tfpl blog

SLA Event - "The changing face of corporate information services – new service models and partnerships"

The SLA Event, "The changing face of corporate information services – new service models and partnerships" not surprisingly drew a large crowd of Information and Knowledge Professionals and the Balls Brothers venue was packed. The Event was chaired by Stephen Phillips, Executive Director Morgan Stanley and he was joined by a panel of Kate Stanfield - Head of Knowledge Management, CMS Cameron McKenna LLP, Sarah Fahy – Head of Global Library Services, Allen & Overy, Liam Brown – CEO, Integreon and Greg Simidian -  CEO, Perfect Information.

To examine this key topic, the panel drew on personal insight. Companies decisions to develop new service models were discussed and also the change in approach from pure cost savings to adding value.  There was interesting insight into the geographical split of vendors' user groups and the changes that vendor companies have been been making to address this. Key points that emerged are that individual companies have very different approaches to outsourcing and what will work most successfully for them, and that the process of outsourcing has changed significantly in the past ten years.

The most important issue is that, however it is achieved, the Information and Knowledge service needs to provide a high quality cost effective service and make a recognisable difference to the firms that they support.

TFPL SharePoint Summit 5 - clear business plans and leaps of faith

We held our fifth SharePoint Summit on 22 March at the Charing Cross Hotel in London.  With keynotes to open and close, six case studies from the UK and Switzerland, and two panel sessions, we hosted over 70 delegates for a day-long look at how organisations are variously moving towards SharePoint 2010.

Jeremy Bentley, CEO of Smartlogic, opened the day for us with a lively and provocative keynote emphasising the continuing relevance of metadata and presenting a forthright argument for automatic, as opposed to manual, classification as the only possible response to the explosion of information in today’s business organisations.  Emphasising the key role of good search technology, Jeremy quoted a recent study showing a 1000 person company would save £742k annually through better information searching.

Pushing the boundaries and driving innovation is perhaps where some early adopters and leading edge companies are in respect of SharePoint.  At the end of the day, Sharon Richardson of Joining Dots certainly highlighted where she believes SP2010 can promote collaboration and innovation:  document sets that are flexible containers for content; permanent URLs that don’t break as information moves; profile matching; editing, tagging and rating, and last but hugely significant, through increasingly sophisticated mobile connectivity. 

However, many organisations are not anywhere near that point so it was extremely valuable to be walked through the decade long programmes of SharePoint work at Unisys and EEDA.  Jim Downie described how MySites are now being used at Unisys; supplied with Newsgator feeds; featuring presence from Microsoft Office Communication Server (now renamed Lync in its latest version); plus the SP2010 like feature to help signal useful content to followers and the wider community.  Jim’s message was KISS* - Keep is simple and social!

Chris Mead from EEDA told a similar story from a public sector perspective:  beginning with SharePoint as intranet in 2001 – get a simple common sense navigation system for the intranet and it will serve you well - and coming right up to the present with Business Intelligence functionality – an EEDA balanced scorecard - in SP2007 drawing data from PerformancePoint, EEDA’s own SQL datamart, and other sources brought in through Top Level’s OfficeForms.

In the day’s other public sector case study, Alexis Castillo-Soto described how in the Department for Education, a whole range of information sources and collaboration tools have been developed for SharePoint 2010 in the Cloud under the title The Information Workplace Platform. DfE is piloting a government initiative to set standards for information and knowledge management in the so-called G-Cloud and, if successful, these will be rolled out first across the education sector and then across other government functions.  Key to success according to Alexis is ”make life easier for users, make things efficient and quick” and “first impressions are key - you only get one chance to motivate an organisation to change!”.

Ian Coyne from KPMG and Andrew Woolfson from Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP opened the afternoon session with a professional services perspective.  KPMG had rolled out SP2007 globally in a very short time and Ian described how the clear strengths of a global mindset can conflict with national and specialist team requirements. His key learnings were around the need for piloting both functionality and implementation; the shortcomings of folksonomy in a highly complex organisation where “there are many names for one thing”.  Andrew’s paper - Is there an alternative to SharePoint?  - advocated the importance of keeping minds and options open when it comes to supporting complex businesses.  His memorable phrase, “people don’t mind change, they mind being changed” was tweeted from the hall and then bounced around the Twittersphere for the rest of the day.

UEFA is an organisation where security and access is complex and where groups often function quite independently as its records manager, Elisabeth Bühlmann Herzog, explained in the last case study of the day.  Describing how a number of key information sources have been made available through a combination of SharePoint applications and internally developed databases, her conclusion was that it worked at UEFA because it improved presentation of key data, supported collaboration for those whose access regimes were not overly complex, and offered the information managers a useful tool to manage their library inventory following the disbanding of the library itself.

#sp5 as we called it for Twitter, was a good day. Some excellent case studies, much provocation and food for thought,  show how the information world is coming to grips with and getting increasing benefits from  SharePoint.

Deaf Parenting UK Awards

Author: Darron Chapman, Managing Director
TFPL Intelligent Resources

Deaf Parenting UK celebrates its 10^th anniversary in 2011 and is marking the occasion by hosting its own awards event, the Deaf Parenting UK Awards. 

I hadn’t heard of this charity until it applied for, and won, TFPL’s Social Impact Award in 2008 at that year's ebic conference. This award was open to organisations that could demonstrate that the innovative use of knowledge and information management had tangibly contributed to the success of an organisation meeting its goals. 

The finalists came to Berlin to present their cases and many of us became aware for the first time of the challenges that deaf parents face.  Watching their story unfold, through signing interpreters, showing how they had harnessed knowledge and information to make a real difference to parents and children was really inspiring. 

TFPL has been a supporter of the charity ever since and are pleased to note from their web site that we have been joined by Trevor Phillips and Samantha Cameron.   It is certainly worth taking time out to look at the web site of Deaf Parenting UK to see what a small charity has achieved in 10 years and how they support people who have to face some really difficult challenges every day. 

TFPL Connect – Staying one step ahead, what does it take to remain relevant in the KIM game?

Author: Claire Valentine, Training Manager
TFPL Intelligent Resources

Monday saw us at the launch of the TFPL Connect programme for 2011.  The event was well attended with a full house.   The focus of this evening was looking at the different aspects of the changing face of information and knowledge skills in light of changing demands from the business.   Sue Wescott, from the Department of Communities and Local Government gave an interesting talk on her perspective of career management.  Her tips and recommendations echoed in part what we had heard from the Henley KM forum event on this particular topic.  She looked particularly at how we can use our mix of skills, playing to our strengths to gain progression within our careers.  She noted that presentation is particularly important both in how you come across as a person and how you appear on paper.  Another important point was not to be put off by job titles, some roles whilst giving no indication in their title of being KIM roles actually require a lot of the core KIM skills.

Julia Hordle then went on to provide us with a perspective from the business looking at what the business currently requires of a KIM professional.   The focus is most definitely on getting the best out of who and what you know and using your business mind to push out to the market (internal or external) what you are good at.

The preliminary results from our survey on KIM roles and responsibilities was revealed accompanied by questions from the floor for John Davies, Angela Abell and our two speakers.   What was most important to note from this was the continuing importance of technology and technology skills for the information professional.  Initial feedback through from the evening was that it was an excellent opportunity for attendees to ask questions and provoked some interesting discussions within groups on tables. 

Discussions continued on into the networking drinks afterwards.  For those that would be interested, the presentations from the evening are available to TFPL Connect members through the members area.

 

 

Career Management Event at Henley

Author: Claire Valentine, Training Manager
TFPL Intelligent Resources

Last Thursday working with the Henley KM Forum we ran an event on career management.  Mike Palmer, Programme Director at Henley Business School opened the afternoon welcoming us all to the wonderful conference and training facilities they have directly next to the Thames.  Director of Recruitment at TFPL Intelligent Resources, Julia Hordle then took over to lead an interactive workshop looking at how better to manage your career.

She began the session by highlighting a very valid question – how often do we apply the business brain we use in normal work situations and challenges to the task of putting together a CV?  The lack of hands clearly showed that this important task is not something we take on with the rigour and objectivity we necessarily should.

A key part of planning your career is marketing of your personal brand and the best way to do this is through your CV, whether you are applying for a post or simply wanting to get yourself and skills noticed within your current company.  Julia pointed out that key aims for your CV should be that it is searchable, has time focussed relevance and clearly displays your skills using keywords that are relevant to your expertise.  We then went on to discuss the question ‘What is a CV for?’  Surprisingly we came up with nearly 40 uses of what a CV is for.  These can be broken down into communication and impact, self management tool, reference work, and an active agent to motivate you ready to hand, to respond to opportunities.

With such an important document that can be of value to you in many aspects of your career it is quite amazing that the majority of us tend not to spend a great deal of time thinking about its structure, relevance and how it portrays us to others.  The approach of digging out and dusting off your old CV, for example, and sticking your current role on the top is not the recommended way.  Your skills may have developed into a different direction over the years, so you need to look at it as a whole in order to show a fluid but consistent message of your current focus and motivations.  Simply sticking on your current job and responsibilities each time could leave you with a disjointed effect.

Before we moved on for some of the group to go into individual coaching sessions which were offered by the students of the qualification in Coaching run by Henley Business School, Julia left us with these final thoughts:

Start each day afresh,

Do not make assumptions on career paths or job roles simply from what you have heard or experienced once,

Be adaptable and flexible so that you can seize the opportunities as they come along

CI - external knowledge management?

Author: Claire Valentine, Training Manager
TFPL Intelligent Resources

I recently had the opportunity to join a UK Competitive Intelligence Forum (CIF) meeting.  I had no real experience of competitive intelligence previously and was keen to understand more about this area.  The presenter for the evening, Monica Giese was very engaging (despite having started her day at 3am) and spoke about both the importance of competitive intelligence (CI) to the C- Suite executives and how to gain a position as a C suite CI professional.

 

One thing that was very clear from the beginning is how CI is very closely linked with knowledge management (KM).  There has always been a strong focus on ‘internal’ knowledge management – both the management of organisational knowledge and to a lesser extent the management of personal knowledge.  It seems that the management of external knowledge or competitive intelligence has been less reviewed and talked about.  I am not sure why this is, I would say that it is equally as important to know what is happening in the marketplace in terms of competitors, laws, policies and innovation as it is to know what body of knowledge you can harness in your own organisation. 

 

Illustrating the importance of external knowledge management, Monica opened her talk with a quote from Robert M. Gates (ex director of CIA 1991-93) ‘knowledge and fore-knowledge of the world around us, is a prelude to presidential decision making’.  She went on to illustrate how CI can only be effective if linked with action which needs to be complemented with an in-depth knowledge of the organisation’s strategy.  To have this in-depth knowledge, surely one needs to understand fully an organisation’s capabilities including the ability of the people within it.  This is where (internal) knowledge management comes into play.  Interestingly however, as the talk progressed it became clear that in a lot of organisations there can be conflict between KM and CI at the C-Suite level.  This seems like madness but perhaps the focus of different perspectives (an internal and external one) can lead to conflicting messages......  Whatever the reason one thing is clear, for all our strategic leaders in government and industry, having an understanding of the internal and external environment is of utmost importance to decision making.  So how do CI and KM work together?  I don't know the answer but I think it is an important question to consider

BIALL : Cheese & Wine

Author: Anne Ashdown, Consultant
TFPL Intelligent Resources

A pleasant evening was had at the BIALL Cheese & Wine event on Friday, 25^th February, held in the beautiful Old Hall at Lincoln’s Inn. This annual event has become a longstanding date in the BIALL networking calendar and consistently attracts a good attendance of information professionals from all levels of seniority across the legal sector.  It is an informal and very enjoyable gathering and a real opportunity to network: refreshing relationships with old acquaintances and making new contacts.

It came as no surprise that most people I spoke to had opinions on the increasing rise of Outsourcing to affect the legal information industry.  What struck me is the wide ranging difference of opinion with regard to Outsourcing: some people were very worried about their individual future; some concerned about the overall future of the legal information profession; whilst others could forecast positive advantages. Clearly the whole Outsourcing debate is very current in peoples’ minds and a theme which will rightly appear on the agendas at other industry events over the coming months.