Lee Bryant talks about the NIMHE KM project
Transcript generated by iChatTranscriptConvertor - http://www.weltschmerz.org/ictc/
[24.08.2004]
[11:58]
Thomas N. Burg: Hi over there!
Lee Bryant: hello!
Thomas: just checked you fotos from the Balkan
Lee: aha
Thomas: that is said begins in Vienna, on the Rennweg
Thomas: which is a street
Lee: Bosnia was my first love … and you nev er forget your fiurst love 
Lee: true - Vienna is summertime was nice, so thanks for the conference
[12:00]
Thomas: thanks for beeing with us and making it a good conference
Lee: 
Thomas: it was a low budget and high impact conference I use to say
Lee: true
Thomas: anyway, I also just checked the blog entries on the Dunbar number
Thomas: to get into the project
Thomas: I’d like to ask you some questions
Lee: USeful stuff about group size - small = 8, large = 150 - and what works with each
Lee: ok go ahead
Thomas: Besides waiting for the first interviews
Thomas: to be done
Thomas: I was wondering how you were organized
Thomas: for the entire project
Thomas: how many which tasks ….
Thomas: we are a small team
[12:05]
Thomas: of 5 without the future users
Lee: well…
Lee: some basics about our project
Thomas: yes
Lee: NIMHE (nat inst mental health) is a networked org that has ~30 people centrally and 8 regional offices (v autonomous) with 6-20 people in each
Lee: they serve a very wide and diverse mental health community covering policy people all the way down to “users”
Thomas: ok
Lee: the challenge was mostly how to reach out to a wide and often unknown stakeholder group
Lee: so….
Thomas: unknown?
Lee: unknown only in the sense that nobody had previusly joined up different agencies in knowledge sharing (e.g. housing, councils, medical, social, etc)
Lee: so we didn’t know the outer boundaries of the network, just where the centre is and roughly how far we wanted to sppread
Lee: anyway…
Thomas: so there were already some km initiatives in place?
Lee: there were, but these were limited to single orgs
Thomas: i see
Lee: our approach was to trreat all other orgs as both potential comsuners and prodcuers of info / knowleedge
[12:10]
Lee: that way we can take feeds from any KM inits that exist and add value by linking them togetehr
Thomas: ok
Lee: so, after scoping we defined two main streams of activity
Lee: 1. consulting / outreach
Lee: 2. technical development
Lee: and the two went hand ion hand throughout the project
Thomas: sure
Lee: so…
Thomas: most of the energy went into 1., isn’t it?
Lee: yes, for sure
Thomas: How many were you for that task?
Lee: the most important bit was the consulting, where we (me plus two others from headshift and maybe 2-3 committed people within NIMHE) tried to bring together stakeholder reps and teah them enough about the challenges of the development (IA, group profiles, content plans, etc) so that they couls help us design the system
Thomas: I see - maybe I’ll explain my project a little
Lee: ok
Thomas: thus we can link some thoughts
Thomas: An Austrian ministry approached me to establish a collaborative environment in the Austrian research funding agencies
Lee: ok
Thomas: that means the state founded firms and agencies to distribute knowledge and program in order to create projects
[12:15]
Lee: ok
Thomas: Now, the idea is to link those agencied and firms - that are competing for attention ans resources
Thomas: via such a platform
Thomas: the collaborate to some extent already
Thomas: by reviewing laws, EU-stuff aso
Lee: do you mean they already use a platform (if so, what is it?) or they already cooperate to some degree using other means?
Thomas: No, no platform is used
Lee: ok
Thomas: Email basically
Thomas: So we decided to start with a small group around 10 to design a platform and rules aso
Lee: has that begun?
Thomas: not really because I’m waiting for
Thomas: the heads of the firms
Thomas: I need to interview them
Thomas: to get a clue if the are interested in such things and
Thomas: ask them to name future users to form the team
Thomas: So I’m thinking about the issue of motivation
Thomas: What motivates the CEOs, heads of departments ….. and finally the single knowledge worker
Lee: great question!
[12:20]
Lee: shall I feed in now?
Thomas: Oh yes
Lee: well, the first key thing is to try to make sharing a competitive advantage
Lee: especiallly on the level of the K workers
Lee: but also for the CEOs
Thomas: 
Thomas: Well, what would you suggest? What was your killer
Lee: if you mediate an open market of knowledge sharing that the Ministries and funders can also see and dip into, then the more these agencies share and show expertise then the more visibility they have with the funders
Lee: the way to begin for us
Lee: was to start by simply creating blogs or RSS outputs of the agencies existing output
Lee: and then join these together
Thomas: OK
Lee: in a group system that allows any of them to comment or debate
Lee: + that makes links on a semantic and taxonomic level between their content
Thomas: So in other terms rssify their newsletters, news pages ….
Lee: yes
Lee: simply putting different agencies output in one place is psychologically preparing them for cooperation
Thomas: ok I read that on your pages - the feeder blogs - sounds very helpful
Lee: out of that primordial soup of linked content we hope will emerge champions
Thomas: in terms of bloggers?
Lee: people in the agencies who ‘get it’ and start blogging or commenting or just linking up with others
Lee: then we need to give them some comms platform to do this
[12:25]
Thomas: with linking up you mean what?
Lee: then we can gradually try to coax a few in each agency to blog INSTEAD of producing press releases etc
Lee: I just mean linking with each other, talking across org. barriers and perhaps linking to each others content
Thomas: ok
Lee: then, when some basic level of common content or linked content is established
Lee: we can move on to more direct linkages between the agency’s content
Lee: e.g. common themes of work as a way of organising their feeds
Lee: or regional
Lee: or type of work etc
Thomas: Did you feed them with outside sources as well?
Lee: the key thing is not to doctate what types of groups might emerge, but to support what they want with a flexible platform
Lee: outside sources = v. important…
Lee: provide the news they want through the system as an incentive for us
Lee: for use…
Thomas: how did they react on the inflow of information
Lee: that was probably the killer, if anything was
Thomas: wasn’t it too much info?
Lee: you give them a pool of relevant feeds form outside…
Lee: they can subscribe into one aggregated personal feed…
Thomas: ok
Lee: PLUS they can grab some feeds from other agencies at the same time
Thomas: Did you tell them how to use aggregators (clients I mean)?
Lee: so, funding news, innovation news, project news in one place where any of the K workers can subscribe
Lee: yes - we are still graduallly trying to transition them (through training) from email tonews readers
Lee: we tell them…
Lee: that hour you spend each morning with your email / spam…
Lee: spend 40 mins on email and give 20 mins to news reading
[12:30]
Lee: we help them find sources they want
Thomas: so they don’t stick to the platform then?
Lee: we then encourage them to blog or “rebroadcast” anythign that is in their personal artea of expertise
Lee: no - most use is via RSS and they click through for what they want to see
Thomas: that wasn’t a problem
Lee: however, because we provide good projects suppport tools (group blog, wiki, templates, conusultation tools) they tend to go in and use the groups
Thomas: I see
Lee: you need to identify tough points in their working patterns where you can fit in and get their attention
Lee: email is the classic one - how can you provide your app “in outloook” or “on the desktop”
Thomas: tough points you mean difficulties, challenges ….
Lee: rss feeds into a newsreader or into an outlook plugin are the best way IMO
Thomas: Most of the users are readers/lurkers?
Lee: sorry - touch points as in where can your app “touch” their ingrained habitual working pattrens
Thomas: like finding data/files …
Thomas: contacts
Lee: I guess most are lurkers to begin with, but we see a lot of involvement from people because they are actually hungry for wider exposure and to show their expertise
Thomas: really!
Lee: YES - a contact database was our first technical development
Lee: we had to “own” their means of finding each other
Lee: in order to develop that key touch point where finding people is associated with our system
Lee: another one was our consultation tool….
Thomas: That’s great. How did they learn that (showing expertise)? Why is exposure important to them?
[12:35]
Thomas: Was there an incentive?
Lee: in this case because the bureacratic nature of the network had prevented them from showing off their own individual work and interests before
Lee: it had been too formal, too impersonal
Lee: yet really it is the people that count in that network
Thomas: That perfectly fits in my environment
Lee: so we try to give them a voice and encourage self-promotion
Lee: another touch point….
Lee: consultation tool:
Thomas: yes
Lee: for these agencies (and maybe yours) they often start a new project or a new funding idea with some kind of consultation (pubnlilc or private)
Thomas: Yes
Lee: we built a tool that takes them through the workflow (define purpose > project initiation > wiki based early debates > agree consultaiton doc > auto create blog-based public site to manage consultation)
Lee: it uses the group engine of the main platform
Lee: wikis, blogs, etc
Thomas: Fantastic
Lee: it was designed around one multi-stakeholder consultation covering several regions
Thomas: So those project starts were public
Lee: we then made it more generic to the normal public sector consultation process
Lee: the way the groups work is that they start private then when they have agreed the intrtnal issues they go public, but maintain a private backchannel
Thomas: ok, understood
Lee: e.g. their group blog is private until cons. is launched, then they have some publilc categories and some private ones
Thomas: BTW
Thomas: Did the CEOs fear loosing employees then?
Lee: again, it is about finding processes that already happen and facilitating them on a social platform
Lee: good question…
Thomas: or knowlede?
[12:40]
Thomas: How were they involved in the process?
Lee: in some cases yes, because you have a resource pparadox - the most successful sharers end up working for the group not for their agency, so the agencies need to find ways of making this support their interests
Lee: CEOs started very suspicious
Lee: then it got support from the very bottom and the very top
Lee: that made them “play ball”
Lee: then, when they themselves finally used it they started being positive
Thomas: then … means?
Thomas: How did you nurture that?
Lee: nurture what?
Thomas: that the CEOs joined in
Thomas: Did you talk to them?
Lee: well…. it took time and also some bravado
Lee: we did talk to them
Lee: we presented
Lee: we reported
Lee: we lobbied
Thomas: I see
Thomas: How did you manage to find those processes of the knowledge workers: interviews, workshops
Lee: First CEOs: i guess it differs for each groups of CEOs, but issues we faced were:
Lee: fear
Lee: feeling they were not in control
Lee: fear of losing power over their workers
Thomas: Sure, interesting
Lee: we addressed this by showing them that it could also give them power
Thomas: over what then?
Lee: e.g. they get an insight into conversations taking place in their org
Thomas: getting control back
Lee: but in the end, to be fair to them, they coudl see it added value to what they were doing
Lee: also, CEOs like to network
Thomas: was competiton an issue?
Thomas: between the agencies
Lee: so they are naturals for a soc. net. approach
[12:45]
Lee: yes, but this kind of system can in some ways amplify that desire
Lee: the key is showing them that they lose nothing by showing how clever they are
Lee: by sharing ideas
Lee: quite the opposite
Lee: so … knowledge workers….
Thomas: yes
Lee: we did interviews, we did some research, but mostly we just talked to them about what already “works” for them and what does not
Lee: looking for those touch points agian
Thomas: did they knew each other before?
Lee: many did, but many did not
Lee: e.g. people move around in health care
Lee: but their orgs don’t really support socialising
Thomas: I see - did you provide informal gatherings IRL
Lee: so in a way we tried to become some kind of wider alumni network where people are the nodes, not orgs
Lee: yes, we tried to be present at key meetings and conferences to exaplain what we do
Lee: plus we nurtured a group of champions who represented each agency in a steering group
Lee: we meet every month
Thomas: Travelling a lot
Lee: one month F2F
Lee: one month online
Lee: yes lots of trains esp. in the early days
Thomas: With how many kw did you start off?
Lee: the client provided a network of 10 key knowledge workers from the regional teams and central team who have been our key gatekeepers in the project
Lee: but to take one example of a regional group
[12:50]
Lee: we have worked with them over time to train every single staff member in blogging so that they can all publish direct to their own web site about what they do
Lee: so we are trying to share kw skills more widely
Thomas: Do they use internal km tools?
Lee: they are very email-centric, but some had simple doc stor intranets too
Lee: doc store
Thomas: I see
Lee: quite low level really
Thomas: By publishing to their own web you mean …
Thomas: personal website or
Lee: org site
Thomas: Ok, thanks
Thomas: you were gone for a sec
Lee: in this case one of our local feeder sites
Thomas: OK
Thomas: gone again
Lee: we say: you all have a specialist area of work, so you are all knowledge workers
Lee: so try to connect directly with your clients and stakeholders
Lee: by blogging and discussing
Thomas: Good point!
Lee: sorry about hte connection
Thomas: Were are loosing touch I guess this is a sign
Lee: 
Thomas: Thanks for you infos I don’t want to bother you any longer except …
Thomas: maybe we could meet again in some weeks time I could tell you then .. more
Lee: yes that would be good
[12:55]
Thomas: Thank you very much
Lee: you’re most welcome
Thomas: and have a nice day
Lee: see you later, best wishes
Thomas: bfn
[12:57]
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