody wins.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
What value do you think knowledge management has
for the not-for-profit sector?
What do you think you can dofor them?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I would say for those in a non-profit world, they
should perk their ears up.
When you're dealing with abunch of volunteers, you have
great opportunity to tap intothat tacit knowledge if you had
the tool set in order to do that.
Now, most organizationsprobably have a pretty regular
(23:37):
turnover in their volunteer basePeople come, people go, people
come, people go.
So where's that continuity ofknowledge for the organization
in that pool?
So that's the first thing Iwould focus on, and then just
reducing friction.
If you can reduce friction,that means there's less heat,
(23:59):
and if there's less heat thatmeans you need less lubricant.
So if you translate that to abusiness operation, if you can
reduce waste and redundancy andsharing of knowledge is shined
upon and promoted and actuallysupported, then those pain
(24:20):
points, those frictions thatcome around, all those pieces
can be reduced and hopefullynullified, therefore saving the
organization money Right and asa not-for-profit, money is hard
to come by initially.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
anyway, a lot of not-for-profits depend on
volunteers and they volunteerbecause they believe they have
something to give, ie they havesome knowledge that's worth
sharing that they believe willhelp further the goals and
aspirations.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Or they're just aligned in the values.
You know, I believe in this.
I believe in what they're doing.
Why I decided on this was Ifelt there was value if I could
be a partner in the process orthe project.
In the process or the projectMeaning I could also be part of
the collaboration in the way wecould get grants or solicit
(25:11):
money as two nonprofits workingtogether to get something done,
and for-profit doesn't have thatopportunity.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
You're right.
It certainly does give youaccess to grants, and government
tends to want to give money tonot-for-profits as opposed to
for-profits.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
The interesting thing was.
So I was in the degree at KentState and the idea started
percolating about doing this.
So after graduation I hadalready been exposed to the
world of KM and some high-levelfolks and I wrote a paragraph of
this idea and I sent it to thetop four of those echelons that
(25:44):
I knew of and I was inconversation with and I said hey
, what do you think about thisidea?
And they all said nobody'sdoing that, nobody's done that,
nobody's doing it.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I was like perfect, Then I'll do it.
It's interesting.
You mention your time at KentState.
I advised on the start of thatprogram at Kent State.
I attended a symposium there Ithink it was around 2013.
And the woman that was headingup the program, Denise Bedford,
called and said will you comedown and speak at this event?
Because we're trying to startthis program here at Kent State?
(26:15):
And as I was driving down toKent State, what was playing on
the radio For what it's Worth?
And, as you know, this ended upbeing the name of our podcast.
So it's great to hear that youwent through that program and
that you found it of value.
So I've got a better sense nowof Pioneer Knowledge Services,
why you started it and why youwent the not-for-profit route,
(26:36):
and I really like your thinkingbecause I think you're right.
I think not-for-profits canreally benefit from knowledge
management.
They have to run lean, theyhave to be efficient and they
have to be effective.
When I say effective, thedifference between
organizational efficiency andeffectiveness is effectiveness
involves people.
So let's talk about the podcast.
So you have two podcast serieson the go.
(26:56):
One is Because you Need to Knowand the other is KM Lobby.
So tell me about what you'rethinking was around developing
those two series in the contextof Pioneer Knowledge Services
and addressing the needs ofnot-for-profits.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
I had been in year four or five of Pioneer
Knowledge Services and my wifeat the time said you should be
doing a podcast.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I'm like I don't know jack about podcasting.
I don't know nothing about that.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
She's like I think you should.
She and I both shared a radioand television production
background back in college, soshe knew that I had experience
doing broadcast, not podcast,but anyway.
So that's what initiated theconcept.
The end state of why is that?
(27:45):
We wanted to have people on theshow that were either
nonprofit-oriented orexperienced, and or knowledge
management.
That's, our two types of guestsfor the most part.
I've leaned in the last coupleof years to entrepreneurs people
that are building things,people that are seeing issues
and creating solutions.
So I've had some entrepreneurson just because I'm an
(28:08):
entrepreneur and I think ittakes a brave person to try
doing something that's neverbeen done.
So I like shining a light onthat.
So that was the idea and thenit grew.
So it grew in a coupledifferent ways.
So in the early years of being anonprofit I had a hard time one
learning how nonprofits work.
Never been behind the wall of anonprofit, I had no idea.
(28:30):
Grants, all that stuff, no idea.
So it's been a long process tolearn all those things.
And that when I would go incold, call on a nonprofit to say
, hey, we're here to help, andit all boiled down to give me a
list of the things you can doand how much it costs.
So my initial thought to how Iwas going to apply myself to a
(28:55):
nonprofit would be holistic,enterprise level.
I would have to come in andreally do an analysis of what's
going on.
So my intent was I'm going togo look under the hood, talk to
the people, see what theculture's like and if I felt
that there was going to begoodness from this effort, then
we could go forward.
But I never got that far.
(29:17):
I could never get through thedoor, I could not talk correctly
to an actionable sale, so thepodcast ended up being the thing
that I could do.
Alright, so I can do this.
And so the intent was at leastI'm talking to non-profiteers
(29:37):
and sharing knowledge andexperience from all these people
.
So that will be something thatwe can do, that as we continue
to try to understand the marketand how we can help.
So, going back to the litany ofoh, where's your cost sheet?
And I'm like well, it dependson what you need.
I can't just come up a list ofthings.
It's not like I'm buildingwebsites and so I could never
(30:02):
get there.
Well, out of the efforts of thepodcast, that became a revenue
generation for the nonprofit,because we started podcasting as
a service.
I had an organization, anational company, reach out to
me to say, hey, we've trieddoing our own podcast and we
stink at it.
Can you be our guy?
And I'm like sure.
(30:22):
So that ended up being athree-year hitch that generated
a fair enough revenue and allthe money went in the coffers of
the organization.
So maybe this podcasting thingcould be a thing Fast forward to
just this year and one of myguests was the European Space
Agency's lessons learned guy acouple years ago.
(30:42):
He reaches out to me early thisyear and says look, I'm going to
be part of the 24th EuropeanConference on Knowledge
Management happening in Portugaland you need to submit a paper,
an academic paper, on whatyou're doing with podcasting.
I'm like really, oh yeah, so wedid and we got our first
academic paper published.
(31:03):
But it fine-tuned the conceptof podcasting to the point where
now we're talking about a intraorganization within an
organization, building aknowledge cultural expansion of
the people via podcast.
The main crux of the paper isthis that if you have a good
(31:26):
protagonist, if you have a goodcan opener to tacit knowledge
which means a very good listener, a very good questioner which
means a very good listener, avery good questioner, somebody
that can converse you couldbuild a new knowledge exchange
with an organization behind thewall.
That is just for theorganization that brings out all
(31:46):
this tacit knowledge and makesit a shareable item.
But we want to take that onestep further.
We want to fine-tune it to makeit more of an actionable
business intelligence tool.
That the first stage is theconversation.
Second stage editing, making itsound good.
The third stage now is thebusiness intelligence view
that's going to pull out chunksand push it to the parts of the
(32:07):
organization that need it orcould really use it.
So we're not telling them oh,go listen to this 20-minute
podcast.
No, we're going to slice anddice intelligent pieces and make
them actionable.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, I love that and in fact our motivation for
starting for what it's worth wasquite similar.
Two of my biggest pet peevesthat I have over the years of
practicing knowledge managementis number one the ludicrous
practice within manyorganizations of using exit
interviews as an effectiveknowledge capture mechanism for
employees leaving theorganization.
(32:41):
Firstly, it's a typical HR tooland the resulting knowledge
rarely finds its way intooperations or standard operating
procedures.
Secondly, to expect anymeaningful knowledge exchange to
occur in a 45 to 60 minute Q&Ainterview with the employee, who
may have been with theorganization for 25 plus years,
(33:01):
is limited by the questionsbeing asked, the knowledge of
the employee's specific job andskill set and the skill of the
interviewer.
And finally, the wholeexperience lacks context.
One of the things I've learnedin my career is that tacit
knowledge emerges in context, inother words, well-doing.
Asking somebody what they knowabout something specific rarely
(33:23):
taps into this deeper knowledge,because it's hard for people to
articulate what they know andthe question may not enable them
to tell you what they know.
The second pet peeve I haverelates to the onboarding of new
employees.
Organizations do very little tounderstand, capture and
disseminate the knowledge cominginto the organization, and it's
(33:46):
important on so many levels.
Right, it helps avoidjust-in-time hiring for skills
and competencies which alreadyexist within the organization
for skills and competencieswhich already exist within the
organization.
It improves employee retentionand satisfaction rates by
recognizing the value of theincoming employee's skills,
knowledge, experience andpassions.
And, finally, it helps theorganization develop a
(34:07):
meaningful career path for theemployee that builds onto these
experiences.
Podcasts allow employees todrive the narrative through the
stories of their job experiencesand, secondly, if the
organization has their ownpodcast channel or uses a
third-party service provider,they can easily both push the
knowledge throughout theorganization and also allow
(34:29):
employees the ability to easilyfind this content when and as
needed.
Employs the ability to easilyfind this content when and as
needed and it starts to builddigestible institutional memory.
It fosters relationships andjust-in-time, fluid mentoring
opportunities between employees.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I'm not letting them tell their story.
They're used to telling theirstory.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
I'm flipping that and digging into stuff they're not
used to saying.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Thinking about.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, yeah, right, becauseyou're going to get the high
gloss.
Not much meat on the bone, soto speak.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
But you mentioned that is the art of questioning.
You can start with the storyand then take them in a new
direction.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
And here it goes back to the fill in the blank
concept, and you said it thingsthat are important to them.
Because if you can get themjacked up at the beginning
talking about something thatgets them juiced up, then the
conversation's easy.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Then, yeah you're right, it's a great practice.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I want to throw in one last definition, ibm's
knowledge management definition,because you can never hear
enough definitions for KM.
But this is a good simple one.
Okay.
Knowledge management is theprocess of identifying,
organizing, storing anddisseminating information within
an organization.
I don't think I would have usedinformation in that context,
(35:46):
but that's what IBM says.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Well, again there's another tension, because there
is a difference betweeninformation and knowledge, and I
would always explain to mystudents and to people in
organizations look, if I tellyou what I know, it's knowledge
to me.
And it's knowledge to mebecause I've done it, I've
applied it, I've engaged with it, I've tested it.
I know it.
But what I'm telling you isbeing transferred into
(36:11):
information Until such a timewhere you engage with that,
where you try it, where youembed it in your practice, then
it becomes knowledge, and soit's one of those things that
make knowledge managementnebulous.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I think an organization can hang their hat
on a KM program and orphilosophy, and I'll say that
for those listeners that are notaware, a lot of KM projects
I'll say in some organizationswill get taken up, make great
gains and then that one personthat led the charge leaves or
(36:43):
passes or whatever, rightexactly.
Then everything dies on a vinebecause there's nobody there to
do it.
That's a failed execution.
So if you're looking at a KMprogram, at least invest enough
to make it successful.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
That's a great segue, because I did want to ask you
about something.
So there's a lot of pundits outthere and I've spoken to many
of them over the years who willsay that KM has failed.
It's a failed practice, Do youagree?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
It can be a failed, it can be successful.
I would say in the world it isnot a failed.
It may be failed in parts ofthe US, but in the world there's
too much evidence going theother way.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
I think what they're saying is that, in terms of how
organizations are embracingknowledge management as a value
within the organization, as apart of their culture, it has
failed.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yeah, I don't see many that have it as woven into
the culture and vibrancy of anorganization.
That is true Not that I've donea poll, but I think it's got a
strong pulse.
Km as an organizational benefithas a strong pulse.
I think the biggest black eyethat KM has and I asked this in
(38:02):
Portugal why is there not acenter in the US that is all
about KM?
Why is there not an actualuniversity that is doing KM?
When I taught at Kent State, Itaught the graduate program
there as an actual universitythat is doing KM.
When I taught at Kent State, Itaught the graduate program
there as an adjunct I identifiedthat there's nobody in the
(38:22):
university.
In Kent State University,there's nobody doing KM.
There's not a function, there'snot even a talk about it.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
And I'm like so you're teaching and you have a
degree in it, but you don't evendo it.
So I think there's this lack ofseriousness in organizations to
commit to something that'sgoing to require some behavior
change.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
I would agree.
In Canada there are no doctoralprograms in knowledge
management.
There's not really any master'slevel programs that I'm aware
of either.
There are programs ininformation sciences which tend
to be a feeder to the librarysciences, and this has always
been a bit perplexing for me,especially given the strong
presence of professional servicefirms like Deloitte, kpmg, pwc,
(39:06):
etc.
These firms have very robustknowledge management practices
and have for years, and I wouldargue that knowledge is actually
their commodity.
You hire these firms because oftheir depth of knowledge and
expertise and as a client,you're buying their knowledge.
So KM as an embedded set ofpractices makes infinite sense.
(39:26):
However, at least to the bestof my knowledge, these firms are
not selling KM as a service totheir clients.
Rather, they're applying KMmethodologies internally to
increase the capability of theirconsultants and to drive
consistency across service areasof the organization.
For example, if consultants aremore knowledgeable, they're
(39:48):
able to win more business,therefore more lucrative Right,
exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
It just feeds itself, you know.
Going back to the educationpiece, as you were speaking and
I reflected on what I said aboutthe programs, or lack thereof.
You know, back when you came tokent state, I was at that
conference I think we talked,then I feel we did.
I'm sure we did, but we hadenvisioned it becoming a
societal element.
(40:14):
The knowledge managementeducation forum was really
looking at how do we best bringthis to the people.
Is it formal education?
Is it just clubs andorganizational structures just
using it?
But it all lost steam afterthree years of trying to build
that all out.
People just went to the sideand it kind of died on the vine.
(40:37):
But the intent was there to tryto figure out how to make it
work.
So, as you were speaking, Ireflected back to what I said
about the lack of education andI'm starting to wonder, just
thinking about all the folksthat I've had on my show, and I
asked them, like you did with mehow did you fall into KM?
Where did you come from?
And there's no straight line.
(40:57):
I think I might have heard outof all of them maybe one or two.
That was pretty much a straightline.
Everybody else either.
Just it was a left turn, it wasa right turn.
I slipped and fell into it.
But I think to me the skill setand abilities that make a good
KM-er is, here again, a damngood communicator, listener,
(41:18):
visionary, creativity, grit, allthose things that just make
somebody actionable, and I don'tknow if that can be a formula
in an educational structure.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Well, I think the challenge is combining the
theoretical, in other words theresearch, with the practical the
application of that researchand that theory in a real-world
context.
So my path to KM was a littlemore direct, and I was very
fortunate to have encounteredtwo mentors along the way, dr
Carl Breiter and Dr MarleneSkardamilia, who introduced me
to the theory of knowledgebuilding.
Based on their decades ofresearch into human cognition
(41:57):
and knowledge construction.
Theory focused largely on howpeople learn and why certain
people's professional practiceis better than others, even
though their knowledge base isessentially the same.
What are they doing that'sdifferent than the others?
(42:22):
And I spent five years as partof their research team in the
role of head of externalrelations and workplace research
, which gave me the opportunityto work with cross-sector
organizations and begin to adapttheir knowledge building
principles for a businesscontext.
This eventually evolved into myKM practice and the founding of
KMIC.
I want to talk about thecritical success factors that
(42:42):
either make knowledge managementembedded as a cultural practice
within an organization or justa one-off that goes away, as you
said before, once the KM expertleaves.
What are the critical successfactors?
Do you think what will makeknowledge management as a
cultural practice sticky.
What do you need to have?
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Well, first would be personal awareness Understanding
at least the individual roleand the cog of the organization,
what their role or outcome orpersonal responsibility or what
their organization is dependingon them for.
So the personal awareness pieceis understanding what part do
(43:20):
they play and why does it matter, setting the case for making
knowledge important and thengoing into what you said with
the Google idea bucket, makingit permeable for people to
communicate and share and nottie it to hierarchical
structures and walls anddivisions and all that sort of
(43:40):
thing.
Those are two big pieces, Ithink, that are just flat out
good behavior of an organization.
But to me, foster conversation,sharing knowledge, sharing
knowledge development and havinga security that I can call up
somebody outside of mydepartment, outside of my chain
of command, and have norepercussions.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
I think what you're saying is that it's important
for the organization and forpeople within the organization
the employees, to understand theknowledge imperative, why
knowledge is important to thisorganization and if the
organization doesn't identifyand hanging up there as a value
they care about, then nobody'sgoing to care.
(44:23):
Knowledge sharing or knowledgepractices or knowledge strategy
needs to be part of corporatestrategy.
Not an orphan, not a projectover on the side, but something
that's integrated into theoverall corporate strategy and
shouted from the rooftops by thesenior executives at every town
hall.
Knowledge is our commodity.
(44:44):
This is why it's important.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
You bring up a good point.
In a military setting, thecommanders in the hierarchy of
an organization, be it abattalion, brigade, whatever
echelon you're at, there arecertain components of building a
strong culture that is alwayspresent to help strengthen the
culture, because there'sunderstanding that the
(45:08):
organization can benefit.
If we give opportunity and wesponsor activities where people
connect and become aware of eachother and have conversations
and oh, you do what?
What really?
And so those things areconnecting the dots in the head
of the individual and in thewhole of the organization.
(45:31):
That becomes an asset.
What I know you can do can helpme, so why wouldn't you sponsor
that as an organization?
Speaker 1 (45:39):
You touched on something interesting there, and
that is giving your people thetime to engage in knowledge
sharing, in knowledge transferactivities, whether they're
formal or informal, butrecognizing that, giving
somebody the time to learnsomething new and then giving
them the time to teach whatthey've learned to the other
(46:00):
employees, making that a part ofhow the work gets done around
here.
For example, if you're going tosponsor people from your
organization to go to aconference, to take a course,
you can create a social contract.
If you're a knowledge-centricorganization and say something
like okay, we'll fund this,we'll support the time it's
going to take away from your jobin order to do this, but then
(46:23):
you come back and teach us whatyou've learned in some capacity
whether it's a lunch and learn.
And again, here's anotherapplication for podcasting.
It could be a podcast, right,exactly.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
And that is a really good use case of how easy it
could be.
It doesn't have to be difficult.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Now some people may think this sounds like a lot of
work, but in fact I would argueit is a cost savings and can
really benefit the organization.
So let's say you've got a teamof people that want to go to a
conference.
Not everybody can go, so wedecide we'll just send two
(47:05):
people and they'll come back andteach the rest of us, because
of course, the best way todemonstrate you've learned
something is to teach it.
We could make this an evenbroader event and open it up to
employees across ourorganization so that anyone who
might be interested in hearingwhat these two people have
learned at the conference canattend.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Kind of an emissary.
The class example for me isthat you go to a conference and
then you come back and you'reall jacked up and you're like,
oh, your head's just on fire andwithin six months it just dries
up.
In my experience, but if youhad it as an organizational
process, you have four daysafter you get back from your
(47:44):
conference to hold a luncheon orteach us about what all the
goodness is, then that helps thesocial network, it helps the
process and it also helps theexpectation that, oh, I guess if
I learned something I shouldprobably share it.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Exactly.
It's an intentional designprocess.
One of the reasons we'vestarted to focus more on
innovation than on the termknowledge management or the
practice of knowledge managementper se is that we want to focus
on the outcome.
Our practice at KMIC has alwaysbeen about creating sustainable
(48:20):
cultures of innovation andexcellence business excellence.
I'm working from the end resultbackwards and I'm finding it
actually much easier to do, andmaybe it's because innovation is
something that's out there inthe world, but certainly
universities are all over it.
Universities are all over it.
Businesses are all overinnovation.
They just don't know how to getthere, and that's where the
knowledge management piece comesin.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
So that's the connection that we've been
trying to make.
I like that.
I would say that if you satdown five people and asked them
to identify and defineinnovation, creativity and
knowledge management, I don'tthink you'd have two people
saying the same thing about anyof them.
So, it is very personalperspective.
(49:01):
It's easy to say, oh, we'regoing to do knowledge management
and people are like what thehell is it?
What do I?
Speaker 1 (49:06):
got.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
What is that Innovation is similar to me.
What is innovation?
Is it reusing something wealready have?
Is it actually come up with aflashbang big idea, or is it
just iterative?
Speaker 1 (49:20):
betterness.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
And, I think, any organization that does not give
room for self-reflectivelearning and give space like we
talked about give purposefulspace to share, co-create,
create and just absorb it.
That's a big loss.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Yeah, it really boils down to identifying the
behaviors that the organizationwants to see from its employees.
If knowledge sharing is criticaland important, if the capture
of knowledge or buildinginstitutional memory or whatever
it is, is important, thenpeople need to be measured
against these things and thebehaviors have to be identified.
Because for all the years I'vebeen doing this and with all the
(49:59):
organizations I've worked with,the ones that have gone that
extra mile to identify thebehaviors associated with the
desired outcomes are those thathave developed a robust
knowledge-centric culture and aculture of innovation.
But only when they go that far,when they go right down to the
(50:21):
behavioral level and identifythe key behaviors in each
functional area of theorganization and say to
employees this is how we'regoing to measure your
performance and we're going touse that also to hire people, to
onboard people, to train people, people to onboard people, to
train people.
It doesn't have to be punitive,it doesn't have to be
score-based.
It is designed to helpemployees with their own
(50:43):
professional development andgrow within the organization.
It really does have to comedown to those behaviors because
that shows the organization iswalking the walk, not just
talking the talk.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Your description is the learning environment.
That's everything.
Those are all the elements fora learning environment and most
organizations would neversuggest that they're exactly.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
They're not.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
They're like we make widgets.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Except I think we're in a different set of conditions
now.
I think the rate of change issuch that organizations are
realizing if we're not beinginnovative, if not keeping pace,
we're not going to be around.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Exactly.
You're going to be closing yourdoor soon, or bought out, or
what have you?
Something's going to change, orthe market is going to change
you.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Maybe we're at a tipping point for knowledge
management and maybe knowledgemanagement has yet to realize
its full potential.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
And for your listeners to talk about, that.
In 2018, the InternationalStandards Organization actually
created, for the first time ever, a knowledge management
standard, so people in the ISOworld get certified as certain
levels of proficiency, and Ifelt that was a huge win.
(51:58):
Oh my gosh, we finally gotsomething official and it has
hit the market in different waysand I don't think it's flooded
the hallways with people wavingflags of that ISO, but it's a
step and I think you're on tosomething.
I think it's just, it's a slowturning wheel.
You know how people are.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
We need the burning platform and we saw this in
COVID right, and we did.
If not for COVID, nobody wouldbe entertaining remote or hybrid
work models.
And in addition to theknowledge management standard in
ISO, there is now, as of thisyear, a standard for innovation.
Now, reading both standardstogether and comparing them,
(52:38):
there's a lot of overlap, so I'mhoping that ISO will eventually
combine the two into a singlespec.
So, to round out this episode,edwin, what's good look like for
Pioneer Knowledge Servicesgoing forward?
What do you want to accomplishor see happen in the next three
to five years?
Speaker 2 (52:59):
Two things.
We conduct the Midwest KMKnowledge Management Symposium.
I want that to continue to grow, morph and develop into new
ways.
We're looking at a hybridopportunity to make it available
globally not just a Zoom room,and that's a big undertaking.
(53:20):
The second piece is that we getorganizations that are funding
us to come in to create thisnesting of new tacit knowledge
via conversation.
My intent is to help them buildit, put their guy behind the
mic or gal very good atconversing and being able to tap
(53:40):
into people's tacit knowledgeand making them go down a trail
they haven't been down in awhile, Because I think that is a
really golden nugget ofbuilding tacit knowledge for
organizations that can add a lotof value.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
Well, Edwin, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
I really enjoyed our conversation this time, as I did
with our last one and I'm surewe'll have another one soon.
Absolutely Thanks for having me.
All right, canada.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
This concludes this week's episode of For what it's
Worth the Many Faces ofInnovation, with my guest Edwin
Morris, founder of PioneerKnowledge Services, america's
first and only not-for-profit KMfirm supporting the work of
not-for-profit organizations.
Join us for the next episode ofFor what it's Worth, and
(54:27):
another installment in ourseries in the company of readers
and writers.
For what it's worth.
Well, happy New Year and welcome to this week's
episode of For what it's Worth.
I'm your host, blake Melnick,and this is the next installment
in our series, the Many Facesof Innovation.
My guest this week is thefounder of Pioneer Knowledge
Services, the first and onlynot-for-profit knowledge
management firm in the UnitedStates that caters specifically
(00:32):
to the needs of othernot-for-profit organizations.
Please meet my guest, edwinMorris.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hi everyone, I'm Edwin K Morris and I live in
Wicky Watchie, florida.
Hi everyone, I'm Edwin.
K Morse and I live in WickyWatchy, florida, and the
interesting thing around where Ilive is the actual Wicky Watchy
Springs, which is home of theonly place on the planet where
they have live mermaids.
So there's shows there and it'spretty cool and we are about
(01:05):
three miles from the WickyWatchy Springs.
I absolutely love working inthe field of making things
better because part of mymechanism is around identifying
and just seeing things thatcould be improved and, to my
wife's chagrin, I vocalize a lotof it and she's a very patient
woman.
So that's my love.
(01:27):
I love transforming and makingthings better, and that comes
from an old infantry mantraabout making it better for the
next guy.
You have to improve your spacebecause you may not be there
long and somebody else will be,so that's the intent.
Most fantastic job experiencewas probably doing what I'm
(01:50):
doing right now.
I founded a non-profit and Iabsolutely love doing this.
It's a whitewater opportunitybecause nobody else was doing
knowledge management and being acharity in the same breath.
So the last book I read wasThin Air, which is a sci-fi
novel by Richard K Morgan.
I got into Richard K Morganjust recently because another
(02:15):
book of his was made into asci-fi show that I absolutely
loved called Altered Carbon.
The stuff they present in thisfilm and I'm sure the book is so
out there it's so mind-bendingand that, to me, is a key
ingredient to finding out whatthe next is.
You've got to be followingalong these imaginary things
(02:37):
that somebody has figured out intheir mind anyway, and it may
not be applicable yet, but atleast it starts people thinking
of the future and what couldactually be Knowledge management
, organizational structures,leadership those are all things
that I am passionate and have along history with, and I'm
thrilled to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It's great to have you, and it's always nice to
speak with a fellow knowledgemanagement practitioner and
somebody that's as passionateabout it as I am, and so we are
going to talk a lot aboutknowledge management, and we're
going to talk about yourorganization, pioneer Knowledge
Services, but before we do, Ijust wanted to give you a shout
out for your approach to doingguest introductions.
(03:17):
I've basically thrown it backto you the same approach that
you used with me when I was aguest on your show, and I love
it, because it allows yourguests to really talk about the
things that are important tothem, that they're passionate
about, but also to representthemselves in the way they would
like to be represented.
Yes, so thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I'll send you a bill, Okay fair enough.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I don't have to do this on every episode, do I?
I'll put it in the show notes.
Well, listen, we've both beeninvolved in the field of KM for
many years and we both know thepractice is not new.
We talked about this in myinterview and gained real
prominence in the 1940s with thework of Deming, joseph Jernan
and Armand Fagenbaum.
(04:01):
And yet people still have ahard time getting their head
around knowledge management as adiscipline.
In many respects, knowledgemanagement is a siloed
discipline.
It's well known in certainindustries, particularly mission
critical industries militarymining, oil and gas, any kind of
(04:22):
extractive business, anybusiness where there is a high
risk for loss of life,impairment of critical assets.
But outside of those missioncritical industries and perhaps
outside professional serviceindustries like KPMG and
Deloitte, who all have KMpractices, it's still relatively
unknown and I still find thatpeople believe it's a fad.
(04:44):
It's the latest business fadand in all of the time you've
been practicing knowledgemanagement, I still have people
coming up to me, people I'veknown for a long time, saying
Blake, I really don't understandwhat it is you do, and I've
tried to explain it in thesimplest of forms using basic
analogies.
If I share what I know with youand you share with what you
know with me.
(05:05):
We're both more knowledgeable.
Things as simple as that tomore complex definitions, using
examples from industries inwhich I've worked, and still
it's hard for people to gettheir head around the whole idea
.
There's a practice calledknowledge management and it has
value.
How do we get that idea acrossin a simple way?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
It's as complex as you would like it to be.
The definition is hingent uponthe organization that's defining
it for.
So that's the first thing.
So you cannot really have auniversal KM is blank, because
organizations will value thingsdifferently.
If we talk physical assetsbuildings, money, those tangible
(05:51):
assets it's easier to have acommon language and a common
operating system aroundsomething that's tangible.
This isn't intangible, itreally is, and so defining it
for me is more of a personalawareness of personal leadership
(06:12):
, personal value, alignment withthe organization, and on high,
the definition could be you will, you shall, you do these things
.
Behaviors.
We're talking behaviors thatadd value to creating, storing,
(06:33):
making available all the partsand pieces of where knowledge
can apply itself in the personalnetwork.
So the easy answer is knowledge, is knowledge management.
So if you really want to getfined, go look up the word
knowledge and start there,because now we can start talking
wisdom and all these otherthings that are around this
(06:56):
whole swirl of activity.
So knowledge management is theability of a person and or an
organization to create andextract value from
organizational or personalknowledge.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, and that's great, and I'm glad you
mentioned the individual too.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Now for those listening, if you're just fresh
into the concept of KM knowledgemanagement, there's three main
hubs people, process andtechnology.
There's three main hubs people,process and technology.
A lot of the organizations outthere think technology first,
process second, people, last ornever.
I think the hinge point ofsuccess of those KM programs
(07:37):
that have been around and havebeen successful is that it's
people-oriented.
There are behaviors like propercommunication, building trust,
all those things that are feederitems to a good knowledge
sharing culture.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Right.
I want to ask this questionslightly differently.
So you're at a cocktail partyand somebody comes up to you and
says Edwin, nice to meet you.
What do you do?
What's your answer?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I would say I work in a field of learning because
really it's about learning,continual learning, and the
other side of that iscontinually asking questions.
So this all goes back to yourfocus on innovation.
So you've got to have elementsin an organization of
(08:26):
communicating building structure.
So, to answer your question, Iwould say learning and I would
expound on that and I'd wait forthem to ask questions.
So instead of me, you know.
Oh, I agree.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yes, I've done that.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yeah right, I like to do little tidbits and let them
draw it out, because if they'renot interested, why should I
tell them?
So I make them work for it alittle bit.
I will say back when I startedthis nonprofit, one of the early
folks that helped me inconversation trying to think
about this, she was working on adoctoral degree in Chinese
(09:03):
language.
But the more I told her aboutwhat all this was and I would
get very passionate and bubbly,she said you know, this sounds
like in a Buddhist philosophy,ascension.
It's getting to that point ofawareness and understanding.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
My roots in knowledge management came from the
learning sciences, fromunderstanding how people learn
human cognition.
How do people advance their ownknowledge, how do they acquire
knowledge, how do they transferknowledge and how do they
eventually build their knowledgeso that new knowledge is
created?
That was the root of myeducation and early training,
but I still struggle with itbecause people want an elevator
(09:43):
pitch, and the one that I use isI'm really all about helping
organization make sure thatknowledge flows from those who
know to those who need to knowto support their business
decisions and their outcomes forindividuals and for the
organization, and that's thesimple kind of elevator pitch,
but it still doesn't seem tosatisfy people.
People do understand theconcept of knowledge.
People recognize that we go touniversity, we go to school, to
(10:06):
become more knowledgeable,better educated.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
I'll give you both ends of the spectrum.
Recent podcast guests and, ofcourse, I asked this question
also what is knowledgemanagement?
And she says it's this simpleit's a little book, a notebook,
and you want to store someone'saddress in it, so you pull out
the tab that has that initial oftheir last name and you write
(10:33):
in the name and then you writein the address and other points
of interest that you want tohave on the ready so you know
where it is and you can retrieveit easily.
And it was like you know whatthat's it.
That's a lot of it, becausepeople think that databases and
information management andthings like that are knowledge
(10:53):
management and it's not thewhole story.
One of the things I want to goback to is when you talked about
where the birthplace was.
For me it was Peter Drucker In1956, peter Drucker.
For me it was Peter Drucker In1956,.
Peter Drucker, who was anorganizational guy he started
with the term knowledge workerin 1956.
So there was already theseforward thinkers that were
thinking there's more to thisthan just an assembly line or
(11:16):
just making widgets.
There's a lot of pieces to it.
And on the other side of theexample of the old notebook for
your phone contact informationlike who has Rolodexes anymore?
I got to tell you I thought Iwas smart when I got thinking
you know what, instead ofwriting all that junk on a
Rolodex, I would just staple thebusiness card in the role I'm
(11:38):
like boom boy.
I just maximize that.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I did the same thing too.
Yeah Right.
And I was like, wow, I'mprogressive here, look at me.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But the other side of that is it was easier for me to
tell people when they would askabout KM.
I would tell them all the painpoints I said here.
Let me give you some examplesof things that aren't knowledge
management or good knowledgemanagement, knowledge management
or good knowledge management.
And once you start rattling offthree or four organizational or
professional type of painpoints that most people have run
(12:11):
across, they're like, oh, youcould fix that.
Well, we could work towardsthat.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right.
I loved in your introductionthat you talked about this
notion of continuous improvementand always looking at something
with an eye to seeing how itcould be made better.
I'm certainly the same way aswell.
Whenever I do anything,whenever I see it, I think, boy,
that's great, but I bet you itcould be better if we tried this
or added this to it.
That is the same mindset forinnovation, by the way.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
And I'll ask you this you're not walking into a room
and counting ceiling tiles, butyou walk into a place and you're
like why do they have that over?
That should be over there.
And you just that to me.
I've done it more than once.
My wife's like don't tell them,don't come on, don't just leave
them alone.
They're there and I'm like comeon.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
They're probably just waiting for my great goodness.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
It's almost like I can't make it stop.
I can't just, you know, so I'dlike to hear your side of that.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
I'm the same way I do with my own work whenever I
finish something, I go I reallydon't like this and I go back
and I constantly revise my work,even stuff that I've written 10
years ago.
I go back and revise that andupdate that Because, of course,
as you learn more, you realize,boy, those things that you said,
the things you wrote about,were either naive or underformed
(13:24):
.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
And you got to go back and fix them.
When you said that, I was likewell, don't let perfection be
the enemy of the good.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Right, right yeah, or an enemy of done yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Because there's a point where I get get things
about 80% and I'm like goodenough, just get it out the door
, let's go, cause it's going tochange anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
So, and that's what the research shows, I had a
guest on the show a couple ofweeks ago who was talking just
very much about that around inthe context of learning is what
you want is to try to get yourstudents at that 80 to 85% level
, and of course it's in businesstoo.
85% is kind of optimalproductivity.
When you say 100%, then itstarts to enter the realm of
(14:03):
diminishing return, where all ofa sudden you miss stuff and
you're trying to manage too manythings at the same time and the
quality of the work suffers.
So that 85% rule is a good one.
I'm that way.
When I initially launchsomething, it's usually
afterwards, when I go back andit's more a personal thing, and
I say, if I'm going to hand outthis article again, I'm going to
change this.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Because you've changed right, Right your
perspective and you are not atthat spot in time on the planet
when that was created andeverything in your brain has a
bit of different perspective now.
Maybe you got a better night'ssleep, All those things that are
factors of cognition.
And yeah, it's easy to startspotting.
(14:43):
I was like, wow, I turned thatin.
It's like what the hell?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Much of the research around innovation and knowledge
building behavior cognitivebehavior suggests that people
that advance knowledge arecontinually going back to old
knowledge and revising it andimproving it and advancing it,
much the same way as a companylike Google does.
They have a knowledge bank.
So people that have really goodideas for which there's no
(15:07):
context yet within the company,there's no product, there's no
service or the company's justnot ready to move in that
direction.
They have a place to keep thoseideas because they've
recognized that sometimes greatideas and great thought die not
because they're not good, butbecause there's no context for
them yet.
And if you somehow can collectthose and keep them, you can go
(15:27):
back to those ideas and movethem forward into time.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, that's a brilliant concept because you're
not kidding.
People will come up with stuffall the time, and if it doesn't
fit, there are people like, oh,what the hell is that?
That's smart thinking.
Holy cow, I did not know that.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Smart as long as you've got a way to tag those
ideas to make them retrievable.
It's not unlike the after actionreview process, right, because
you're documented somethingthat's happened and then you're
actually moving that knowledgeforward in the context of a
military operation, which I knowyou're familiar with.
But you're moving thatinformation forward to the next
(16:04):
team that's going to take on asimilar assignment.
To take on a similar assignment, to take what you've learned
and then advance and improveupon it in the next stage of the
missions.
There are organizations that dothis, naturally, but a number
of companies I've been workingwith recently do this on a very
formal basis.
So they have an idea bank or anidea hopper to collect these
ideas, but of it requires adegree of curation and somebody
(16:27):
has to be aware that it's there,somebody in charge of it.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I just noticed, within the last year, teams
added that in or I noticed itwithin the last year the idea
bank, the idea collector.
So I think there's a brilliancein that.
I want to go back as we havedefined knowledge management.
You know, one of the greatresources for KM, I think, is
IBM, so I draw upon IBM'smaterial often.
(16:50):
So I want to share what IBMdefines knowledge workers,
because I think if you can tellpeople what to look for in the
work, maybe they would get theKM in total a little easier.
So knowledge workers are anessential part of the evolving
digital workplace.
You can find them playing therole of a department lead with
(17:12):
extensive institutionalknowledge, or acting as a
subject matter expert called outto be a consultant on a
specific challenge.
But the definition is a worker.
A knowledge worker is aprofessional who generates value
for the organization with theirexpertise, critical thinking
and interpersonal skills.
I wanted to say that becausethat's the first time I've read
(17:36):
that or seen that where they'rebringing in the person
communication skills.
Being able to collaborate meansmore than just communicating.
It is more of an ability to besocial.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, sure, informal knowledge exchange and knowledge
sharing happens because you'resocial.
In the early days of knowledgemanagement, space or place was
very important.
Organizations would build thesespaces for informal knowledge
sharing, places where employeeswould want to go and work and
they would join other employeesfrom different departments and
they would hang out.
It could be a cafeteria.
(18:10):
Canada Life had this sort ofliving environment in their
building, a living wall rich inoxygen, so it kept you awake and
they'd encourage theiremployees to go down there and
work and have meetings downthere and other people would
overhear what they're talkingabout and that kind of thing.
That was very big in the 90s andthen it sort of went away and
now it's coming back again.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
It's the same in home building.
You went from little rooms andthen open space.
Is the concept now so same inthe work environment?
I can remember quite a fewtimes being a contractor for the
US Army when I got out and it'scubicle farm, it's just cubes.
Nobody talked over the cubesmuch because it was like a
(18:50):
library or an old library whereno talking.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
You know A lot of organizations or people that
have a background inorganizational development.
Knowledge management will lookaround a space, a facility and
see where people arecongregating to have
conversations the old watercooler analogy.
I did this.
We noticed that engineers wouldcongregate in certain parts of
the hallway and so we said well,I wonder what if we put up
(19:14):
whiteboards so that whilethey're talking they can sketch
out ideas, and what if wereplace those with digital
whiteboards so they could takepictures of the things that they
were drawing on the board?
It's really knowledgemanagement by design.
You have to spend time withinthe organization to figure out
where people are actuallysharing knowledge informally and
then try to create those spacesor help enhance those spaces so
(19:38):
that it happens more often andthat it becomes a place where
you can start to identify someof that knowledge that's within
the organization.
It does take a fair bit ofskill to do that.
I want to jump over to talkabout you specifically.
You're a veteran of the USmilitary I'm not sure what
branch Army Army and you had twotours of duty in Iraq and that
(19:59):
must have been a life-alteringexperience.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
And then you became a trainer and a lessons learned
knowledge leader and a knowledgelead for various government
contractors.
How did you find your way intoknowledge management during your
military service?
Speaker 2 (20:14):
How did that all happen?
I was working as a fairly highexecutive, as a contractor for a
new directorate at the IntelSchool, the US Army's
intelligence school, which is inFort Huachuca, arizona, and I
was working for a directoratethat was building distance
(20:35):
learning products.
So I was in constant contactwith our chief knowledge officer
for the post, for the two-starlevel, and the IT guy, the S6
guy, g6, the US Army.
In 2006, timeframe had startedto formally adopt knowledge
(20:55):
management and so in that the USArmy was starting to bring guys
out to do training, to docertification training, and I
had opportunity to becomecertified through Dr Dan at KM
Pro out of DC.
He came out for a week and Iwent through the training and it
just lit me on fire.
(21:16):
I'd never heard of knowledgemanagement until then not
formally, but taking that coursewith Dr Dan just lit gas fire
underneath me like you couldn'tbelieve.
I felt like I found home, as inour earlier discussion about
being that guy, that's like ifyou did this or you made that,
did that, making things better,and that's really the essence of
(21:38):
what Dr Dan said is that you dothat for an organization.
So as soon as I was certifiedin that my first thing was to
find a master's degree in it.
At that point, there was onlytwo colleges that I found in the
US that were offering onlinelearning and knowledge
management, so I ended up atKent State University.
(22:00):
In their informationarchitecture and knowledge
management masters of science, Iwas building stuff for school
that were actual products forwork, and it was just like this
whole confluence of energy andthe creativity and learning and
purpose and everything all cametogether Well.
Out of all that, I ended upbreaking my back in 2012, so I
(22:23):
left contracting and I wasthinking how can I make life
better on a societal level?
And that's when I decided tocreate a nonprofit that did
knowledge management fornonprofits.
There was a John F Kennedyquote or at least he was cited
(22:43):
as the source that said a risingtide lifts all boats, and I use
that framework because if Icould help those that are
underpinning a factor of societysomebody that's giving shoes to
kids or some, what are allthese non-profits out there
filling gaps?
(23:03):
of just humanity, and if I canhelp them do things better,
cheaper, faster, everybody wins.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
What value do you think knowledge management has
for the not-for-profit sector?
What do you think you can dofor them?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I would say for those in a non-profit world, they
should perk their ears up.
When you're dealing with abunch of volunteers, you have
great opportunity to tap intothat tacit knowledge if you had
the tool set in order to do that.
Now, most organizationsprobably have a pretty regular
(23:37):
turnover in their volunteer basePeople come, people go, people
come, people go.
So where's that continuity ofknowledge for the organization
in that pool?
So that's the first thing Iwould focus on, and then just
reducing friction.
If you can reduce friction,that means there's less heat,
(23:59):
and if there's less heat thatmeans you need less lubricant.
So if you translate that to abusiness operation, if you can
reduce waste and redundancy andsharing of knowledge is shined
upon and promoted and actuallysupported, then those pain
(24:20):
points, those frictions thatcome around, all those pieces
can be reduced and hopefullynullified, therefore saving the
organization money Right and asa not-for-profit, money is hard
to come by initially.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
anyway, a lot of not-for-profits depend on
volunteers and they volunteerbecause they believe they have
something to give, ie they havesome knowledge that's worth
sharing that they believe willhelp further the goals and
aspirations.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Or they're just aligned in the values.
You know, I believe in this.
I believe in what they're doing.
Why I decided on this was Ifelt there was value if I could
be a partner in the process orthe project.
In the process or the projectMeaning I could also be part of
the collaboration in the way wecould get grants or solicit
(25:11):
money as two nonprofits workingtogether to get something done,
and for-profit doesn't have thatopportunity.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
You're right.
It certainly does give youaccess to grants, and government
tends to want to give money tonot-for-profits as opposed to
for-profits.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
The interesting thing was.
So I was in the degree at KentState and the idea started
percolating about doing this.
So after graduation I hadalready been exposed to the
world of KM and some high-levelfolks and I wrote a paragraph of
this idea and I sent it to thetop four of those echelons that
(25:44):
I knew of and I was inconversation with and I said hey
, what do you think about thisidea?
And they all said nobody'sdoing that, nobody's done that,
nobody's doing it.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I was like perfect, Then I'll do it.
It's interesting.
You mention your time at KentState.
I advised on the start of thatprogram at Kent State.
I attended a symposium there Ithink it was around 2013.
And the woman that was headingup the program, Denise Bedford,
called and said will you comedown and speak at this event?
Because we're trying to startthis program here at Kent State?
(26:15):
And as I was driving down toKent State, what was playing on
the radio For what it's Worth?
And, as you know, this ended upbeing the name of our podcast.
So it's great to hear that youwent through that program and
that you found it of value.
So I've got a better sense nowof Pioneer Knowledge Services,
why you started it and why youwent the not-for-profit route,
(26:36):
and I really like your thinkingbecause I think you're right.
I think not-for-profits canreally benefit from knowledge
management.
They have to run lean, theyhave to be efficient and they
have to be effective.
When I say effective, thedifference between
organizational efficiency andeffectiveness is effectiveness
involves people.
So let's talk about the podcast.
So you have two podcast serieson the go.
(26:56):
One is Because you Need to Knowand the other is KM Lobby.
So tell me about what you'rethinking was around developing
those two series in the contextof Pioneer Knowledge Services
and addressing the needs ofnot-for-profits.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
I had been in year four or five of Pioneer
Knowledge Services and my wifeat the time said you should be
doing a podcast.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
I'm like I don't know jack about podcasting.
I don't know nothing about that.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
She's like I think you should.
She and I both shared a radioand television production
background back in college, soshe knew that I had experience
doing broadcast, not podcast,but anyway.
So that's what initiated theconcept.
The end state of why is that?
(27:45):
We wanted to have people on theshow that were either
nonprofit-oriented orexperienced, and or knowledge
management.
That's, our two types of guestsfor the most part.
I've leaned in the last coupleof years to entrepreneurs people
that are building things,people that are seeing issues
and creating solutions.
So I've had some entrepreneurson just because I'm an
(28:08):
entrepreneur and I think ittakes a brave person to try
doing something that's neverbeen done.
So I like shining a light onthat.
So that was the idea and thenit grew.
So it grew in a coupledifferent ways.
So in the early years of being anonprofit I had a hard time one
learning how nonprofits work.
Never been behind the wall of anonprofit, I had no idea.
(28:30):
Grants, all that stuff, no idea.
So it's been a long process tolearn all those things.
And that when I would go incold, call on a nonprofit to say
, hey, we're here to help, andit all boiled down to give me a
list of the things you can doand how much it costs.
So my initial thought to how Iwas going to apply myself to a
(28:55):
nonprofit would be holistic,enterprise level.
I would have to come in andreally do an analysis of what's
going on.
So my intent was I'm going togo look under the hood, talk to
the people, see what theculture's like and if I felt
that there was going to begoodness from this effort, then
we could go forward.
But I never got that far.
(29:17):
I could never get through thedoor, I could not talk correctly
to an actionable sale, so thepodcast ended up being the thing
that I could do.
Alright, so I can do this.
And so the intent was at leastI'm talking to non-profiteers
(29:37):
and sharing knowledge andexperience from all these people
.
So that will be something thatwe can do, that as we continue
to try to understand the marketand how we can help.
So, going back to the litany ofoh, where's your cost sheet?
And I'm like well, it dependson what you need.
I can't just come up a list ofthings.
It's not like I'm buildingwebsites and so I could never
(30:02):
get there.
Well, out of the efforts of thepodcast, that became a revenue
generation for the nonprofit,because we started podcasting as
a service.
I had an organization, anational company, reach out to
me to say, hey, we've trieddoing our own podcast and we
stink at it.
Can you be our guy?
And I'm like sure.
(30:22):
So that ended up being athree-year hitch that generated
a fair enough revenue and allthe money went in the coffers of
the organization.
So maybe this podcasting thingcould be a thing Fast forward to
just this year and one of myguests was the European Space
Agency's lessons learned guy acouple years ago.
(30:42):
He reaches out to me early thisyear and says look, I'm going to
be part of the 24th EuropeanConference on Knowledge
Management happening in Portugaland you need to submit a paper,
an academic paper, on whatyou're doing with podcasting.
I'm like really, oh yeah, so wedid and we got our first
academic paper published.
(31:03):
But it fine-tuned the conceptof podcasting to the point where
now we're talking about a intraorganization within an
organization, building aknowledge cultural expansion of
the people via podcast.
The main crux of the paper isthis that if you have a good
(31:26):
protagonist, if you have a goodcan opener to tacit knowledge
which means a very good listener, a very good questioner which
means a very good listener, avery good questioner, somebody
that can converse you couldbuild a new knowledge exchange
with an organization behind thewall.
That is just for theorganization that brings out all
(31:46):
this tacit knowledge and makesit a shareable item.
But we want to take that onestep further.
We want to fine-tune it to makeit more of an actionable
business intelligence tool.
That the first stage is theconversation.
Second stage editing, making itsound good.
The third stage now is thebusiness intelligence view
that's going to pull out chunksand push it to the parts of the
(32:07):
organization that need it orcould really use it.
So we're not telling them oh,go listen to this 20-minute
podcast.
No, we're going to slice anddice intelligent pieces and make
them actionable.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, I love that and in fact our motivation for
starting for what it's worth wasquite similar.
Two of my biggest pet peevesthat I have over the years of
practicing knowledge managementis number one the ludicrous
practice within manyorganizations of using exit
interviews as an effectiveknowledge capture mechanism for
employees leaving theorganization.
(32:41):
Firstly, it's a typical HR tooland the resulting knowledge
rarely finds its way intooperations or standard operating
procedures.
Secondly, to expect anymeaningful knowledge exchange to
occur in a 45 to 60 minute Q&Ainterview with the employee, who
may have been with theorganization for 25 plus years,
(33:01):
is limited by the questionsbeing asked, the knowledge of
the employee's specific job andskill set and the skill of the
interviewer.
And finally, the wholeexperience lacks context.
One of the things I've learnedin my career is that tacit
knowledge emerges in context, inother words, well-doing.
Asking somebody what they knowabout something specific rarely
(33:23):
taps into this deeper knowledge,because it's hard for people to
articulate what they know andthe question may not enable them
to tell you what they know.
The second pet peeve I haverelates to the onboarding of new
employees.
Organizations do very little tounderstand, capture and
disseminate the knowledge cominginto the organization, and it's
(33:46):
important on so many levels.
Right, it helps avoidjust-in-time hiring for skills
and competencies which alreadyexist within the organization
for skills and competencieswhich already exist within the
organization.
It improves employee retentionand satisfaction rates by
recognizing the value of theincoming employee's skills,
knowledge, experience andpassions.
And, finally, it helps theorganization develop a
(34:07):
meaningful career path for theemployee that builds onto these
experiences.
Podcasts allow employees todrive the narrative through the
stories of their job experiencesand, secondly, if the
organization has their ownpodcast channel or uses a
third-party service provider,they can easily both push the
knowledge throughout theorganization and also allow
(34:29):
employees the ability to easilyfind this content when and as
needed.
Employs the ability to easilyfind this content when and as
needed and it starts to builddigestible institutional memory.
It fosters relationships andjust-in-time, fluid mentoring
opportunities between employees.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I'm not letting them tell their story.
They're used to telling theirstory.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
I'm flipping that and digging into stuff they're not
used to saying.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Thinking about.
You know what I mean.
Yeah, yeah, right, becauseyou're going to get the high
gloss.
Not much meat on the bone, soto speak.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
But you mentioned that is the art of questioning.
You can start with the storyand then take them in a new
direction.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
And here it goes back to the fill in the blank
concept, and you said it thingsthat are important to them.
Because if you can get themjacked up at the beginning
talking about something thatgets them juiced up, then the
conversation's easy.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Then, yeah you're right, it's a great practice.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
I want to throw in one last definition, ibm's
knowledge management definition,because you can never hear
enough definitions for KM.
But this is a good simple one.
Okay.
Knowledge management is theprocess of identifying,
organizing, storing anddisseminating information within
an organization.
I don't think I would have usedinformation in that context,
(35:46):
but that's what IBM says.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Well, again there's another tension, because there
is a difference betweeninformation and knowledge, and I
would always explain to mystudents and to people in
organizations look, if I tellyou what I know, it's knowledge
to me.
And it's knowledge to mebecause I've done it, I've
applied it, I've engaged with it, I've tested it.
I know it.
But what I'm telling you isbeing transferred into
(36:11):
information Until such a timewhere you engage with that,
where you try it, where youembed it in your practice, then
it becomes knowledge, and soit's one of those things that
make knowledge managementnebulous.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
I think an organization can hang their hat
on a KM program and orphilosophy, and I'll say that
for those listeners that are notaware, a lot of KM projects
I'll say in some organizationswill get taken up, make great
gains and then that one personthat led the charge leaves or
(36:43):
passes or whatever, rightexactly.
Then everything dies on a vinebecause there's nobody there to
do it.
That's a failed execution.
So if you're looking at a KMprogram, at least invest enough
to make it successful.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
That's a great segue, because I did want to ask you
about something.
So there's a lot of pundits outthere and I've spoken to many
of them over the years who willsay that KM has failed.
It's a failed practice, Do youagree?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
It can be a failed, it can be successful.
I would say in the world it isnot a failed.
It may be failed in parts ofthe US, but in the world there's
too much evidence going theother way.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
I think what they're saying is that, in terms of how
organizations are embracingknowledge management as a value
within the organization, as apart of their culture, it has
failed.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yeah, I don't see many that have it as woven into
the culture and vibrancy of anorganization.
That is true Not that I've donea poll, but I think it's got a
strong pulse.
Km as an organizational benefithas a strong pulse.
I think the biggest black eyethat KM has and I asked this in
(38:02):
Portugal why is there not acenter in the US that is all
about KM?
Why is there not an actualuniversity that is doing KM?
When I taught at Kent State, Itaught the graduate program
there as an actual universitythat is doing KM.
When I taught at Kent State, Itaught the graduate program
there as an adjunct I identifiedthat there's nobody in the
(38:22):
university.
In Kent State University,there's nobody doing KM.
There's not a function, there'snot even a talk about it.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
And I'm like so you're teaching and you have a
degree in it, but you don't evendo it.
So I think there's this lack ofseriousness in organizations to
commit to something that'sgoing to require some behavior
change.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
I would agree.
In Canada there are no doctoralprograms in knowledge
management.
There's not really any master'slevel programs that I'm aware
of either.
There are programs ininformation sciences which tend
to be a feeder to the librarysciences, and this has always
been a bit perplexing for me,especially given the strong
presence of professional servicefirms like Deloitte, kpmg, pwc,
(39:06):
etc.
These firms have very robustknowledge management practices
and have for years, and I wouldargue that knowledge is actually
their commodity.
You hire these firms because oftheir depth of knowledge and
expertise and as a client,you're buying their knowledge.
So KM as an embedded set ofpractices makes infinite sense.
(39:26):
However, at least to the bestof my knowledge, these firms are
not selling KM as a service totheir clients.
Rather, they're applying KMmethodologies internally to
increase the capability of theirconsultants and to drive
consistency across service areasof the organization.
For example, if consultants aremore knowledgeable, they're
(39:48):
able to win more business,therefore more lucrative Right,
exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
It just feeds itself, you know.
Going back to the educationpiece, as you were speaking and
I reflected on what I said aboutthe programs, or lack thereof.
You know, back when you came tokent state, I was at that
conference I think we talked,then I feel we did.
I'm sure we did, but we hadenvisioned it becoming a
societal element.
(40:14):
The knowledge managementeducation forum was really
looking at how do we best bringthis to the people.
Is it formal education?
Is it just clubs andorganizational structures just
using it?
But it all lost steam afterthree years of trying to build
that all out.
People just went to the sideand it kind of died on the vine.
(40:37):
But the intent was there to tryto figure out how to make it
work.
So, as you were speaking, Ireflected back to what I said
about the lack of education andI'm starting to wonder, just
thinking about all the folksthat I've had on my show, and I
asked them, like you did with mehow did you fall into KM?
Where did you come from?
And there's no straight line.
(40:57):
I think I might have heard outof all of them maybe one or two.
That was pretty much a straightline.
Everybody else either.
Just it was a left turn, it wasa right turn.
I slipped and fell into it.
But I think to me the skill setand abilities that make a good
KM-er is, here again, a damngood communicator, listener,
(41:18):
visionary, creativity, grit, allthose things that just make
somebody actionable, and I don'tknow if that can be a formula
in an educational structure.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Well, I think the challenge is combining the
theoretical, in other words theresearch, with the practical the
application of that researchand that theory in a real-world
context.
So my path to KM was a littlemore direct, and I was very
fortunate to have encounteredtwo mentors along the way, dr
Carl Breiter and Dr MarleneSkardamilia, who introduced me
to the theory of knowledgebuilding.
Based on their decades ofresearch into human cognition
(41:57):
and knowledge construction.
Theory focused largely on howpeople learn and why certain
people's professional practiceis better than others, even
though their knowledge base isessentially the same.
What are they doing that'sdifferent than the others?
(42:22):
And I spent five years as partof their research team in the
role of head of externalrelations and workplace research
, which gave me the opportunityto work with cross-sector
organizations and begin to adapttheir knowledge building
principles for a businesscontext.
This eventually evolved into myKM practice and the founding of
KMIC.
I want to talk about thecritical success factors that
(42:42):
either make knowledge managementembedded as a cultural practice
within an organization or justa one-off that goes away, as you
said before, once the KM expertleaves.
What are the critical successfactors?
Do you think what will makeknowledge management as a
cultural practice sticky.
What do you need to have?
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Well, first would be personal awareness Understanding
at least the individual roleand the cog of the organization,
what their role or outcome orpersonal responsibility or what
their organization is dependingon them for.
So the personal awareness pieceis understanding what part do
(43:20):
they play and why does it matter, setting the case for making
knowledge important and thengoing into what you said with
the Google idea bucket, makingit permeable for people to
communicate and share and nottie it to hierarchical
structures and walls anddivisions and all that sort of
(43:40):
thing.
Those are two big pieces, Ithink, that are just flat out
good behavior of an organization.
But to me, foster conversation,sharing knowledge, sharing
knowledge development and havinga security that I can call up
somebody outside of mydepartment, outside of my chain
of command, and have norepercussions.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
I think what you're saying is that it's important
for the organization and forpeople within the organization
the employees, to understand theknowledge imperative, why
knowledge is important to thisorganization and if the
organization doesn't identifyand hanging up there as a value
they care about, then nobody'sgoing to care.
(44:23):
Knowledge sharing or knowledgepractices or knowledge strategy
needs to be part of corporatestrategy.
Not an orphan, not a projectover on the side, but something
that's integrated into theoverall corporate strategy and
shouted from the rooftops by thesenior executives at every town
hall.
Knowledge is our commodity.
(44:44):
This is why it's important.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
You bring up a good point.
In a military setting, thecommanders in the hierarchy of
an organization, be it abattalion, brigade, whatever
echelon you're at, there arecertain components of building a
strong culture that is alwayspresent to help strengthen the
culture, because there'sunderstanding that the
(45:08):
organization can benefit.
If we give opportunity and wesponsor activities where people
connect and become aware of eachother and have conversations
and oh, you do what?
What really?
And so those things areconnecting the dots in the head
of the individual and in thewhole of the organization.
(45:31):
That becomes an asset.
What I know you can do can helpme, so why wouldn't you sponsor
that as an organization?
Speaker 1 (45:39):
You touched on something interesting there, and
that is giving your people thetime to engage in knowledge
sharing, in knowledge transferactivities, whether they're
formal or informal, butrecognizing that, giving
somebody the time to learnsomething new and then giving
them the time to teach whatthey've learned to the other
(46:00):
employees, making that a part ofhow the work gets done around
here.
For example, if you're going tosponsor people from your
organization to go to aconference, to take a course,
you can create a social contract.
If you're a knowledge-centricorganization and say something
like okay, we'll fund this,we'll support the time it's
going to take away from your jobin order to do this, but then
(46:23):
you come back and teach us whatyou've learned in some capacity
whether it's a lunch and learn.
And again, here's anotherapplication for podcasting.
It could be a podcast, right,exactly.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
And that is a really good use case of how easy it
could be.
It doesn't have to be difficult.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Now some people may think this sounds like a lot of
work, but in fact I would argueit is a cost savings and can
really benefit the organization.
So let's say you've got a teamof people that want to go to a
conference.
Not everybody can go, so wedecide we'll just send two
(47:05):
people and they'll come back andteach the rest of us, because
of course, the best way todemonstrate you've learned
something is to teach it.
We could make this an evenbroader event and open it up to
employees across ourorganization so that anyone who
might be interested in hearingwhat these two people have
learned at the conference canattend.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Kind of an emissary.
The class example for me isthat you go to a conference and
then you come back and you'reall jacked up and you're like,
oh, your head's just on fire andwithin six months it just dries
up.
In my experience, but if youhad it as an organizational
process, you have four daysafter you get back from your
(47:44):
conference to hold a luncheon orteach us about what all the
goodness is, then that helps thesocial network, it helps the
process and it also helps theexpectation that, oh, I guess if
I learned something I shouldprobably share it.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Exactly.
It's an intentional designprocess.
One of the reasons we'vestarted to focus more on
innovation than on the termknowledge management or the
practice of knowledge managementper se is that we want to focus
on the outcome.
Our practice at KMIC has alwaysbeen about creating sustainable
(48:20):
cultures of innovation andexcellence business excellence.
I'm working from the end resultbackwards and I'm finding it
actually much easier to do, andmaybe it's because innovation is
something that's out there inthe world, but certainly
universities are all over it.
Universities are all over it.
Businesses are all overinnovation.
They just don't know how to getthere, and that's where the
knowledge management piece comesin.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
So that's the connection that we've been
trying to make.
I like that.
I would say that if you satdown five people and asked them
to identify and defineinnovation, creativity and
knowledge management, I don'tthink you'd have two people
saying the same thing about anyof them.
So, it is very personalperspective.
(49:01):
It's easy to say, oh, we'regoing to do knowledge management
and people are like what thehell is it?
What do I?
Speaker 1 (49:06):
got.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
What is that Innovation is similar to me.
What is innovation?
Is it reusing something wealready have?
Is it actually come up with aflashbang big idea, or is it
just iterative?
Speaker 1 (49:20):
betterness.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
And, I think, any organization that does not give
room for self-reflectivelearning and give space like we
talked about give purposefulspace to share, co-create,
create and just absorb it.
That's a big loss.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Yeah, it really boils down to identifying the
behaviors that the organizationwants to see from its employees.
If knowledge sharing is criticaland important, if the capture
of knowledge or buildinginstitutional memory or whatever
it is, is important, thenpeople need to be measured
against these things and thebehaviors have to be identified.
Because for all the years I'vebeen doing this and with all the
(49:59):
organizations I've worked with,the ones that have gone that
extra mile to identify thebehaviors associated with the
desired outcomes are those thathave developed a robust
knowledge-centric culture and aculture of innovation.
But only when they go that far,when they go right down to the
(50:21):
behavioral level and identifythe key behaviors in each
functional area of theorganization and say to
employees this is how we'regoing to measure your
performance and we're going touse that also to hire people, to
onboard people, to train people, people to onboard people, to
train people.
It doesn't have to be punitive,it doesn't have to be
score-based.
It is designed to helpemployees with their own
(50:43):
professional development andgrow within the organization.
It really does have to comedown to those behaviors because
that shows the organization iswalking the walk, not just
talking the talk.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Your description is the learning environment.
That's everything.
Those are all the elements fora learning environment and most
organizations would neversuggest that they're exactly.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
They're not.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
They're like we make widgets.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Except I think we're in a different set of conditions
now.
I think the rate of change issuch that organizations are
realizing if we're not beinginnovative, if not keeping pace,
we're not going to be around.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Exactly.
You're going to be closing yourdoor soon, or bought out, or
what have you?
Something's going to change, orthe market is going to change
you.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Maybe we're at a tipping point for knowledge
management and maybe knowledgemanagement has yet to realize
its full potential.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
And for your listeners to talk about, that.
In 2018, the InternationalStandards Organization actually
created, for the first time ever, a knowledge management
standard, so people in the ISOworld get certified as certain
levels of proficiency, and Ifelt that was a huge win.
(51:58):
Oh my gosh, we finally gotsomething official and it has
hit the market in different waysand I don't think it's flooded
the hallways with people wavingflags of that ISO, but it's a
step and I think you're on tosomething.
I think it's just, it's a slowturning wheel.
You know how people are.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
We need the burning platform and we saw this in
COVID right, and we did.
If not for COVID, nobody wouldbe entertaining remote or hybrid
work models.
And in addition to theknowledge management standard in
ISO, there is now, as of thisyear, a standard for innovation.
Now, reading both standardstogether and comparing them,
(52:38):
there's a lot of overlap, so I'mhoping that ISO will eventually
combine the two into a singlespec.
So, to round out this episode,edwin, what's good look like for
Pioneer Knowledge Servicesgoing forward?
What do you want to accomplishor see happen in the next three
to five years?
Speaker 2 (52:59):
Two things.
We conduct the Midwest KMKnowledge Management Symposium.
I want that to continue to grow, morph and develop into new
ways.
We're looking at a hybridopportunity to make it available
globally not just a Zoom room,and that's a big undertaking.
(53:20):
The second piece is that we getorganizations that are funding
us to come in to create thisnesting of new tacit knowledge
via conversation.
My intent is to help them buildit, put their guy behind the
mic or gal very good atconversing and being able to tap
(53:40):
into people's tacit knowledgeand making them go down a trail
they haven't been down in awhile, Because I think that is a
really golden nugget ofbuilding tacit knowledge for
organizations that can add a lotof value.
Speaker 1 (53:55):
Well, Edwin, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (54:02):
I really enjoyed our conversation this time, as I did
with our last one and I'm surewe'll have another one soon.
Absolutely Thanks for having me.
All right, canada.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
This concludes this week's episode of For what it's
Worth the Many Faces ofInnovation, with my guest Edwin
Morris, founder of PioneerKnowledge Services, america's
first and only not-for-profit KMfirm supporting the work of
not-for-profit organizations.
Join us for the next episode ofFor what it's Worth, and
(54:27):
another installment in ourseries in the company of readers
and writers.
For what it's worth.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.