getting value from employee weblogs: a knowledge management approach by lilia efimova
DESCRIPTION
Presented at Online Information 2007, December 5, 2007, London, UK. Weblogs written by employees of a company can be valuable communication and knowledge management assets, providing ways to speak in a human voice within or outside the organisation, to find previously undocumented expertise, and to create unexpected connections between people and ideas. Given their grass-root nature is there something that can be done to maximise those benefits? This presentation starts from examples of employee blogging (based on the results of a study at Microsoft) and then discusses how companies can benefit from it by integrating blogging as part of their knowledge management initiatives.TRANSCRIPT
Getting value from employee weblogs: a knowledge management approach
Lilia Efimova Telematica Instituut
iceberg.telin.nlblog.mathemagenic.com
23 August 2006, HUMlab, Umea University, Sweden
Weblogs at Microsoft
• Some examples
– The Old New Thing
– MSN Search's WebLog
– Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters
– Mini-Microsoft
• Some stories
– How have blogs influenced you?
– Waveland, Blogs, and BlogHer Q&A
– Thanks, Microsoft
– Scoble hype around the world
• The study
5 December 2007, Online Information, London, UK
Weblogs at Microsoft: work-related uses
• Communicating directly with others inside or outside of the organisation
– “We were trying to ship something and I have no external exposure to people, so starting a weblog was partly to talk about it with outsiders”
• Documenting and organising own work
– “Either I could have written that down as an internal note and just kept that or now it’s out there on internet, so I can find it more easily and also get hints from folks”
• Showing the human side of the company
– “I’m tired of being called evil”
• Task-related: accelerate use of MS tools, get feedback on features, provide information, advertise events, promote MS jobs
5 December 2007, Online Information, London, UK
KM perspective
5 December 2007, Online Information, London, UK
Undocumented or hidden in private spaces
5 December 2007, Online Information, London, UK
Not urgent, but important
5 December 2007, Online Information, London, UK
Unexpected connections
5 December 2007, Online Information, London, UK
Distributed apprenticeship
5 December 2007, Online Information, London, UK
Making it happen
• Learn about the risks and benefits to get rid of managerial fears. Trust your people.
• Communicate clearly
– Send positive signals
– What not to blog about
• Lower thresholds
– Provide examples
– Simplify technology
– Ask experienced bloggers to coach newcomers
• Blogging as a new tool for old tasks
• Part of “work as usual”
5 December 2007, Online Information, London, UK
Making most from what is already there
Credit: Operators Are Standing By
Credit: A nosa disco necesítanos
5 December 2007, Online Information, London, UK
Making most from what it already there
• Carefully integrate with everyday work
– Time, workflows, technology, appraisals
• Improve discoverability
– Index, aggregate, select, promote
• Synthesize
– “Best of” lists for a blog or a topic, reuse, smart aggregation
5 December 2007, Online Information, London, UK
Smart aggregation
Implications for KM
• Personal passions have a (legitimate) place at work
• Microactions aggregate
• Transparency is here to stay
• Connections are unexpected
• Information overload is an issue
• Everyday routines matter
• Authority becomes fluid
• Controls are shared
13 November 2007, KM research day, Amsterdam
5 December 2007, Online Information, London, UK
Follow-up
• Microsoft study
– Lilia Efimova & Jonathan Grudin (2007). Crossing Boundaries: A Case Study of Employee Blogging. Proceedings of the 40th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'07)
– More
• Today’s presentation links - http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2007/12/05.html#a1962
• More on my research
– In progress at my blog: blog.mathemagenic.com
– Published: iceberg.telin.nl
– Contact: [email protected]