Knowledge, Hype and Opinion, the Blackberry Playbook

The Summary, in My (Humble) Opinion:

• I have one. And I bought an additional 2 Blackberry Playbooks for my daughter and son.
• The new operating software (OS2.0) makes the Blackberry Playbook a powerful, functional tablet.
• I have found it a useful business tool (I am a consultant at lots of conferences and meetings).
• At its current price point ($200-$300), the Playbook is a steal of a deal.

For Canadians, it's been with a bit of consternation that we have watched the reputation and stock price of Research in Motion decline through 2011. Regarded as Canada's flagship in high tech, RIM's decline from the "must-have" technology has been hard to watch. And when their tablet came out in 2011, the rush to proclaim the Playbook as half-baked was universal.

There are some lessons here. Much has been written about RIM's struggles to be innovative. But little has been written about the analysts doing the analysis. So as a new user of the Playbook and a technology watcher, here are some observations.

The Herd Mentality about New Technology and Gartner's Hype Cycle (2011):
 

Here's the rub. Tablets are just coming down off the peak of inflated expectations. What will tablets do? Everything a laptop can do, plus a camera, plus a game console, plus an e-book reader, plus a music player ... How about frying eggs as a griddle? And from the time that the Apple iPad broke the ground, the expectations are that every new entry will do marvelous new things. At the beginning of 2011, at the peak of the hype cycle, the Blackberry Playbook didn't move the yardsticks as technology reviewers expected (iPad3 by RIM). And then the piling on began.

As every engineer will tell you, simple takes work. Sometimes you get complicated at the start of technology. Hence the trough of disillusionment.

Now a year later, with a new version of the operating system, is the hype (or continuing derogatory commentary) about the Playbook justified? Here's my perspective. Note this my opinion but it comes out of a consultant who uses the tablet for business.

What works well on the Blackberry Playbook:

• Documents to Go. Word, Excel and PowerPoint files can be transferred to the Playbook and edited easily. And then transferred back to my laptop. File overwrites happen seamlessly.
•  The keyboard. Easier to type on than my laptop's keyboard (or even the USB connected full-size keyboard I use every day). And word predictions speed up the typing. 
• Web mail. Contacts. Calendar. Easy to get to. Easy to update. Actually more convenient to work on than laptop.
• Video Chat. Some people think the Playbook should come with Skype. I don't use video in Skype because the service problems over my high speed cable connection. And even audio breaks up. But Video Chat over the same connection had smooth video and audio. 
• File Manager lets me get to documents that were attached to emails. And then edit them on the Playbook.
• Size is right. I can sit in a lecture room with their minuscule writing surfaces and take notes easily. I have stopped using my notepad binder for writing notes at meetings. The Playbook slides into an unobtrusive zipped binder (15 X20 cm) that I got years ago from a conference. I am not in a panic to leave it unattended.
• Price Point is a No Brainer: Canadian prices are $200 to $300. A good USB 32GB storage drive costs $60. When a tablet gets over $500 I question whether the tablet offers enough to compete with a similarly priced notebook computer. The Playbook does enough of what I would expect of a decent laptop in situations outside the office and at a significantly lower price.

With WiFi everywhere, I usually can browse easily and if there is no WiFi, the Bridge connection to my Blackberry Phone means I carry on as usual.

I don't play games. I don't shoot photos or videos with my cell phone.I am a grandfather so I do carry photos and videos of my grandson on my Playbook. I have checked out the Apps store and regard 85% of the offerings as clutter. No, I do not need "Angry Birds" on my Playbook.

The Playbook lets me work in situations where a laptop would be awkward and a cell phone verbotem. And it cost me less than $300.

I am not comparing the Blackberry Playbook to other tablets. But I think right now most of the commentary about the Playbook and RIM constitutes negative hype (and herd mentality).

Simple takes work and the Blackberry Playbook got simpler.

A Network of Networks

There has been some chatter in some KM circles about emerging trends. The focus is usually around new tools or processes. But the most interesting trends are those that affect behaviour. That is why I need to share Perry Kinkaide's journey into building a network of networks. For those familiar with the concept of Communities of Practice, Perry takes that idea to a whole other level.

Perry is a retiree who couldn't retire. So he decided to become an angel investor to technology start-ups. In the process of trying to decide which start-ups merited funding, Perry reached out for advice from experts he trusted. As the group of advisors grew, the start-ups realized they were getting valuable advice during their funding presentations; the advisors realized they were learning too and the group started to meet because of the knowledge sharing.

The evolution of the Kinkaide Enterprises Inc. Network into the Alberta Council of Technologies (ABCtech) is detailed in "The Origins of ABCtech". In short, as the network outgrew Edmonton, Perry realized that by connecting with other networks, ABCtech could foster emerging technologies in Alberta.



ABCtech began to run half day events to explore the interest in an emerging technology. If enough interest emerged, then ABCtech would hold larger events where the recognized experts in the technology would demystify what was really going on. The emerging community of start-ups, local experts and investors would begin the dialogue about how to build capacity.

ABCtech worked behind the scenes to build an alliance to connect the existing networks within the technology space. Once an alliance was formed, ABCtech supported the alliance through its early days until the alliance was self supporting.

All of this was done by volunteers. The only funding came from workshop and conference revenues.

How transformative has ABCtech been? There is now an alliance in Alberta of the disparate industries that form Clean Technologies, from biogas, solar to wind power to green buildings (LEED). The Alberta Clean Tech Industry Alliance (ACTia) launched its website in May. The Alberta Cell Therapy Alliance concluded a series of workshops in Edmonton and Calgary in May. Five years ago, there was not even awareness of Alberta's capabilities in these technologies.

Driven by Perry's vision of a network of networks, ABCtech is a new model of knowledge sharing, collaboration and capacity building.

So can you take the concepts of Communities of Practice and drive innovation and economic development at the community scale and beyond? Yes, you can.

If you want to experience what ABCtech is about, "Twilight in the Meadows" takes place, Thursday, June 23, 4:30 PM to 8:30 PM in the Edmonton river valley. Peter Hall, V.P., Export Development Canada is the keynote speaker. Register Here for the event,

The Client Inside the Organization

The “wired” patient"

Organizations are already struggling with the "client inside the organization".

Who wants to be the specialist or intern or nurse who meets with this patient in the next half hour?

Thomas Stewart has an really interesting commentary about "the client inside the organization" in this video clip from the Association of Managing Consulting Firms' The Lords of Strategy discussion panel.

Of course, what Thomas Stewart is talking about the connectivity that comes with the Internet. Marshall McLuhan’s maxim: “The medium is the message” is at play. In the early days of the Internet, we thought the Internet was about easy access to information. It is. But we are now learning that the Internet and its associated technologies are about “connectivity”.

This has profound impacts for organizations when we discover that the client that used to wait in the salesroom for the new car to arrive is now inside the organization. “The client inside the organization” behaves much like the “wired” patient inside a hospital. The Internet connected patient today has access to as much information (and sometimes more easily) and interacts with business processes as much as the specialists and hospital staff who are caring for the patient. The specialist is no longer the expert. The conversation about the best course for treatment is disruptive and complex. And of course, the client is right. The choices are about her. She has emergent information that she wants considered.

And we get this result because we don’t have management processes to manage the “client inside the organization”.

The Internet changes the way customers behave. The Internet changes the way organizations organize themselves. And we have to get away from business centred processes to people centred processes. Because that is how people who are easily connected to each other and easily connected to information are going to behave.

If this is not good news for business processes that require efficiency based on acceptance of the expert's opinion (e.g. the medical and law professions), guess what is going to happen to the mass merchandising models at work today. The notion that they are "all about the customer" is going to get turned on their heads.

Knowledge Management "Killer" Success Stories

Linked-In has a discussion group for chief knowledge officers. A discussion thread was started on the topic of "killer" stories where knowledge management had created value. The request came from a consultant who was trying to answer the skeptical senior executive's questions about the value of KM. Below is my contribution to the discussion. KM success stories are not widespread these days because high performing organizations have done KM long enough that the practice and the successes are embedded and part of the organizational culture. So I shared what I think are Canada's best examples of KM success stories.

By the end of this, if this sounds like advertising for the Conference Board of Canada's Knowledge Strategy Exchange Network (KSEN) ..... it is. Any organization in Canada serious about KM would get significant value by joining KSEN. I know I did.

The Conference Board of Canada has a KM CoP (Knowledge Strategy Exchange Network) that includes the big four accounting firms, KPMG, Deliotte-Touche, Ernst & Young, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), plus the Bank of Canada, the Auditor General of Canada, Hydro Quebec, the Business Development Bank of Canada and Farm Credit Canada. There are also law firms, various departments of provincial governments and cities involved in the network. The network started in 2001 and with a reorganization in 2003 has supported the exchange of practices and strategy for KM in these organizations in Canada.

As long time practitioners of KM, most of these organizations have significant KM success stories. You don't get continued investment and resources to KM year after year unless senior managers judge that there is value for the organization.

Some of these firms have world class initiatives in KM. For example, Farm Credit Canada has Communities of Practice that evolved to be a key feed of information for strategic planning. Think about it. Who is exploring what is coming over the horizon (for clients, for the practitioners in the CoP, for their organization)? A good CoP will be doing this. The impact of CoPs on executive culture led to a restatement of cultural values and an employee code of conduct. That's just Farm Credit Canada. Hydro Quebec has a deliberate and organizational wide focus on succession management that has driven their KM program. If the deep expert on trouble shooting electricity power line malfunctions leaves the organization, the North American east coast may be at higher risk of a brownout. So Hydro Quebec has had success getting middle managers to pay attention to KM in their work units.

KM is an attribute of high performing organizations and as a result, I doubt that you will find studies that can show definitive rates of return solely to KM. You will also find those high performing organizations paying attention to innovation, project portfolio management, employee recognition, business process improvement, organizational learning and corporate values.

Good organizations consciously do KM (even if they don't call it that). Less effective organizations do KM poorly. But in some fashion they all do KM.
"Killer" KM success stories are out there. But the organizations who are successfully doing KM are not bragging about it because "It is the way we work".

The Most Revolutionary Question, thanks to Fr. Conor Kennedy

What kind of future do you want for your children?

In 1975, while in Malawi, my fellow Canadian, Rick Sutton and I would hang out with a Roman Catholic priest from Edmonton, Alberta. Father Conor Kennedy was originally from Ireland but he hung out with the Canadian CUSO (now VSO) crowd. Rick and I were teaching high school in Nsanje, Malawi through CUSO's auspices. Rick and I had these in-depth discussions about third world development. Rick grew up in the tougher neighbourhoods of Vancouver. I was a country boy from southern Ontario. We sometimes had divergent opinions but common Canadian ideals of what development meant and did.

Father Conor Kennedy had a strong influence on those debates. We would share our CUSO discussions about how to make third world development work. Conor got CUSO funds and support regularly for his parish projects, not because it was Christian or faith-based but because he did some really good development work in his rural community in Malawi. Conor sponsored some primary schools that worked with the simplest of materials but opened doors to children without means for an education.

Conor has a Masters degree in Adult Education (from the University of Alberta, I believe). So when he talked, we listened.

In one of those conversations, Conor said something that has always stayed with me as the most revolutionary concept of what sparks and maintains development. Rick and I were talking about the difficulty of identifying and starting good development projects particularly in the oppressive and manipulative one-party state that Malawi had evolved to.

Conor listened to the conundrums of teachers who were paid by and working for the government and then responded with his solution. Conor had set up parent councils with the schools he was sponsoring. He said: " I just ask my parents what kind of future do they want for their children? Out of that conversation comes the simplest ideas for starting change in a community. We do those projects first and we keep revisiting that question to move onto the longer term, more complex projects."

Conor pointed out the powerful impulses created out of launching that perspective on development projects for the local community. How hard will parents work for the future of their children? Where does the local politician and the tribal chief want to be on those projects? Running to the front to be seen bringing value to the projects. Corruption? You might get away with stealing from me but don't steal from my children. The ferocity of mothers defending their children is not to be trifled with.

We have stopped asking that question about rural development in rural Canada. We have trouble asking that question at the international and national stage when nations and companies invest, invade and defend their futures based on their self-interests.

So:

What kind of future do you want for your children? What kind of future do you want for our children?

Back to Father Conor Kennedy. He still serves in Malawi with the Roman Catholic Church in the Dedze district. During the civil war in Mozambique, his parish was overwhelmed by refugees fleeing to Malawi for safety.

Before you brush off the Christian overtones of this man's work, read this from his days of sponsoring rugby in Edmonton. Conor is a Honorary Life Member, Edmonton Rugby Football Club.

A final word from Conor, where a lifetime in making development happen is summed up in these words:

"Integral Christianity, integral spirituality means ministry to body and soul. You can't divorce religion from the lives of the people. No way. Isaiah said that true religion in the sight of God is to look after widows and orphans. On the final exam, as I understand the Scriptures, we'll be evaluated on one issue: "I was hungry and you gave me to eat." If we don't score well on that issue we'll fail. Feeding people who are hungry is an absolute essential of the Christian church. Christ himself fed five thousand when they were hungry - and they were only missing an evening meal. We have to integrate development with our preaching. We must show that we're active in our Christianity and not just verbal. We must link religion and daily life and not just religion and Sunday worship."

Fr. Conor Kennedy, CSSp
Malawi, Africa

Sharing What Works

CompanyCommand is one of the U.S. Army's communities of practice. It is a space for commanders of companies (150 men) share and discuss tough issues of command.

The Canadian Forces has its own unit that focuses on lessons learned.

The U.S. Army may not be the first place where you would think to look for communities of practice or rapid information sharing websites. But the reality is that learning fast from what worked and didn't work is a critical skill set in today's army.

So there are strong reasons to pay attention to what the U.S. Army is doing and learning about knowledge management and fast learning. Here are some deep articles that get to the variety, processes and tools of knowledge sharing that the U.S Army is finding useful. Nancy Dixon (author of Common Knowledge) has been working with the US Army on the process side of its knowledge sharing and knowledge management. In her blog, "Conversation Matters", she has been posting some enlightening articles about her experiences in guiding KM in the U.S Army:

1. Company Command: A Professional Community That Works
   
2. If the Army Can Put Its Doctrine up on a Wiki, You've Got No Excuse
3. A Wiki for Generals
   
4. Do We Really Need So Many Kinds of Social Media?

The last article is especially enlightening in describing the processes and tools that a large organization legitimately needs to share policy, business processes, mentor, collaborate, innovate, challenge existing practice. Knowledge sharing does not happen in one space or with one tool. There are legitimate reasons for diversity and a variety of tools.

There is a Canadian connection to the U.S. Army's CoPs. Tomoye Community Software is a long-time software company supporting communities of practice based in Ottawa, Canada. Tomoye has provided the software to some of the key communities that Nancy Dixon talks about. Here are some of Tomoye's links to their analysis of the US Army communities of practice:

1. Company Command.
2. Army Logistics Net LOGNet Case Study

It is no coincidence that Kent Greenes is now part of Tomoye's Strategic Advisors along with Nancy Dixon. Kent started his work in knowledge management by focusing on fast learning by project teams for better performance as CKO for British Petroleum. He has pioneered the concepts of Peer Assists and Learn Before, Learn During, Learn After.

Organizations need to see communities of practice, information repositories and social media tools in the wider context of what is important and necessary for the organization to share quickly in order to execute and innovate.

A Conversation about Knowledge Sharing

Conversations can be entertaining or sometimes they are nothing to howl about. You be the judge!


Dr. Kirby Wright teaches a course in Knowledge Management as part of the Master of Arts in Communications and Technology at the University of Alberta. A team of his graduate students approached me for an interview as part of their project in the course. They have created a blog at kmcafe.org. Their blog is well worth a visit for a critical view (in the terms of a critique) of the state and future of knowledge management.

The interview is posted at kmcafe.org. Thanks to Carolyn Dearden for editing the interview down from 40 to 24 minutes. You get the nuggets without the sidetracks I can roam down sometimes.

So, if you are interested in my take on the state of KM, click on "KM Cafe chats with KM Expert Neil MacAlpine".