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Here’s an interesting video with some Googlers talking about knowledge and the economic impact: 

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=h8XDceL8jd0[/youtube]

Business Challenge:
Traveling consultants within this national consulting firm were challenged by inefficient collaboration amongst peers, by not having access to the most recent versions of processes, and by inadequate knowledge transfer to new consultants.  Knowing that the majority of how consultants learned and developed was from one another, the principals of the consulting firm were searching for a learning solution that would facilitate peer-to-peer sharing and collaboration, thus improving version control and reducing rework.

Solution: 
Orbital RPM worked directly with the firm’s principals and field consultants to design and implement a scalable peer-to-peer collaboration solution for all levels of the consulting firm. 
Given the geographic dispersion of consultants as well as the need to collaborate, preserve version control and get others up to speed quickly, an on-line solution was chosen that included elements of social software and knowledge management.   
Social software is a powerful way for people to collaborate and it was the perfect fit for traveling consultants to work together on client as well as internal projects.  All of the firm’s consulting processes and procedures were uploaded into the system and consultants were then able to contribute to and access the most up-to-date versions of any aspect of a project.  In addition, elements were added to allow consultants to communicate comments through the system and upload client-specific documents for future reference.  Select individuals at the firm’s headquarters and field offices were also given access so that they could add to or retrieve from the system, knowing that what was posted was always the most recent version.  It serves as an effective knowledge management system that is integrated into daily workflow.
No system is successful if the culture is not there to support it.  Orbital RPM took great measure to involve consultants  through the design phase and spent a bulk of the project time working with consultants on how to integrate the system into their daily lives. 

Outcome: 
Consultants quickly adopted use of the new methods into their daily work.  Learning, efficiency and accuracy on internal and external projects was greatly increased while reducing email traffic and IT requirements.

I had an opportunity today to have the dedicated ears of 18 mid-level managers at a large organization where we are just at the launch phase of creating a community of practice.  This is a group of sales people in a competitive environment and the suggetion of sharing ideas with one another has to be approached very carefully.  Last night I began assembling slides and this morning I went back to put on some finishing touches - I checked my email and saw this article from CLO magazine. 

I included a screen shot of the article as a way to illustrate to the group that learning in organizations is moving away from just formal content delivery and more toward enabling easier access to necessary information.  These ideas really resonated with them and some of the responses were, “like MySpace” or like an “eBay seller rating” for peer reviewed content and also “like Amazon.” 

I wrote recently about how there was a seeming disconnect between some Chief Learning Officers (CLO) and these progressive modes of learning but it’s encouraging to see the gap gradually narrow with entries such as this.

As organizations begin to find the collective intelligence of their workforce through social network analysis and tap their full potential through communities of practice and the software to support them, they will be poised to unleash the true potential of knowledge workers.