The Green, the Blue and the Orange

The schedule for Thursday 2nd of October saw ebic 2008 depart from the kind of conference proceedings you would normally expect with the introduction of an eagerly awaited and innovative scenario session.  But first, Tony Sheehan, Di Martin and Jessica Frankel gave us their take on current and future issues around KIM in large organisations. 

• Tony Sheehan presented 10 challenges, using Arup as a case study, which affect KIM in organisations today;
• Di Martin stressed a proactive KIM policy as paramount to maintain the relevance and efficiency of today’s higher education library services;
• and Jessica Frankel predicted the demise of the corporate library with the commoditisation of information and the continued drive to outsourcing, which she stressed is not always the solution despite what management may think.

After lunch, the scenario sessions kicked off and we got down to the business of the day with delegates breaking up into groups to take turns debating in each of the three worlds. Just to recap:

The Green World: Companies Care

• Social responsibility dominates the corporate agenda and
• concerns about demographic changes, climate and sustainability become the key business drivers.

The Blue World: Corporate is King

• Big company capitalism rules as
• organisations continue to grow and
• individual preferences trump beliefs about corporate social responsibility.

The Orange World: Small is Beautiful

• Companies begin to breakdown into collaborative networks of smaller organisations and
• specialisation dominates the world economy.

The Green World – Companies Care

The discussion commenced with some initial confusion as to whether we were actually in the Green world.  Before getting round to debating the question at hand delegates spent some time reinforcing their understanding of the world by running through some of the political, economic, social and technological drivers that would bring such a world to being, those were:

                                       

Political	Economic	Social	Technological
Green   legislation	Increasing oil prices	Popular   demand	Technology   which masters the physical interactions of human beings such as Halo.
Non-compliance   penalties	Energy savings	More significant culture shift to green	Availability of green fuel
Taxation	Customer/client   pressure	Trust only in green co.s
	Damage   to Reputation

The significant developments/events/trends that will impact on KIM activity that delegates in this session came up with follow:

• Local human resourcing to cut out the travel involved in global expertise sourcing.

• A push towards remote collaboration/interaction to negate business travel

         o    Which may give rise for a need to archive e-conversations
         o    And a greater difficulty in justifying business trips to management

• Green information legislation

         o    “Open source green knowledge” along the lines of FoI
         o    which would perhaps require a knowledge “gatekeeper” or facilitating officer
         o    to implement consistency in green practice throughout the organisation.

• The need to embed a green corporate culture, necessitating employee training

The Blue World – Corporate is King

The conversation, similarly to the green world, initiated with a contextual discussion on how corporations would operate.  Would the company swallow up smaller players or would it primarily operate through subcontracting?  Who would hold the balance of power, employees or the corporation? Would there be room for individual innovation in the latter case and as such should the knowledge manager become the “crucible for innovation”, an innovation broker?

In discussing what KIM activity would ensure success in this world, delegates posited:

• the ability to capture the value of KM successes and present them in a language that makes them understood and appreciated by management and accountants;

• the development and maintenance of a mechanism within a potentially strict hierarchical environment which would ensure a voice for marginal employees and departments;

• the promotion of clear corporate vocabulary within the framework of - what would likely be - a tightly structured information strategy;

• ensuring the effective delivery of relevant business intelligence from information vendors (which may be the primary source for data as in-house equivalents become a redundant expense)

• supporting the proliferation of initiatives which would most likely be top-down from an apolitical/non-partisan stand point;

• and that the management of networks, supporting technology and best use of available human resources - for the encouragement of innovation in a potentially rigid corporate environment - would be key.

The Orange World – Small is Beautiful

Given the networked and thus naturally KM aligned nature of this world, we got straight down to business here.  The question required us to discuss the KM roles and skills which would be most valued by organisations in such a scenario.

• It was immediately decided that knowledge managers would be more integral to the daily operations in such a world, perhaps as brokers between disparate professional and commercial networks.
• It was then proposed that in an environment where organisations are small and resources limited, that most workers would require training in the basic tenets of knowledge management so the role for experts may perhaps lie in consultation and training.
• The KM function would additionally be essential to project managers in locating and recruiting the human resources they require.
• Knowledge managers as experts would be additionally required to stay in tune with skill locations and information within the right networks (as knowledge harvesters).
• Such a scenario may give rise to a KM guild, or multiple knowledge agencies which would compete for the custom of the many small organisations. 

Our diligent facilitators and reporters were on hand in each of the three worlds to stimulate and record the debate in each world covering all three questions.  The outputs are being consolidated as I write and will be with us at the end of October - and will definitely make for interesting reading.

Comments

[Ian Wooler]

It is important to 'stop the clock' and take the time to reflect after being intimately involved in the design, planning and execution of a facilitated event, in this case, the scenario planning day at EBIC 2008. The type of questions that run through ones mind include: Did the day go accordingly to plan? What lessons were learnt? Did delegates enjoy the day? Did the level of interest and expectation live up to the reality of the day? What difference and impact was made?

All the planning in the world cannot prevent a feeling of 'lighting the touch paper and standing back' when completing the introduction (thanks to Mark Pearson from PwC for his excellent presentation) to the day and seeing delegates move into the 3 world break-out rooms to commence discussion and debate. What will actually happen?

Well the answer is both straightforward (as planned - we answered the questions) and magical (the gold-dust that happens when enthusiatic, energetic, and knowledgeable people meet). Conversations flowed, differing views considered, ideas were floated - some developed, and relationships established.

Without doubt, one of the ingedients used to make the magic happen was an array of great facilitators, supported by TFPL reporters, and my special thanks go to them.

Corporate is king: Welcome to the Blue World

David Lecore: Principle Knowledge and Information Management Consultant, Schlumberger
Di Martin: Chief Information Officer and Dean of learning, Information Services, University of Hertfordshire
Melanie Goody: TFPL

Companies care: Welcome to the Green World

Tony Sheehan: Learning Services Director, Ashridge Business School
Doug Newcomb: Chief Policy Officer, Special Libraries Association
Guy Johnson: TFPL

Small is beautiful: Welcome to the Orange World

Jessica Frankel: Director and Global Head of Library and Information Services, Credit-Suisse
Hazel Hall: Reader - School of Computing, Napier University
Martin Sanderson: TFPL

[Shooresh Golzari]

Thank you Ian, the facilitators and reporters did an excellent job.

[Melanie Goody]

Here's Neil Infield's view of the conference.

[Shooresh Golzari]

Thank you Mel: for some reason your link didn't post so here it is: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/inthroughtheoutfield/2008/10/our-future-worl.html