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Originally published October 4, 2024

Stan Garfield
28 min readOct 5, 2024

This is the 108th article in the Profiles in Knowledge series featuring thought leaders in knowledge management. Patti Anklam is a retired Collaboration and Network Consultant. She helped companies understand their organizational roles and social networks, how to select, introduce, and manage social software and collaboration tools to enhance people-to-people connections and knowledge flow and to capture and curate information and knowledge assets.

Patti specialized in knowledge management, social and learning networks, and collaboration. Her skills included social software, infrastructure assessment, design and tool introduction, social network analysis, communities of practice, contextual design, work practice modeling, and organization development.

Patti was the former Director of Knowledge Management for Nortel Networks. She was also a former Senior Consulting Engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). She worked at DEC from 1976 to 1998 and at Compaq until 2000. She worked with me as a key member of DEC’s knowledge management team from 1996 to 1998.

Background

Education

  • Beloit College — BA, French. 1967–1971

Experience

  • Net at Work — Collaboration and Network Consultant, 2001 — Present
  • Net Work — Principal Consultant, 2001–2019
  • Nortel Networks — Director of Knowledge Management, 2000–2001
  • Digital Equipment Corporation and Compaq Computer — Sr. Consulting Engineer, 1976–2000
  • IBM — Principal Software Writer, 1971–1976

Profiles

Content

Blogs

Quotes

  • Collaboration is an organizational imperative of 21st century. Networks of relationships are the ultimate resource. It takes work to create and sustain effective networks. This is Net Work.
  • A network analysis can tell us more than just who to call for what, it can also show us how important certain people might be in influencing change efforts or in bringing disjointed parts of a company into collaboration.
  • Organizational network analysis (ONA) has always seemed like a good idea, and yet, there have been some real barriers. The tools were, if not arcane, at least not very accessible to the people in organizations who might be the most interested in network analysis — human resources, organizational development, managers themselves. The second problem with the uptake of SNA/ONA is that it is such a hard sell. A third problem may be with pricing, more specifically, return on investment for the project.
  • I have found that Marilyn Darling’s Emergent Learning Maps provide a good structure for lessons learned and moving from lessons into action.

7 Habits of Highly Successful Knowledge Managers

  1. Share Relentlessly what you have created and what you are learning. Be a role model for those around you.
  2. Search First looking to find, reuse, and refine what others have done before creating something from scratch. Listen to what others are saying.
  3. Communicate, Ask and Answer in the Open using email only when absolutely necessary. Make your work and your talents discoverable by working out loud. TAG, TAG, TAG what you create so others can find it.
  4. Seek Active Collaboration for tasks both small and large. The sum is always greater than the parts.
  5. Build Social Capital as if it matters as much as financial. Build your personal network and connect people so they can enhance theirs.
  6. Act on Your Ideas for creating and sharing knowledge. Leverage company KM resources.
  7. Improve your Knowledge and Skills with KM Tools and Practices by learning one new thing every day (and then go to #1 and share).

Social Network Analysis: SNA, ONA, VNA

  • ONA comprises social network analysis (SNA) tools that provide managers with visual maps and quantitative data that indicate the current patterns of connection within and across groups in an organization. ONA is proving to be an exceptional tool for providing a baseline against which to measure changes in collaboration and connectivity during times of organizational change. I use ONA with clients to help them assess the current state of connectivity in their organizations and reframe their strategies in terms of network capacity and diversity.
  • VNA brings insight and perspective by creating a map of the interactions — tangible and intangible — among the functional groups in an organization’s business processes. VNA puts the network lens on a value chain. I use it to help clients see the important patterns in knowledge flow and collaboration so as to help target the introduction of methods and tools to support enhanced collaboration and innovation.
  • Networks exist outside of corporations as well — everyone participates in multiple networks, including the informal family, community, work, and their purely social networks of friends. Formal networks include civic organizations like Rotary International, alumni groups, and business and professional groups. The latter have all evolved distinct governance models, norms for joining and participating, legacy databases, membership rolls, and very public identities. There is yet another class of network that is not yet well defined, and for which the norms and governance models are emerging — networks such as inter-company and intra-company learning and collaboration networks; independent consultants who share common interests and passions who want to remain independent but work collaboratively and consistently with like-minded others. They can be geographically local business networks; web-based virtual learning groups and communities; or global action networks destined to make the world a better place.

Articles

Writing

Publications

  • Creating Networks at the Defense Intelligence with Adrian Wolfberg, KM Review, Volume 9, Issue 1 (March/April 2006). Case study of development of knowledge network at the DIA including using organizational network analysis metrics to match people for mentoring.
  • Expanding the Field of Vision, with Rob Cross and Vic Gulas, The Learning Organization Volume 12 Number 6 2005. Case study of social network analysis and organizational development at MWH Global.
  • Masterclass: Social-network Analysis, Four-part series in Inside Knowledge magazine, June 2005 through October 2005. Each part covers a critical aspect of designing, managing, interpreting, and following up on a network analysis project.
  • KM and the Social Network, Knowledge Management Magazine, May 2003. Description of social network analysis methods and case studies from actual practice. (Second Source and Third Source)

The Camelot of Collaboration: The Case of VAX Notes

Knowledge Management Magazine, October 2001. Before knowledge management, there was a company in which a collaboration technology transformed how its employees worked in a way that today’s CKOs can only dream of. (Second Source and Third Source)

The term ‘community of practice’ hadn’t been coined at the time, and the distinctions we now make about types of community were not in our lexicon in the mid-1980s. If you perused the master list of conferences registered in Digital at the time you would find:

  • Communities of purpose
  • Communities of practice
  • Communities of interest

By far the greatest leverage for VAX Notes came with its use in supporting the business of the company. Communities of purpose — development teams, quality circles, researchers — integrated one or more Notes databases into the fabric of the organizational life and process of their teams. Field people, geographically distributed technical personnel who were the earliest adopters of the technology, relied on the conferences supported by the development teams: VMS, Unix, Networking. Many teams would use the conferences as a way to capture and record bug reports and responses, to solicit requirements for new products, and so on. By deliberate sequencing, ordering, re-ordering, indexing, tracking and monitoring Notes, the emerging knowledge about a product under development was maintained and made accessible to the company at large.

Conferences were available for people in specific professional communities within the company: writers, marketing professionals, financial analysts, product managers and so on, all had their own conferences. These Notes conferences, which spanned geographical and organizational boundaries, provided a venue for announcements about events, discussions about changes in process, socialization of new ideas, informal job postings, etc.

The work-related communities far outnumbered the communities supporting ‘water cooler’ conversations. These latter communities of interest ranged from areas of deep technological specialization (the ‘Chips’ conference) to broad social concerns (the ‘Digital’ conference). In between, there was room for discussion of professional (‘Linguistics’) and personal (‘Cats’, ‘Home improvements’, ‘Ballroom dancing’, etc.) topics, topics about life in the workplace, word games and rumors.

The tolerance of personal interest topics was not universal. There were many managers who tried to curtail or to stop Notes activity outright, especially when there were the infrequent but highly visible abuses of company time and resources, or evidence of personal attacks in the files. However, the existence and ultimately the support of personal conferences within the environment reinforced the sense of community across the company and had a tipping effect on the acceptance of collaboration tools in the workplace.

The 3rd KM: personal knowledge management

The 3 KMs

Selecting one of the 3 KMs is not an either/or/or. As in economics and practically everything else, it depends. Different purposes, the target audience, and available resources will guide the approach that is used. To recap:

  1. Big KM is about top-down, structured and organizationally distinct “knowledge management”
  2. Little KM is about safe-fail experiments embedded in the organizational structure
  3. Personal KM is about access to tools and methods to ensure that knowledge, context, bits, fragments, thoughts, ideas are harvestable

Compaq Services boosts efficiency and customer satisfaction by implementing Knowledge Management

Commenting on the effectiveness of the business model that links the Compaq NonStop eBusiness strategy with Knowledge Management, Patti Anklam, Information Architect for Knowledge Management Services, says, “We have deep competencies in helping people solve large, complex problems. We work across the information, solutions, and infrastructure architecture layers. This systemic approach is one of the core capabilities we bring to the table in our integration and consulting business. Our architecture methodology enables us to help customers integrate their existing systems with new solutions and applications and develop an enabling infrastructure that can evolve over time. In fact, this architecture methodology is a prime example of how we capture and make repeatable the experience, techniques, and work products of senior technology consultants.”

Compaq, which has had a Knowledge Management strategy in place since 1997, piloted the program in Compaq Services’ systems integration group. “A critical success factor to this effort was that we understood that Knowledge Management encompasses more than technology,” says Patti Anklam. “We’ve learned that only about one-third of Knowledge Management is about technology. Two-thirds is about people — process innovation, culture change, and behavior modification. It’s really hard, dirty work and you have to roll up your sleeves and deal with a lot of organizational issues. If you look at Knowledge Management strictly from a technology viewpoint, or expect a quick fix, the KM work will not succeed.”

Networking in a virtual world an essential skill for success with Nancy Settle-Murphy

Finding the right connections to help you do your job, or to grow into the next one, requires a significant investment of time and effort even when you know all of the right players. But when you’re part of virtual organization, effective networking can be considerably more challenging.

While you may be able to see who’s who from the org chart, the real influencers, potential mentors and key contributors tend to be less obvious. When you are physically surrounded by many of the key players, you can make connections fairly easily with a bit of planning. But when you’re part of a virtual team, you have far fewer opportunities to make the kind of deep connections so important for networking.

This edition of Communiqué provides practical guidelines for productive networking in a virtual world, focusing on finding the right people who can be part of your personal network. Such a network has great intrinsic value, providing a venue for mutual support and enrichment. A thoughtfully developed network can also help you achieve job and career objectives, both near- and long-term.

Building and sustaining a network consists of four cyclical elements: defining your goal; researching the network; creating conversations; and reciprocating and following up. We will cover the first two elements in this edition. A subsequent issue will cover the final two.

  1. Define your goals: You need to be clear about what you want to achieve by becoming better networked. For example, are you interested in a new job elsewhere in the company? Would you like to improve how you do your current job? Would extending the boundaries of your local network help your team accomplish more? Do you have ideas that you are passionate about sharing with others? While many people thrive on the very act of networking, having a goal can keep you focused on the hard work of getting introductions and braving those “get acquainted” conversations.
  2. Research the network: Networking is very much a task of ferreting out the informal networks in an organization, discovering how work really gets done. However, familiarizing yourself with the formal power base is also important. Learn about reporting relationships, both direct and indirect. Review organizational charts, newsletters, emails and web postings to determine which leaders tend to make important announcements. These may not be the people who actually make the decisions, but you’ll get a good sense for the figureheads in your organization.
  3. Scrutinize company websites for clues. Very often, the real movers and shakers work under the radar, making them more difficult to discern. Scan chat forums to see who responds to important questions. Read blogs to discover who some of the most creative thinkers are. Find out who’s really behind some of the most important and illuminating content on relevant websites.
  4. Identify the boundary spanners. Which people tend to work as part of cross-functional or organization-wide teams? The people who act as bridge-builders are very often those who are regarded as the most trusted, credible and effective by their peers. In addition, they tend to carry a more holistic view of the overall organization than their colleagues who may take a more myopic view as they work primarily with colleagues from their own organizations.
  5. Look for the real thought leaders. Who’s speaking at industry association meetings? Who’s quoted in the press? Who meets regularly with key clients? The real thought leaders are not always those with the loftiest titles. Scour your company’s intranet site as well as the internet to find references that hold clues. Search industry association websites, events calendars and press releases, among other places.
  6. Make friends with people in the know. Pick up the phone and introduce yourself to those who might be able to help you identify key influencers. The people who work in organizations that span the organization may be able to offer the most help. Try asking administrative assistants, chiefs of staff, communication managers, strategic planners, and financial analysts. Don’t be afraid to ask for help in gaining entree to important people.
  7. Spend time with people who get things done. People who consistently deliver quality results and meet important commitments are very likely the ones you’ll benefit by working with in the future. Find opportunities to work with them on future projects, or seek their advice when direct collaboration is not possible.
  8. Make connections with people actively involved in Knowledge Management (KM) activities. People who participate in some kind of KM network, including communities of practice, tend to value the moving and sharing of information as a means to successful collaboration. Introduce yourself to some of the KM leaders and see how you can get involved.

Finding the gatekeepers and influencers within a geographically dispersed organization can take dozens of calls, scores of emails, and hundreds of web searches. But if you want to thrive as part of a virtual organization, you need to invest the efforts required to form vital connections that will enrich your personal and professional life.

Real-time conversations crucial for networking in a virtual world with Nancy Settle-Murphy

This issue of Communiqué focuses on planning and facilitating conversations most likely to help you cultivate mutually rewarding relationships. We also discuss ways to follow up to keep both parties engaged and interested in moving forward together.

In this issue, we refer primarily to voice-to-voice conversations, which may entail the use of other tools, such as web-based web conferencing or meeting technologies. Of course, you can augment those voice conversations with text-based real-time conversations using instant messaging and chat, or asynchronous conversations which may involve email, a bulletin board or discussion forum of some kind.

Making and sustaining connections is much easier when you can catch someone in the hallway or cafeteria for an ad hoc conversation that can build naturally into some type of shared work. In the virtual world, however, you must thoroughly plan every conversation to make sure that participants are convinced that taking any future steps will be worth their while. After all, you have very little time to build an initial connection that will extend beyond that first meeting. Here are some steps to help you forge meaningful new connections for your virtual network through well-planned conversations.

  1. Knowing what you want to achieve: If you simply want to establish a connection for follow-up sometime in the future, you may only need one or two conversations. If, however, you want to explore opportunities and take action that will build toward a long-lasting relationship, you’ll need at least a few conversations, each one building on the one before. In the virtual world, with very limited opportunities for real-time interaction, we need to be explicit and direct about what we’re seeking from the other person and explain why the connection will be mutually beneficial.
  2. Finding a connection that matters: A conversation designed to discover a basis for relatedness between two people lays the groundwork for forging a deeper connection that can lead to shared action. Tempting though it may be to push for action at the beginning, most people need to relate on some level before taking the next steps. By all means, use email to set up the first conversation and establish objectives. But make sure that your first conversation is voice-to-voice, since so many vital cues are relayed through tones, inflections and pitch. If the fit seems good, suggest a concrete next step for follow up. If not, be honest about your intentions so you don’t leave the other person hanging. Always acknowledge the others’ time and willingness to talk.
  3. Paving the way for exploring possibilities: If you have established a connection that’s of mutual interest, the next conversation should allow you to explore potential areas for collaboration. Capitalize on your interest immediately by following up via email ASAP with specific areas that you feel represent real possibilities and suggest some days/times that might work for a next conversation. Send relevant documents in advance to help focus the conversation. At the same time, remain open to possibilities you hadn’t thought of.
  4. Brainstorming ideas. Plan to brainstorm for possibilities during this next conversation, and then identify opportunities at a later time. This way, you both have a chance to reflect on the possibilities, weighing the pros and cons, before making decisions. Try to book both of these conversations at the same time, one for divergent thinking and one for convergent thinking. Don’t leave more than a few days between conversations, or you risk losing interest. Brainstorming is best done via phone, at a minimum. Web conferencing tools, used either asynchronously or synchronously, can boost output considerably, often within a surprisingly short period of time.
  5. Opening up opportunities. Prepare for the following conversation by sending a summary of the output from your brainstorming session, highlighting a few areas with the most promise. Ask your colleague to do the same. Your goal for the next call: Agree on one or two opportunities that both of you feel are worth additional time and effort. Make sure you’re on the same page in terms of intended outcomes, timing, responsibilities and resources required. Mismatched expectations at this juncture can quickly sour a new relationship. Before you close the call, agree on next steps needed to pursue a particular opportunity.
  6. Taking action. At this point, you may map out suggested action plans in writing, during an ensuing call, or both. Be as detailed as you can in terms of timing, deliverables, roles, metrics, critical success factors, interdependencies, commitments needed, and resources required. Ask that your colleague mark up your document with any changes, or better yet, arrange a call to review your proposed action plan in real-time, jointly editing the document using a web conferencing or meeting tool. Make sure you agree how and when you’ll follow up, track progress, surface issues and make future plans.
  7. Checking in and following up. While you may be eager to discover what progress your colleague has made, realize that conflicting priorities often intervene, despite the best intentions. If s/he has missed a deadline, pick up the phone to check in instead of sending an email reminder. Likewise, if you can’t fulfill a commitment, don’t ignore the fact that you’re late. Call or send an email to acknowledge your tardiness and explain the reason; be sure to indicate when you will be able to respond. In many cases, checking in can be easily done via email or through another asynchronous means of communications. When issues arise, having a quick conversation can take less time than a barrage of emails. Even when no actions are required, pick up the phone or send an email simply to say hello. These social exchanges can act as the best kind of glue to cement long-distance relationships.
  8. Closing the conversation. Not all possibilities lead to real opportunities, and not all opportunities lead to a shared desire to take further action. Be prepared to stop at any point if you both agree, either implicitly or explicitly, that additional time and effort may not be worth it at this point. Agree to what extent it makes sense to stay in touch to keep the connection going, if you both feel it may be fruitful. For example, you might schedule a call for next quarter, include each other on a particular distribution list, or meet face-to-face if the opportunity arises. Or you may both decide that there simply is not enough of a connection to warrant another conversation any time soon. Be sure to acknowledge the other’s time and energy, contribution of ideas, and openness to connecting; close with an offer of your own future availability to respond to requests for ideas, connections to others, or problem-solving help.
  9. Maintaining the connection. This person is now in your network, and you should have learned about what topics are top-of-mind for her or him. You can follow these up by forwarding news items (from email or the web), tossing out ideas, or making introductions of people whom they may not know.

Forging meaningful new relationships in the virtual world, especially when we’re reaching out to those outside of our usual working circle, takes considerable planning, effort, and tenacity. To form a valuable new network connection, we need to have real conversations. Persuading each other of the potential value of such conversations is often a tough sell, but one that will be rewarded if you can identify an opportunity and take action in ways that will pay off for both of you.

Conversations

AOK: Preparing for Conversations with Patti Anklam

The first era of knowledge management, we know, was focused on technology and tools to support knowledge workers in the capturing, cataloging, finding, and reusing content. The Internet and World Wide Web technologies spurred the content management, groupware, and document repository software industries to produce applications for corralling both real and referenced knowledge. The industry has shaken out, and few companies are spending millions anymore to bring in super software, but the pervasive influence of activities related to designing and using these systems (more ideas) remains in much of the language we use today.

In the second era, the ranks of knowledge management practitioners were augmented by people skilled in process improvement and organizational disciplines: best practices sharing, continuous improvement, reward and recognition policies, change management, and communities of practice. Note that this era built on the previous, not replacing it, but bringing insights and practices (even more ideas) that, we expected, would engage the knowledge workers themselves while shifting the focus on technology from “end” to “enabler.”

The work of the second era of knowledge management — the transfer and exchange of best practices, the development and creation of knowledge through communities — emphasized that knowledge management is really important insofar as it enables knowledge to move among people in organizations. Through transfer of knowledge, especially of the tacit, don’t-know-you-know and hard-to-write-down kind, new knowledge comes into being and passes along paths of social connection in organizations. Through diffusion, knowledge creates insights that enable decisions; generates innovations in products and processes; and provides a medium for sense-making and trust-building across boundaries.

The current, third, era of knowledge management goes to the heart of this focus on the importance of connections that enable diffusion of knowledge. At this same time, a number of social science researchers were leveraging advances in computer technology that enabled them to map social networks, that is, networks of people known to each other in some way. Complexity science was and is building keys to understanding of how people work and behave in complex social systems. Natural language processing technologies have matured to open the door to a semantic web, where we can find and connect people and ideas in ways we’d only imagined possible in the past.

What marks each of these eras, and the response of KM practitioners, is the way that ideas arise, merge and mingle, and land in the practitioner’s path. Some of us began our idea practices before the term “knowledge management” gained currency. I know that that is the way it was for me. My career, beginning in software technical writing, has been marked by my love of ideas, and my ability to understand when a new idea makes sense for the organization I’m in. (These days, I map new ideas to business problems that clients face, which means I get to work with many more ideas!)

One great idea that landed in my path in the early 1980s was the notion of “gencode,” a proposed model for generic markup of documents. I’ll make this long story short by saying that there is a straight path from gencode to HTML. It was a notion that revolutionized publishing and prepared the way for the world we live in today. I was working in a technical publications group at the time, and this idea was so right for what my company — Digital Equipment Corporation — needed, that I made it happen. Of course, it took extreme management support (early versions of my team’s software sucked up computing cycles in a way that brought networks to their knees), and ultimately a team of 15 people, but we changed how the company worked. That’s what can happen when an idea practitioner is moved to action.

We acquire ideas, map them to our mental models, internalize, and either apply them or tuck them away for future reference. (Naturally, we learn the most from those we apply.) Some ideas come with emerging disciplines and practices, and a set of specialist practitioners. Consider something as straightforward as user-centered design, also called participatory design, which is a field adjacent to the science of computer-human interaction. The notion of paying attention to the user interface in design, itself once a novel idea, created a set of disciplines and practices. As an idea practitioner, I adopted the basic principles of user-centered design and some powerful tools — contextual inquiry, for example, invented by Karen Holtzblatt at Digital — and have adapted these into an interviewing style and approach that I use in my consulting practice.

But I also know when I’m out of my depth and need to call in the experts. Systems modeling, Six Sigma, competency modeling, to be applied successfully in organizations, require specialist expertise. (Heavens, they even award black belts in Six Sigma for training accomplishments!) Ideas like this are important to collect, and also important to know when to apply. The KM practitioner will always have a skill profile that has a lot of breadth — we need to know about a lot of things, but we rarely have depth in more than two or more. It’s the “know-about” that matters in these cases, along with (even more importantly) the “know who.”

Abstract ideas take a different path. They must be socialized. Here, the idea practitioner must become an idea maven — that is, must become a person who is compulsive about networking and sharing the idea. In a company, this means associating yourself so firmly with an idea that you become known as the expert. (You maintain this reputation by never turning down an opportunity to speak to a group, no matter how small. You are the translator, the astronaut who has journeyed to another galaxy, and brought back ideas that can be used right here on earth.) You can remain modest, but don’t protest the expert mantel if you don’t feel like an expert; expertise is relative. And, as David Snowden reminds us, we always know more than we can tell. As we live and breathe this stuff we are experts in collecting and organizing the ideas — true practitioners.

I like to think about this practice of ideas as one that is rooted in sense-making and model-building. I love to work with models, and I particularly like the tried and true, the ones that are flexible enough to take in new ideas while still grounded in a language common enough in business to resonate with leaders. Here is one that I have used and expanded over the years. It has five components, one that overarches and one that underlies. The three in the middle are very old friends: people, process, and product. You’ll note that I actually use the term “systems” instead of “product” in this model. Models need to be flexible!

I actually borrowed this model from organizational development folks. (Talk about a hotbed of idea practitioners: these folks are right up there on my list of people to be friendly with in organizations.)

Models — pictures — provide a natural medium for socializing ideas (the other, well known to KM practitioners, is storytelling). Along with models come principles and standards. “Principles, models, and standards” is almost itself a definition of system architecture. I captured this idea, and many others, from working as the knowledge manager for a worldwide community of senior software solutions architects. I also learned there about methodology, and the patience and discipline that it takes to build one.

This systems model, as I call it, is a kind of “know what” model. It lets me talk about different aspects of work and knowledge management practices in an organization in familiar language. Almost all “systemic approaches” to KM will have these elements, slightly varied, sometimes with additional elements and sometimes abbreviated, but this model is always a good place to start to ask questions. I use this in a KM audit.

The mission part of this model relates to the business goals of the group or organization. What is it that this group does, and what is the role of knowledge in meeting goals and objectives? This part of the model might be a “know why” model or objective statement. I also have a “know how model” that usually takes some time to explain but is essentially a process-oriented model that shows how to position knowledge management practices in the business value chain.

I created this version of this model at Nortel, in which the central value chain (the blue chevrons in the middle) was the central business process steps identified by BPR consultants. Looking at the technologies, documents, systems and tools as inputs and outputs in the lower half of the picture let me describe the nature of explicit knowledge. The people activities — communities, conversations, telephone calls (it is a telecommunications company) — let me talk about tacit knowledge. In all, looking at innovation in services, business intelligence, CRM, and all the “ideas” that come into the value chain, it became easy to talk about specific KM initiatives that met specific needs in each part of the value chain.

And then we come to organization — the structures, roles, and relationships that are put in place to ensure ongoing operation and monitoring of processes, systems, and work practices necessary to achieve the mission. We’ve seen a real breakthrough in this organizational dimension in the past three years with an idea that really turned my head: social capital. I was lucky enough to participate in Rob Cross and Andrew Parker’s research at the Institute for Knowledge Management in social network analysis. This, I knew, was a tool that I wanted to add to my toolkit — and one that I wanted to go into, deeply.

For those who haven’t yet been introduced to social network analysis and its application in knowledge management, I humbly recommend my own article in a recent edition of Knowledge Management magazine, KM and the social network.

A network map of an organization, unlike a standard, hierarchical-based org chart shows the real “know who” in a group, community, or company. What’s best about a network map is that it prompts questions, and questions prompt dialogue, and dialogue spurs action. You only need to take a brief look at some network maps, knowing nothing about the organization, and you can ask pretty legitimate questions. What’s up with the brown dots (lower right)? What about the triangle on the far left? The green dots and the blue dots are tenuously connected. Is that enough? The manager (orange) in the middle was one of my sponsors for social network analysis in Nortel. He was astonished by this picture — and he was able to tell a good story about it. I especially like to tell about his response when he saw his lack of direct connection to all but one of the green dots: “Well! I never thought to put them on my email distribution list!”

Social network analysis is a great tool, but it the understanding of the idea of social networks that really fuels how I think about my work and the organizations that I work with. What is the impact of certain types of connection? How can I best translate my understanding about how work moves through the network into a positive KM benefit? Just because this is my latest new idea doesn’t mean that it is the right idea all the time. Sometimes old ideas are pretty good, too. I recently talked to a manager of a research group who hadn’t yet understood the importance of a central “team page” or web site to provide a common list of resources. That’s a pretty old idea, but intranets are still pretty new to some people!

Articles by Others

Presentations

KM 101

KM 101 - Download as a PDF or view online for free

www.slideshare.net

The Key Success Factor in Knowledge Management... What Else? Change Management

The Key Success Factor in Knowledge Management... What Else? Change Management - Download as a PDF or view online for…

www.slideshare.net

Skills for Net Work by Patti Anklam

Skills for Net Work by Patti Anklam - Download as a PDF or view online for free

www.slideshare.net

Net Work Shop For Network Creation

Net Work Shop For Network Creation - Download as a PDF or view online for free

www.slideshare.net

Network Properties: Structure

KMWorld

  1. W13: Organizational Network Analysis & Tools
  2. B101: Building Knowledge Networks — Slides
  1. W19: Organizational Network Analysis (ONA)
  2. B101: Tools for Social & Organizational Network Analysis (ONA)
  3. B106: Piloting Collaboration Software

Podcasts

Video

Books

Net Work: A Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World

Synopsis

Provides a guide for leaders and participants to work within and lead purposeful social networks in the world. Awareness of networks and networked organizations has reached the mainstream of the business publishing world, as evidenced in the increasing number of articles in such publications as the Harvard Business Review and the Sloan Management Review. Many graduate business school programs now teach social network analysis and network theory.

Networks exist outside of corporations as well. Everyone participates in multiple networks, including the informal family, community, work, and their purely social networks of friends. Formal networks include civic organizations like Rotary International, alumni groups, and business and professional groups. The latter have all evolved distinct governance models, norms for joining and participating, legacy databases, membership rolls, and very public identities.

There is yet another class of network that is not yet well defined, and for which the norms and governance models are emerging networks such as inter-company and intra-company learning and collaboration networks; independent consultants who share common interests and passions who want to remain independent but work collaboratively and consistently with like-minded others. They can be geographically local business networks; web-based virtual learning groups and communities; or global action networks destined to make the world a better place.

The purpose of this book is to provide a taxonomy and guidebook to these emergent networks, with a specific focus on helping leaders and participants to create and sustain successful networks. It will address the need for articulating a governance model and norms, selecting and using appropriate tools, and expectations for how the network will grow and change over time.

Contents

  • Chapter 1. The Principles of Net Work: describes assumptions about the nature of networks with a fundamental assertion that all networks can be described using a basic set of properties.
  • Chapter 2. The Business of Net Work: evidence for the increasing prevalence of networks in organizations of all types, including corporations and nonprofits, and the network view that is driving many organizations to establish networks that cross organizational boundaries.
  • Chapters 3 through 6 set out the core facets — purpose, structure, style, and value — that describe network properties.
  • You can describe a network based on its purpose (Chapter 3), structure (Chapter 4), and style (Chapter 5), and you can identify its value-producing processes (Chapter 6).
  • Chapters 7, 8, and 9 introduce tools and methods for applying the “network lens” in working with networks. Chapter 7 introduces the design and evolution of networks. Chapter 8 describes methods for examining and diagnosing the structure and health of a network. Chapter 9 provides guidance for managing a network through transitions.
  • Chapter 10 summarizes the imperatives of “Net Work” for leaders today: the new work required to create and sustain purposeful and thriving “nets” inside their organizations and outside.

Table of Contents

  1. The Nature of Net Work
  2. The Context of Net Work
  3. Purpose
  4. Structure
  5. Style
  6. Networks and Value Creation
  7. Net Work: Design
  8. Net Work: Examination
  9. Net Work: Change and Transition
  10. The Net Work of Leadership

The Social-Network Toolkit: Building Organizational Performance Through Collaborative Communities

Book Chapters

Knowledge Management
Thought Leaders
Social Network Analysis
Networking
Organizational Network

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Stan Garfield
Stan Garfield

Written by Stan Garfield

2.3K Followers
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Knowledge Management Author and Speaker, Founder of SIKM Leaders Community, Community Evangelist, Knowledge Manager https://sites.google.com/site/stangarfield/

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