Scheduled Sessions

Margot Brown - Knowledge Management at the World Bank – Leveraging Knowledge for Development Impact

The World Bank has a long history in the Knowledge Management space, but over the past few years has been working to update its approach to how it makes the best use of what it knows. Like many other development organizations, the World Bank is increasingly aware of the need to effectively utilize and learn from the knowledge within and outside to realize the mission of the organization and contribute to development efforts. In an increasingly complex development landscape, and one in which development organizations are expected to do more with less, this becomes even more critical.

The Knowledge Management Action Plan lays out the vision and specific approaches to deliver effective knowledge management at the World Bank. Join Margot Brown, Director, Knowledge Management, to hear about how the Knowledge Management Action Plan was developed and the road ahead to implement.

Cory Lee Cannon - Decision Making in a Combined / Joint Environment

In modern warfare it does not take just a single village to fight the war it takes multiple villages from all over the world who have a common goal to defeat the common enemy. The increasing amounts of state and non-state-initiated conflicts within the world have given a rise of multinational coalitions to conduct effective military operations. The need to understand what factors a Commander needs to consider when dealing not only with their personal view of the operational environment, but how the decisions that Commander makes influences other services, coalitions, and national interest. This includes how the enemy and host nation plays a role in the military decision-making process. 

In the past, the need for developing this understanding early on will save time and help shape the way information and knowledge are transferred from the staff and action officers of the coalition to the decision-maker(s) in order to make timely decisions within an ever-changing environment. 

The aim of this presentation is to further define the KM and collaboration challenge and discuss principles and lessons learned for successful KM transformation within a Combined/ Joint environment. These same principles could be applied to multinational corporations when dealing with cultures and decision-making processes.

Dale Carpenter - Knowledge Management for Improved Learning & Performance at the NPS

What is a Learning Portal? How does it support a very decentralized and often disconnected & remote workforce like the NPS, whose employee may only have access to information through a smartphone? The US National Park Service has recently launched its "Common Learning Portal" (CLP) after 4 years in development and testing. A single "one-stop shopping experience" for all NPS learning, it combines a formal learning e-catalog, a "Knowledge Park" of curated microlearning, and a social learning environment, known as "The Commons", that connects learners with each other and with experts. To date, over 90 content teams actively input educational resources on the CLP.

John Hovell - Addressing the Knowledge Retention Challenge

Many organizations are facing the challenging situation of high turnover and low employee engagement. The high turnover is often due to the increasing number of retirements, as well as the apparent environment where people change jobs/organizations at an increasing rate. 

This interactive session will offer a case study from a large financial services organization that was facing these challenges. This organization used a blended approach between people, process and technology. 

The key learning opportunities in this session are:

• What specific organizational challenges call for Knowledge Retention?
• How did this particular organization realize their challenges and make positive progress?
•  In what way can your organization learn from their challenges and Knowledge Retention approach? 

Jen Jensen - USAA Knowledge Base Case Study: Improving the KM Architecture

Until late 2017, USAA had no designated resources focused on managing our employee knowledge base. Because of this, the taxonomy and ontology had become out of date, impacting over 30,000 users who were having a difficult time finding procedural information in order to serve our members with the most accurate, relevant knowledge in their moment of need.

Through a series of co-design sessions with each subset of our user base, we were able to replicate a lo-fi neural network. Through a combination of user feedback, rapid prototyping, and change management, our team was able to vastly improve search and findability for the enterprise, laying the foundation for USAA’s unique KM architecture. Learn how you can be a force multiplier, rapidly improving search and findability through some of the same techniques USAA employed; a combination of agile, expert level story-telling, HCD, project management, and playing to your team’s strengths.

Bill Kaplan - Community of Practice Success and the Concept of Shared Value

Communities of Practice (CoPs) can be the entry for the successful introduction and integration of KM concepts and practices within and across an organization. Not only can CoPs improve collaboration and knowledge sharing across organization boundaries, developing a call to action around CoPs on lost or forgotten subjects, but also, they may be a key to revealing who knows what, where “lost” or hidden knowledge may reside, and with whom. Further, CoPs offer the opportunity for personal and professional development.

For CoPs to be successful and sustainable, they must be based on the concept of “shared value” between organization sponsors and CoP members, not only in the initial planning and launch of CoPs, but also in sustaining the CoPs. We will explore what this means and how to align the desired outcomes of the sponsors and the CoP members to improve the probabilities of CoP success.

M.D. Kull, Ph.D. - Beyond Boundaries: Crowdsourcing, KM, and Cyborganization

Crowdsourcing has redefined idea-flow for organizations, and organizational boundaries. This session looks at the confluence of KM and crowdsourcing, suggesting it is in part an evolution of KM, or conversely a parallel universe colliding with KM’s; with interactive Q&A about how it can affect governance with real-world examples, and how the concepts of collective intelligence, citizen science, gamification of labor, peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, blockchain, AI and the Internet of Things reflect an increasing decentralization of innovation and knowledge sharing.

Questions include:  Are we becoming too cyborganized? In an era where employee engagement in the U.S. is at an all-time low, how have our technologies helped or hurt us? Or are we simply amplifying poor business and management practices?

Jeff Kwaterski - Integrating Content, Knowledge, and Learning Management at the Peace Corps

Knowledge and learning management initiatives are only as valuable as the degree of organizational adoption they generate. Without people experiencing meaningful ownership, actively creating and curating their content, and connecting new tools with existing workflows, can we expect sustained value? This presentation highlights lessons learned from the process of rolling out two different sites at the Peace Corps. The first, a content management system, the second, a learning management system.  Some of the lessons explored will include:

• Communications, communications, communications
• Reducing friction in the user experience
• Capturing and connecting the voice of early adopters
• Decentralizing control and allowing for divergent uses
• Investing in cross-office governance

Ahren Lehnert - Using Structure in Knowledge Organization

Some of the most valuable sources of knowledge and insight are hidden within unstructured content. Despite being called “unstructured,” much workplace information can be described as semi-structured. For example, in a workplace document you will likely find titles, headers, sentences, and paragraphs, or at least a clear indicator of the beginning and end of a large block of text. Similarly, taxonomies and ontologies are artificial constructs created to structure language and concepts. These structures reflect the information they describe or can be imposed on semi-structured content as a form of ordering. In addition, the rules of language provide a basis for text analysis which can be used to impose order on the otherwise messy nature of spoken and written text. In this session, learn more about using the contextual structure of taxonomies and ontologies and the structural indicators in documents and language to perform taxonomy-based auto-categorization and information extraction.

Rob Noyes - The Mitosis of the Government CIO

Hard lessons in Knowledge Management (KM) are being learned across the U.S. Government. Because budgets for government CIO offices have traditionally focused on hardware lifecycle-management and software licensing, very little attention has been paid to government unstructured information. 

The advent of the Cloud and "single service providers" supporting all government equipment is eliminating the technology role of the government CIO. This is the mitosis government CIOs offices are facing. Now the CIO 3-digit abbreviation is now finally accurate because now CIOs are left with managing what remains - all organizational information. 

This presentation will offer real world examples, best practices, and lessons learned for managing unstructured information at the Department of Justice and beyond.

Norma Palomino - Findability Strategies for Crossing the Knowledge Chasm

The Inter-American Development Bank presents several common but expansive Knowledge Management challenges, including a vast array of knowledge and information changing at a lightning pace, a broad array of geographically distributed experts, and a dynamic work force that requires a focus on knowledge transfer.  This case study will detail the IDB's current KM challenges, their priorities to address some of those challenges, and some of the ongoing efforts the IDB's Knowledge, Innovation, and Communications Sector is shepherding to move the IDB to the forefront of KM.  The presentation will focus on a current effort to develop "Findability," a semantic engine that combines KM principles, taxonomy, content, and the latest in graph databases and the semantic web in order to power Artificial Intelligence for IDB. 

Kristina Podnar - Digital Standards for Complex Multi-site, Multi-language and Multi-channel

Most global organizations struggle to produce consistently high quality content, especially when faced with complex multi-site, multi-language and multi-channel digital presences. Digital standards, whether they support web, social, chatbots, mobile applications, or other aspects of your digital presence, can often be seen as deterrents for innovation and creativity. But the opposite is true!  

Without standards, your organization will create uneven content and chaotic applications, resulting in poor customer experiences. Digital standards establish uniform design, editorial, and technical criteria, methods, and practices required for: 

1. Improved user satisfaction as digital products and services consistently deliver what they promise,
2. Efficient and effective use of resources, and
3. Increased integrity of content. 

Through anecdotes from real life experiences and proven best practices, this session will explore: 

• What standards range is required to drive quality online content? 

• What are the best ways to express standards so that they are an enabling mechanism and not an enforcement burden? 

• How do you go about writing good standards both structurally and from a topic perspective? 

• Who is the best person to create standards in your organization and who should author them?

Andrew Politi - Iterative KM Delivery: Lessons from Kindergarten

In this session we’ll use a team building, design thinking exercise to illustrate how agile delivery in KM strategy projects leads to more successful outcomes. We’ll address how to uncover hidden assumptions, the different formats for KM teams, and why strategy input should be accepted from all quarters. Most importantly, participants will walk away attuned to the prospect that firm commitments to their ‘first idea’ might overshadow their ‘best idea.’ While KM projects of the past might have called for extensive planning and a single delivery moment, we’ll talk about how you should engage users and deliver incrementally. Following this presentation, participants will have a new lens through which to evaluate their KM planning and delivery processes. 

Shitalkumar Sabne and Madison Jaronski - The Power of a CoP: Influence, Innovation, and Shared Value

A CoP builds and leverages collective knowledge across the organization, enabling innovation and business agility. At ARC, employees were self-educating and missing out on the momentum that comes from collaborative learning, best practices and dynamic discussions - until the Business Intelligence (BI) Community of Practice was created three years ago. Since then, the BI CoP has connected individuals, sparked innovation, and infused collaboration into the company’s culture with activities such as ARC Hackathons, Knowledge Fair and Data Debates. Learn from their success and leave with the knowledge and tools necessary to create positive, transformative change within your organization.

Richard Shaw - "Fixing" Document Management - A Case Study

This presentation will provide a real world case study, detailing how the U.S. General Services Administration has successfully moved from a wide range of discrete document management systems to creating and filling one repository for GSA. The session will detail how Agile approaches played a key role in the effort and helped to achieve effective change management strategies and user engagement. Moreover, the talk will detail key foundational KM elements of the effort, including taxonomy design and content types.

Hasan Syed and Todd Fahlberg - Enterprise Search - The Key to Findability

Long-term enterprise Knowledge Management (KM) efforts run the risk of decreased focus or dwindling support because good integrated KM programs are often largely invisible, only becoming visible when there is a problem. One key area where the business can experience meaningful, tangible value is through Enterprise Search. In this presentation Hasan Syed will share the steps he took to lead his organization in the design and implementation of an enterprise search tool called “Unified Search.” In partnership with Enterprise Knowledge, his organization is prepared to scale the enterprise search solution to include additional repositories, address differing security needs, and measure the success of this implementation.

Lulit Tesfaye - KM ROI:  The Cost of Doing Nothing

For many organizations, investment decisions on Knowledge and Information Management initiatives are driven by high-level business objectives such as increased efficiency, productivity, competitive advantage, and enhanced employee or customer engagement. While aligning Knowledge and Information Management initiatives with business objectives is recommended, it can be a challenge to measure these broad objectives or show a positive correlation that these initiatives are achieving the desired results. So, how do you know if you need to invest in Knowledge and Information Management initiatives?

This presentation will help to tie KM and business value together, answering the following questions:

● Why should we invest in Knowledge and Information Management?

● How can I calculate the ROI to justify the return or impact to my bottom-line? 

● How do we know/show when we are hitting our mark?

● What are other organizations doing about it? 

This session will explore and address these questions based on direct experience and relevant case studies that help define the value of KIM and provide tangible approaches and tools to articulate business outcomes. 

Mary Lou Theobald -  How Can OD Practices Shape Our KM Work?

Often overlooked in system implementations is the people side: How do people think about their work? How can we help improve collaboration and knowledge sharing with the implementation of new tools? What role do solid change management principles play in KM work?

This session is a case study of how Gannett applies Organization Development principles to work in collaboration and knowledge management.  Topics include:

• Collaborative tools as a catalyst for culture and organizational change
• Project management approach to system documentation and training
• Why words matter
• When to follow and when to lead

Zach Wahl - What is Knowledge Management and Why is it Important

In the opening address for the KM Showcase, Zach will present a foundational overview of the state of KM in 2019, defining what it is, why it is critical to business, and where it is going.  The presentation will provide a means of understanding KM through its various components and will discuss the key foundational elements of KM design.  Moreover, Zach will discuss the future of knowledge management, where KM becomes a central component to enabling Knowledge AI within your organization.

Meg Walsh - Connecting the Dots: Building a Content Ecosystem

Getting content right is hard. With multiple systems in play, Hilton is looking at how to best network connect through use of strategic content modeling and taxonomy in order to support business goals and drive the appropriate user experiences. In this global case study from Hilton, learn some of the tactics and outcomes the team connecting the content dots is using to build a smart, traceable and usable content publishing practice. The presentation will use real world examples in the form of a comprehensive case study in order to offer lessons learned regarding content strategy, taxonomy design, and user-centered content delivery.

Douglas Weidner - Where is KM Going?

KM is a complex people, process and technology fabric - woven for decades but often misunderstood. This presentation will seek to provide a discussion on where KM is going (and where it’s been), delving into why even the best KM systems often have mediocre results. 

The presentation will provide a background on KM’s initial and emerging threads, including the past barriers to success. From there, we will focus on two critical threads that are driving where KM is going and what’s happening in the field today: 

1. The field has long had frameworks/roadmaps, but until recently has lacked robust KM methodologies. Proven methods not only inform better practice, but enable next-generation maturity models. Rather than just diagnostic/assessment tools, they will be also prescriptive, ultimately supporting artificial intelligence (AI). 

2. KM includes people, process, and technology. IT has certainly enabled episodic changes in human occupations, but, going forward, KM can’t be based just on technology. The people component has been defined by many as cultural change, but human-centric KM must go much deeper. This thread focuses on and enables human-centered design - by increasing engagement, to gain KM acceptance. 

Kelly Widelska and Kemal Cakici - IFC Case Study: An organization’s ongoing journey towards the nirvana of making different mistakes.

Getting the organization to make different mistakes instead of the same ones over and over is a challenge that IFC has committed to. In this session we will share an overview of our successes and failures of the last 14 years of lessons learning programming. What have we learnt as KM professionals? What does it take to be successful? Is it even possible? and how are we tackling this seemingly intractable problem next?