1

Thriving in the Thriving in the NewNew Information Information ProfessionProfession

The Fundamentals ofThe Fundamentals of

Knowledge ServicesKnowledge Services

Guy St. ClairGuy St. Clair Dale Stanley Dale Stanley SMR InternationalSMR International GenentechGenentech

New York NYNew York NY San Francisco CASan Francisco CA

Special Libraries AssociationSpecial Libraries Association

San Francisco Bay Region ChapterSan Francisco Bay Region Chapter

March 26, 2007March 26, 2007

2

What We’ll Do

Think about Knowledge Services Evolving as a new profession (or at least as a new

discipline)

Think about your role as a knowledge services professional – and how your work affects how business is done (Practical: what will you do differently tomorrow?)

Think about how you get started in introducing knowledge services in your organization – your leadership role

Wrap up with a new perspective on how each knowledge services professional can leverage knowledge, both individually as a professional, and as an employee of the larger organization

3

Introducing…

Knowledge Services

The Convergence of:

Information ManagementKnowledge ManagementStrategic (Performance-Centered) Learning

4

Knowledge Services

Knowledge services is an enterprise-wide service delivery function that enables companies and organizations to achieve excellence, both in the performance of internal staff and in interactions with external customers.

5

Knowledge Services

Organizations use knowledge services to:

establish – or enhance – a proactive environment within the organization

ensure that knowledge development/knowledge sharing (KD/KS) is practiced throughout the enterprise

ensure that the organization’s intellectual capital is captured organized, analyzed, interpreted, and customized for maximum return to the organization

6

Knowledge Work inToday’s Business/Research Environment

The work of most employees in the business/research environment is knowledge work.

The new workplace environment requires a new kind of knowledge work - the work of conversation (sharing), analysis, and synthesis.

7

Knowledge Services

The successful organization in today’s business and research environment is a knowledge-centric organization…

Knowledge services is the basic management tool in the knowledge-centric organization, providing tangible and measurable benefits for all organizational stakeholders

Knowledge services converges information management, knowledge management, and strategic (performance-centered) learning into a single over-arching operational function

8

Knowledge ServicesWhy is it Important?

“In the past decade, a new and unprecedented challenge for companies of all sizes has arisen, one that could mean life and death for a particular organization. That challenge is finding a way to successfully capture and communicate the knowledge within it. With the dramatic shift from an industrial to a knowledge economy during the last 25 years, a company’s success is predicated on being able to tap into its biggest asset – the knowledge of its employees.”

Jonathan B. Spira

KM World September 2006

9

Knowledge Services: It’s All About Knowledge as a Competitive Asset

In today’s business and research environment, the management of information as a “stand-alone” activity is insufficient.

For an enterprise to succeed in achieving its operational objectives, and to function as a knowledge-centric organization, enterprise management must include the management of intellectual capital as a competitive asset.

“Intellectual capital is the sum of everything everybody in a company knows that gives it a competitive edge.”

-Thomas A. Stewart

10

It’s AboutInformation Management

Information Management - the management methodology concerned with the acquisition, arrangement, storage, retrieval, and use of information to produce knowledge.

11

It’s AboutKnowledge Management

Knowledge Management - the management practice for making relevant information readily available, so that users can make timely valid decisions.

The most critical requirement for workplace success is Knowledge Management – a way to gather, share, and provide easy access to technical data and information related to the work.

12

Knowledge Management

KM is not a product or a thing. KM is

...a management practice that helps an enterprise manage explicit, tacit, and cultural information in ways that enable the organization to reuse the information and to create new knowledge

...an established atmosphere or environment in which KD/KS (knowledge development and knowledge sharing) is established as the essential element for the achievement of the corporate mission

13

And It’s AboutStrategic (Performance-Centered) Learning

“Organizational Learning”

… the successful achievement of skills, competencies, knowledge, behaviors, and/or other outcomes required for excellence in workplace performance

… enables those who develop knowledge to share it, for the benefit of everybody in the organization (i.e., combines knowledge development with knowledge sharing)

…provides training / learning that is specific to the workplace, and that focuses on applications

14

Strategic (Performance-Centered) Learning

Can be Formal When, for example, an employer gives a

talented employee release time to pursue a Ph.D. in a particular discipline that, when achieved, will realize specific and measurable benefits for the company as well as for the employee…

15

Strategic (Performance-Centered) Learning

Can Be an Internal or External Learning/Training Activity When, for example, the company’s “corporate

university” offers career advancement learning to employees….

Or training courses are offered toemployees to help them develop

or improve workplace skills….

Or workshops are attended ata conference or meeting….

16

Strategic (Performance-Centered) Learning

Or Strategic Learning Can Be Informal When, for example, your buddy in the next

cubicle will show you how to access a particular database or other tool….

Or you demonstrate toa fellow employee in

another department how to set up an

international telephone conference call….

17

Knowledge Services Defined

Knowledge services converges information management, knowledge management, and strategic (performance-centered) learning into a single over-arching function that enables research support, contextual decision-making, and innovation.

Information

Management

Strategic

Learning

Knowledge Management

Knowledge

Services

18

Knowledge Services

Research Support

Contextual Decision-Making

Innovation

Strategic Learning

Information Management

Knowledge Management

Knowledge Services

19

Knowledge Services

Research Support

Contextual Decision-Making

Innovation

Strategic Learning

Information Management

Knowledge Management

Knowledge Services

Knowledge Services Professional

Knowledge Facilitator / Consultant

Knowledge Coach

Knowledge Thought Leader

20

Knowledge Services

Research Support

Contextual Decision-Making

Innovation

Strategic Learning

Information Management

Knowledge Management

Roles

Knowledge Services Professional

Knowledge Facilitator / Consultant

Knowledge Coach

Knowledge Thought Leader

Knowledge Services

Approaches

From Reactive to

Proactive to

Interactive and Integrated

21

KM or Knowledge Services?

Knowledge Services goes beyond KM: Knowledge Management builds on and is a

result of the essential and critical element of knowledge services, the collaborative interactions that take place between those who are conducting research and those who partner with them in their efforts.

22

KM or Knowledge Services?

KM is a management practice, an environment….

Knowledge Services adopts the KM ambiance

Knowledge Services enables

Application

Realization

The transformation of identified and/or developed knowledge into new knowledge

23

What’s So Special AboutKnowledge Services?

Founded on Knowledge Development/Knowledge Sharing (KD/KS)

“… a framework for service delivery that embodies the highest objectives of knowledge management and combines them with the basic principles of the learning organization and the teaching organization.”

Guy St. ClairBeyond Degrees:

Professional Learning for Knowledge Services

24

KD/KS(Knowledge Development / Knowledge Sharing)

“… builds on the assumption that all stakeholders accept their responsibility to develop, to learn, and to share tacit, explicit, and cultural knowledge within the enterprise.

“… exists for the benefit of the organizational enterprise with which the learning stakeholders are affiliated and which provides support for their learning endeavors, and for the growth and development of these stakeholders as lifelong learners.”

Guy St. ClairBeyond Degrees:

Professional Learning for Knowledge Services

25

Knowledge Services

Knowledge services converges information management, knowledge management, and strategic (performance-centered) learning

With knowledge services, Knowledge Development and Knowledge Sharing (KD/KS) are basic to every transaction and every interaction that occurs

With knowledge services, evidence-based research support, contextual decision-making, and innovation are supported by specific and critical information

26

Why Knowledge Services and Not KM? KM not clear to management, executives, lay

people (i.e., people who are not information specialists)

Return-on-investment not clearly demonstrated with KM – thought of as too nebulous, too “soft”

Financial savings not proven with IT (in fact the opposite has been the case), so why take a chance on KM?

Knowledge services moves the concept to the practical – not theoretical – the “service” piece is tangible and can be measured

27

“Managing” Knowledge

Knowledge cannot be managed – only information can be managed

Larry Prusak (with Tom Davenport): would like to “take back” the term – “It really is working with knowledge (not managing knowledge). You can’t manage knowledge per se. You can’t manage love, or honor, or patriotism, or piety. It is clearly working with knowledge, but the words got there, and there it is.”

Information Outlook 5 (5) May 2001

28

Knowledge Services: Practical Function

Important to recognize the progression from reactive to proactive to interactive and integrated

Opportunities for synergy Combine three knowledge services elements with

proactive approach to information, knowledge, learning management

Use for interactive service delivery Use both to enable matching internal and external

organizational strategies with local implementation, in concert with local operations

29

Knowledge Services:What’s in it for Employees? A healthy, enabling work environment

from competition to collaboration from “information power” to “relationship

power” from stress to resilience

Drivers of retention and commitment

quality of management empowerment / entrepreneurship impact / community Nancy Reed

MarshVice-President, Organization Development

GlaxoSmithKline Beecham

30

The Knowledge Services Professional

Expertise and competencies that enable proactive and continuous improvement within the company

Expert knowledge of content

Assesses needs and designs and markets value-add knowledge services/information management services

Develops specialized knowledge/information products

Evaluates outcomes of knowledge use

Continually improves knowledge/information services and service delivery

31

Knowledge Services

Knowledge Leadership

As knowledge services/information management professionals, our job is to smooth the progress of research management, contextual decision-making, and innovation in the company or organization.

32

Knowledge Services ProfessionalsLead the Way

“My job is to help an extended organization, including its customers, partners, and suppliers, manage or leverage their collective intellect in order to produce a change in its profitability and growth – and to renew themselves as a business by better organizing its knowledge assets to create new knowledge, new products and services, and to change the entire competitive playing field.”

- Kent Greenes Chief Knowledge Officer & Senior Vice

PresidentScience Applications International Corporation

33

Knowledge Services

Knowledge Leadership in the Organization

“We have a responsibility to our organizations to provide knowledge leadership.… We have the ability, the knowledge of concepts, and many of us have the skills, [and] that’s where knowledge leadership in the organization comes into play. It’s a role we have to play, whether it’s expected of us or whether we take it. It’s in the workplace that we see – and act on – the connection between the organization’s intellectual capital and the organization’s success….”

Kevin ManionDirector, Strategic Planning and

Information ServicesConsumers Union

34

Knowledge Services ProfessionalsAmbitions for the Parent Organization

“I want to embed knowledge services in every part of the organization. That’s my goal. And I particularly want knowledge services to be a critical component in the high-profile parts of the organization. I want the knowledge services staff to partner and collaborate everywhere we’re needed. That’s the strategic direction I’ve chosen, and it’s what I’m trying to bring to the National Academies.”

- Victoria Harriston National Academies of Sciences

Washington, DC

35

Knowledge Services

How Does the Organization Benefit? Better leverage of resources and capabilities

Enhanced service delivery practices, with higher quality deliverables

Just-in-time performance-centered training and learning (for both clients and staff)

Improved customer/staff satisfaction

36

Knowledge ServicesWhat is so exciting about knowledge services?

“We’re describing a non-linear paradigm, an organic evolving model that never sets up just one way of looking at a query or a search but uses any arrangement of those elements.

“We take whatever arrangement that is required for the customer, whether that customer is a Nobel Laureate scientist or a student with a science fair project.”

Peter R. Young, DirectorU.S. National Agricultural Library

37

Knowledge Services:The Value Proposition

Competitive marketplace Global information services environment M&A Mobile work force Changing employment contract

Five factors enable the business case for the knowledge services function within the enterprise, for converging information management, knowledge management, and strategic learning:

38

Knowledge Services:The Value Proposition

Societal factors with respect to information management, knowledge management, strategic learning:

Technology a major impact in knowledge seeking

Sources of knowledge vary widely

Traditional sources (“classical” librarianship) minimized

“Good enough” often good enough

39

Knowledge Services:Success Attributes

is holistic, integrated, and top-level

reflects an understanding of complex business and societal issues

reflects a broader, more inclusive relationship throughout the larger enterprise

enables enterprise-wide service delivery that reflects the competitive global environment

40

Knowledge Services:The Value Proposition

Building the business case for knowledge services:

Identify the bottom-line impact

Focus on projects with short-term payoff

Establish meaningful measures of progress and demonstrate results

Talk about future opportunities in a knowledge services environment

41

Knowledge ServicesWhat’s the Result We’re Seeking?

Desire to Achieve Corporate/Organizational Goals Organizational and operational excellence

Optimization of performance through geographic and functional diversity and integration

Increased efficiencies through global functional organization

Attracting and retaining exceptionally qualified and highly motivated people

42

“World-Class” Knowledge Services

Holistic management, integrated into the larger organizational framework/cross-functional collaboration is a given

The operational unit performs a strategic function, and is recognized as the central information/knowledge/learning connection (the knowledge nexus) for the organization

Clear vision/mission/values

Awareness building is accepted as central and critical, not “extra”

Thomas Pellizzi, Victoria Harrison, Guy St. Clair“Toward World-Class Knowledge Services: Emerging Trends in Specialized Research Libraries”

Information Outlook, June-July 2004

43

“World-Class” Knowledge Services

Service ethos builds on higher-value services/adding value to services, products, and consultations is standard practice

Customer needs are tracked on an on-going basis

New paradigms of service delivery are recognized as opportunities for enhancing Knowledge Services in the larger organization

Advocates and users recognize the value of the function and make efforts to see that it is supported

Thomas Pellizzi, Victoria Harrison, Guy St. Clair“Toward World-Class Knowledge Services: Emerging Trends in Specialized Research

Libraries”Information Outlook, June-July 2004

44

First Steps:Creating the Operational Structure

Identify context and strategic purpose

Understand (and accept) role as a knowledge services/ information professional

Recognize and embrace leadership role

Establish knowledge services objective

Conduct knowledge services audit

Determine goals and expectations for knowledge services

Develop a strategic plan

45

How Do We Get There?Guy’s Mantra

(with a nod to Peter Drucker)

Imagine the Future

Assess Current Services/Structure

Focus on Results

46

What Do Knowledge ServicesCustomers Want?

Information Customers look to knowledge services professionals to help them…

Find information

Transform information into knowledge

Share knowledge with someone else

47

Knowledge Services:Content Access and Management

In assessing the need for value-add services, and in designing and marketing them, the knowledge services professional recognizes that

Knowledge services/information management customers want a single interface, expanded online content, more access via a commercial search engine, and a “wizard” to help choose the best tools for a topic

“if material isn’t available digitally it won’t be used”

Role of knowledge services professional is obvious: identify the need/”read the runes”/negotiate as the expert

48

Knowledge Services:Content Access and Management

The age of enterprise content management (ECM) is fast approaching

Companies/organizations now require a comprehensive knowledge services/information management services strategy that embraces all content (e.g., internal documents and records, digital assets, web content, project reports, etc.)

Tools are important but success comes with the expert (and sympathetic) human interface – the special librarian/records manager/knowledge services/IMS professional

Open and non-threatening negotiation and collaboration with all stakeholders – including IT leaders – is critical

49

Knowledge Services:Content Access and Management

“No matter how good your products and services are, research customers always want more…. We are coming to learn that enterprise content management (ECM) is expected, even required… the industry’s hot new topic…. Access to organizational content beyond that usually found in libraries is what the library’s customers want. And smart knowledge services managers know they can strengthen the role of the corporate library if it could embed access – usually electronic – to other types of materials and resources in with their usual service offerings.”

Tom GladNational Press Club Library

50

Knowledge Services:The Service Philosophy

“How can we help you do your work?”

“The automation market is constantly changing, and while in the past there has been an emphasis on the development and marketing of tools, our approach now is to listen to the client and take into consideration how the end user will be using our solutions. And, most important, how easy it will be for them to access information and use that information as they turn it into knowledge for their day-to-day decision-making. There are critical issues for us.”

Tony Saadat CEOEOS International

51

The Knowledge Services Function

Three unique attributes….

Collections (or services provided, if what you have is an information center or a knowledge services center that is not a collection of materials) are particular or “special” to a subject or field of interest

Information customers’ interests are also particular and unique

The relationship between the information provider and the customer is highly collaborative, almost intimate….

“Knowledge Services and SLA’s History: An Interview with Guy St. Clair”Information Outlook, September, 2003

52

Knowledge Services

Organizational Social Networks = KD/KS

“Knowledge services pulls it all together…. Of course there’s confusion because information professionals have focused long and hard on the book, the journal article, the thing that contains the information, and that’s what most people think libraries are – collections. But with knowledge services, we are enabled. We can focus on the people, on the people who require our services and the people who provide them. Libraries aren’t about books. Libraries are about people.”

Nerida HartCanberra, ACT Australia

53

Knowledge Services:Collaboration is Critical

“Collaboration is a principle-based process of working together, which produces trust, integrity, and breakthrough results by building true consensus, ownership, and alignment in all aspects of the organization…

“Put another way, collaboration is the way people naturally want to work…

“Collaboration is the premier candidate to replace hierarchy as the organizing principle for leading and managing the 21st-century workplace…”

--Marshall, Edward M. Transforming the way we work: the power of the collaborative workplace

(New York: American Management Association)

54

Knowledge ServicesCritical Factors

Trust

Collaboration (and no disincentives for collaboration)

Collegiality

Concentration on relationship building

Part of everyday worklife / not something “extra” to “regular” work (“It’s part of your desktop.”)

55

Collaboration, Consensus, Cooperation“From Collections to Connections”

“I think one of the important things that support and enhance the power of networking and relationship building is the technology. It allows me to network with people I don’t even know. It’s a virtual relationship with my customers that I think is terrific – it’s like online dating! My OPAC is my virtual face!”

Marlene VogelsangPacific Gas & Electric

56

Knowledge Services

Marketing Vision, mission, and values statements in place

Cross-functional collaboration

Mission-specific service delivery

Enterprise-wide service vision links knowledge services delivery with institutional/organizational success

57

Knowledge Services

Marketing Awareness building within the constituent user

base is a given

No assumption that everyone who can benefit from knowledge services delivery knows about it

Adding value to information services, products, and consultations is standard practice

Awareness-raising and strategic marketing plan in place

58

Knowledge Services

Measuring Established point-of-service query framework

Regularly scheduled user meetings

Continuous evaluation of service delivery, products, and user satisfaction

59

Knowledge Services

Measuring When feasible, benchmarking with knowledge

services delivery in similar organizations

Established research evaluation tools

Public relations/”good show” activities

Rewards and recognition program in place

60

Knowledge Services

Leadership Support Awareness-raising to all levels of management

High-visibility projects (particularly with positive financial impact)

Advocates and user recognition

61

Knowledge Services:What’s Required?

A Willingness to... Change

Take leadership and “let go”

Recognize that knowledge work (as it has evolved) is different now — it’s not what we thought we were going to be doing

Transform specialized librarianship into knowledge services

Move to an “opportunity-focused and results-focused” operational framework (and way of thinking)

62

Knowledge Services:What’s Required?

Also requires some personal choices: Leading (not following)

Volunteering (not waiting to be asked)

Asking (not waiting for an answer)

Thinking (not just duplicating)

Questioning (not accepting the status quo)

63

Knowledge Services:And Why Do I Do This?

Because what I want to do is put people in front of Knowledge, make them feel the Power of Knowledge, make them stop whatever else they are doing and think about Knowledge, think about the Role of Knowledge in their lives, and experience Knowledge for what it is, the very thing that makes them function successfully and happily as human beings.

And I want you to do it, too.

64

Knowledge Services

Research Support

Contextual Decision-Making

Innovation

Strategic Learning

Information Management

Knowledge Management

Knowledge Services

Knowledge Services Professional

Knowledge Facilitator / Consultant

Knowledge Coach

Knowledge Thought Leader

65

Knowledge Services:Next Steps

How can I learn from this workshop?

Back at work, what will I do differently on my first day?

Am I willing to be a knowledge thought leader, a knowledge coach?

Am I willing to talk about the practicalities of knowledge services, the benefits to the company, the benefits for my unit’s constituent user base (and, yes, the benefits for me, as a knowledge services professional)?

With whom? Who participates (or should participate) in my Knowledge Services Community of Practice?

And how will I deal with perceived barriers, impediments, lack of enthusiasm, etc.? How will I make it work?

66

Contact Information

Guy St. ClairConsulting Specialist for Knowledge Services

SMR International

http://www.smr-knowledge.com527 Third Avenue (# 105)New York NY 10016 USA

Tel: +1 212 683 6285E-Mail: guystclair@smr-knowledge.com