In
a recent
post I argued that
IT and Knowledge Management (KM) should merge into a combined TechKnowledgy department
that would, in addition to the traditional responsibilities for
managing the
financial, HR and sales systems and technical
hardware of the organization, take on these two important new
responsibilities focused on the individual 'knowledge worker':
1. Social Software Applications:
Development
of new social
software applications for front-line employees, including:
- Expertise locators
- to help people find other people
inside and outside the organization they need to talk with to do their
job more effectively.
- Personal content
management tools - simple, weblog-type
tools that organize, access and selectively publish each individual's 'filing
cabinet', as a replacement for failed centralized content
management systems.
- Personal collaboration tools
- wireless, portable
videoconferencing and networking tools that save travel costs and allow
people to participate virtually in events where they cannot afford to
participate in person.
- Personal researching
and reporting tools - technologies
and templates that enable effective do-it-yourself business research
and analysis and facilitate the preparation of professional reports and
presentations.
 2. Personal Productivity Improvement: Hands-on
assistance to front-line employees -- helping
them
make effective use of technology and knowledge, including the above
tools, one-on-one, in the context of their individual roles. Not
training, not wait-for-the-phone-to-ring help desk service -- face to
face, scheduled sessions where individuals can show what they do and
what they know, and experts can show them how to do it better, faster,
and take the intelligence of what else is needed back to HO so
developers can improve effectiveness even more.
I've written before about social
software applications, and noted that
Business 2.0 has named these applications the Best New
Technology of
2003.
Now I've put together, in Word format, a downloadable Business Case for Personal
Productivity Improvement. I've written this so that it can be used by
both:
- IT/KM professions inside
the organization, to get
executive buy-in and resources for it, and
- external IT/KM consultants who want to sell this service to
organizations that prefer to outsource it.
I hope you find it useful and I would welcome comments on it.
I am
looking to organize a virtual collaborative enterprise of IT/KM
professionals interested in providing this service, so I may also post
it on Ryze/LinkedIn.
What do you think -- could people make a living doing
this?
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