Not too long ago we were all worried about a looming labor crisis. We were worried how there weren't enough people to fill the jobs about to be vacated by retiring Baby Boomers. Remember? That was just before the meltdown of the housing industry causing unemployment to jump to 5% overall in the US. But the problem of the post Baby Boomer Blues (PBB) isn't going away.
The symptoms of PBB is not just having to work hard to find and retain enough qualified bodies to do work. It's also about figuring out how to retain access to the knowledge and experience getting ready to walk out the door. One very direct method of doing this is to try to hang onto retiring employees for just a little longer by giving them a diagonal promotion into a support function like IT or HR. This provides the experienced employee with a new challenge and a "cushy" assignment while allowing them to spread the gospel of their years of industry and company experience.
This strategy had a much higher potential of producing value when the company operated primarily in a homogenous domestic environment. But globalization has changed all of that. Now, trying to deploy a standardized IT environment or a single ethics training program across a global organization is radically more complicated. What's more, as competition increases at the local level, delivering flexible, customized services is critical for competitive advantage. These jobs are not cushy anymore. They are critical and strategic and require trained experts who really know what they are doing.
It is certainly true that support function leadership needs to understand the business. It is certainly true that retiring employees have a wealth of knowledge to offer the business. But trying to kill these two birds with one stone is much harder now that companies are executing global strategies and competing in multiple legal, cultural and business environments. Better to look at both sides of this equation as a separate knowledge management problem:
* Provide mentoring and industry education for the qualified
leaders running your support operations
* Provide a lessons learned and knowledge capture program which
targets your top performers throughout their tenure with the company
Oh, and by the way, the time to implement these programs is now. Before the job market heats back up and your managers are scrambling to hold onto knowledge assets that are ready to walk out the door and go fishing.
Christopher Rivinus
Leader of Knowledge Systems, Enterprise KM
PB
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Monday, January 14, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Welcome
This Blog is been hosted by the Institute for Innovation in Information Management [I3M] at the University of Washington (UW). I3M is housed in the Information School at UW. It is my pleasure to welcome you to our Blog. I serve as the Director of I3M and am on faculty of Information School (see http://faculty.washington.edu/kdesouza for more information). I3M is focused on advancing the practice and theory of information management (see http://depts.washington.edu/iiim/mission.htm ).
Organizations are essentially information processing entities. The performance of an organization will depend on how effectively and efficiently it processes information from its internal and external environments and applies the information towards realization of its goals and objectives. In my book, Agile Information Systems: Conceptualization, Construction, and Management, I make the argument that: an agile organization will be able to (1) sense signals (data) in the environment, (2) process (construct information) them adequately, (3) mobilize knowledge-based resources and processes to take advantage of future opportunities, and (4) continuously learn and improve the operations of the organization. In addition, an agile organization will undertake the preceding activities in quick time cycles and with minimal cost and effort. Optimal, and innovative forms of, information management is a critical element for building agile organizations. So, what exactly is information management?
I define information management as the collection of activities involved in managing the sources of information, analytics used to derive relationships from information, mechanisms for interpreting meanings from relationships, and calibrating actions based on meanings, in an effective and efficient manner, to meet the challenges of the organization. The components, sources management, analytics management, interpretation management, and action management, are in escalating order of dependence as each determines the basis upon which the others will build sequentially. The components of information management are linked with one another in a circular manner. The goals of information management are to contribute to increased business value of the organization and also to improve the process of information management in the organization.
The above definition is comprehensive in that it covers the peculiarities of information management from the sources from which signals are gathered to the actions that are calibrated from the processing of information and the generation of actionable knowledge. The components of information management are placed in order, albeit in a circular manner. For example, without good sources management, you cannot go on to have proper analytics management. The same is true as you ascend in order through the different levels of management all the way to actions management, which is dependent on the three levels below it. Ultimately, actions generated will influence the sources of information. In order for an organization to have a successful information management program, it must show proficiency in each one of the four components. Because of the interdependence each component has upon one another, failure at any level will result in a deficient information management program. Taken in combination the four components represent the information management process from generation of information to the application of knowledge through the calibration of actions and learning from the actions so that this feedback may be used to improve successive activities in each of the components.
Do you agree/disagree? Do you have a different definition? All comments and suggestions are welcome…
Cheers,
Dr. Kevin C. Desouza
Assistant Professor, The Information School
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering
Director, Institute for Innovation in Information Management
Director, Institute for National Security Education and Research
Website: http://faculty.washington.edu/kdesouza/
Blog: http://kevindesouza.blogspot.com
Blog: http://ideas4change-ischool.blogspot.com/
Blog: http://ideas4innovation.blogspot.com/
Blog: http://secureknow.blogspot.com
Organizations are essentially information processing entities. The performance of an organization will depend on how effectively and efficiently it processes information from its internal and external environments and applies the information towards realization of its goals and objectives. In my book, Agile Information Systems: Conceptualization, Construction, and Management, I make the argument that: an agile organization will be able to (1) sense signals (data) in the environment, (2) process (construct information) them adequately, (3) mobilize knowledge-based resources and processes to take advantage of future opportunities, and (4) continuously learn and improve the operations of the organization. In addition, an agile organization will undertake the preceding activities in quick time cycles and with minimal cost and effort. Optimal, and innovative forms of, information management is a critical element for building agile organizations. So, what exactly is information management?
I define information management as the collection of activities involved in managing the sources of information, analytics used to derive relationships from information, mechanisms for interpreting meanings from relationships, and calibrating actions based on meanings, in an effective and efficient manner, to meet the challenges of the organization. The components, sources management, analytics management, interpretation management, and action management, are in escalating order of dependence as each determines the basis upon which the others will build sequentially. The components of information management are linked with one another in a circular manner. The goals of information management are to contribute to increased business value of the organization and also to improve the process of information management in the organization.
The above definition is comprehensive in that it covers the peculiarities of information management from the sources from which signals are gathered to the actions that are calibrated from the processing of information and the generation of actionable knowledge. The components of information management are placed in order, albeit in a circular manner. For example, without good sources management, you cannot go on to have proper analytics management. The same is true as you ascend in order through the different levels of management all the way to actions management, which is dependent on the three levels below it. Ultimately, actions generated will influence the sources of information. In order for an organization to have a successful information management program, it must show proficiency in each one of the four components. Because of the interdependence each component has upon one another, failure at any level will result in a deficient information management program. Taken in combination the four components represent the information management process from generation of information to the application of knowledge through the calibration of actions and learning from the actions so that this feedback may be used to improve successive activities in each of the components.
Do you agree/disagree? Do you have a different definition? All comments and suggestions are welcome…
Cheers,
Dr. Kevin C. Desouza
Assistant Professor, The Information School
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering
Director, Institute for Innovation in Information Management
Director, Institute for National Security Education and Research
Website: http://faculty.washington.edu/kdesouza/
Blog: http://kevindesouza.blogspot.com
Blog: http://ideas4change-ischool.blogspot.com/
Blog: http://ideas4innovation.blogspot.com/
Blog: http://secureknow.blogspot.com
Monday, January 7, 2008
Mission
The Institute for Innovation in Information Management (I3M) at University of Washington is a salient exemplar of industry-academia partnerships. I3M believes in the innovative capacity of information management as a competitive tool.Innovative information management calls for building creative solutions for:
- Managing information
- Deploying technology to create, capture, store, organize, retrieve, and apply information
- Enabling people to create and use information to the fullest extent
Organizations that deploy innovative processes for the management of information will outperform their competitors and be leaders in their marketplaces. Therefore, I3M brings together industry and academic partners for the co-construction of problems and solutions to better understand, create, and share innovative information management practices.
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