Title Slide

1
Solutions
Managing
Enabling
Global
Resourcing
Innovation
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About ERM (Environmental Resources Management)

• One of the worlds leading providers of
  environmental consulting services
• Over 100 offices in 40 countries
• 3,000 professional staff
• Worked closely with around 60 of the Global
  Fortune 500 companies in the past 4 years
• Over 30 years of experience

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Knowledge and Information in the workplace love
it or hate it?

• Dr Bonnie Cheuk
• ERM (Environmental Resources Management)
• Global Head of Knowledge and Information

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In the past 2 weeks, in your work context.

• Either
• Tell the person sitting next to you an instance
  that you fall in love with the information you
  got.
• OR
• Tell the person sitting next to you an instance
  that you are disappointed with the information
  you got.

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Love

• That report saves my life
• I came across this fantastic website
• Tom is so knowledge and have helped me a lot in
  this project
• The training course complete changes the way I
  think about customer relationship. I would highly
  recommend it to anyone

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Hate

• There is too much information, I dont have
  time
• My email box is overloaded
• The search results are so irrelevant
• That report does not provide any useful
  insight
• How dare the reports are recommended as best
  practices, they wont work for my department

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Time 1 and Time 2

• Same piece of information, same person
• Time 1 Really good, save my life
• Time 2 Irrelevant, info overload

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• Lesson Learn 1
• User decide what is good for them at the moment
  when they interact with information.

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The Practitioners DreamOur users are happy all
the time
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Love (Practitioner)

• My users love my information system and
  services, they keep coming back
• My information system and services directly help
  employees to improve their work productivity
• Every time they use the information system and
  services, they learn something new
• My information system and services are perceived
  by our users as helpful and relevant

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Hate (Practitioner)

• They dont like change, they do not use the new
  system which is much better
• Employees never learn to use the system
  properly
• They always complain they do not get the right
  or relevant information
• The information is available within the
  organisation, but they do not read
• Employees are lazy, they take whatever info that
  is easily accessible Google is the answer to
  everything
• Employees are not information literate, they
  cannot deal with a vast amount of information

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Looking through the eyes of an employee

• When employees need information
• they want it quick, they apply the law of least
  effort
• The employees performance are not judged by
• how good they conduct research
• how much they learn in the process
• The focus is on getting their work done.
• The employees really like to talk to other people
  
• who know the subject
• to clarify their understanding and gain insight

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Dervins Sense-Making
Sense-Making makes no distinction between
content, information and knowledge. Knowledge
is the sense made (and unmade) at a particular
point in time-space by an individual.
Reference Dervin, B, L Foreman-Wernet, and E
Lauterbach (2003). Sense-Making Methodology
Reader Selected Writings of Brenda Dervin. New
Jersey Hampton Press.
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Sense-Making Moment

???

• Bridge
• documents, ideas, resources
• beliefs, values, feeling, emotions
• stories, narratives

• Situation
• histories
• experiences
• identities, roles
• present horizons
• barriers, constraints

• Outcomes
• helps
• objectives
• future horizons

• sense-makings
• sense-unmakings

• Gaps
• questions
• confusions

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• Lesson Learn 2
• We are intervening at a moment which is very
  personal, emotional and unique to the employee
  i.e. when they face a gap in getting their work
  done. No wonder they always complain.

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• Lesson Learn 3
• Information (plus all other factors) -gt decision
  -gt business impact
• Information impact not necessary business
  Impact
• In the workplace, we are looking for business
  impact, not information impact.

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The Information landscape in the workplace has
changed dramatically
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Changing information landscape

• OLD WORLD
• Information is scare
• Find what is available
• Gain competitive edge
• Do the analysis
• Know more than your competitor
• Make better decision than your competitor
• Gain competitive edge
• Gain marketing share and make profit

• NEW WORLD
• Information is abundant. multi-media, web
  accessible
• Information is out there for you and your
  competitors (and your customers) to access
• Impossible to process all information
• Know what to pay attention to
• Gain insight innovate
• Gain marketing share and make profit

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Changing information landscape

• NEW WORLD
• Intranet / Internet / Online knowledge bases
• Employee receive information services from their
  personal information world
• Emails and ICT tools allows them to talk, connect
  with peers
• Employee becomes a freelance researcher
• Self Service
• Information is relatively cheap
• Insight / innovation is priceless

• OLD WORLD
• Library and information centre
• Records management
• Research unit
• Current awareness / SDI
• Librarians / Researchers
• Analysts
• Information is scare
• Reliance on Personal Assistants, researchers,
  analysts to find the best information available

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In the 1990s

• - Employees complain they are not getting
  relevant information to get their work done.
• - Multinational organisations embark on Knowledge
  Management Initiatives
• - Focus on using information/knowledge to support
  sales process, product development design,
  innovation, build customer relationship with the
  ultimate aim to support decision making and
  create business impact.

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The Senior Executives BriefGive my employees
easy access to the right information at the right
time
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The Assumptions

• Having access to information is good
• Users are active information seekers and users
• There is some good information out there, find
  ways to provide access for our users
• More information is better than less, users are
  more informed
• Information can be easily transferred from one
  source/person to another
• Good information lead to good decisions/actions

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Practitioners design interventions

• 1. More information Build a one stop shop for
  information
• More documents and information in the KM system
  the better
• Link up all internal systems, make them all
  available and searchable
• Give incentives/bonus for the staff to share
  documents / best practices on the KM system
• 2. More usage all employees should use the KM
  system
• Training to get more staff access information in
  the system
• Track usage rate of information system (note not
  information use)
• Give incentives/bonus for the staff to use the
  system
• 3. More quality information the right
  information
• Solve the information overload problem
• Expert committee decide on best practice and
  make them widely accessible for all to benefit

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But

• More information -gt increase information overload
• Give me only 10 relevant documents (not 1000)
• More training -gt users do not change their
  behaviour
• Rules of least effort continues
• They forget how to use the system, they do not go
  in all the times
• Even they use it, does not mean they get value
  out of it
• More best practices -gt reduce the relevance of
  information
• continue to reinvent the wheel
• It is not helpful to us
• That is not enough
• I want to see other examples, not just best
  practices

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• The dilemma
• If we increase the info available, employees say
  they are having information overload
• If we hand picked the best ones for them, and
  only make them available, employees say they are
  not relevant

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• Employee A (Time 1) 10 docs
• Employee B (Time 1) 10 docs
• Employee A (Time 2) 10 docs
• Employee B (Time 2) 10 docs

But they are not referring to the same 10
documents!
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• Lesson Learn 4
• Traditional assumptions about information do not
  apply in the new information landscape in the
  workplace.

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• Have a got a bigger problem?
• We think it is about the amount of information,
  may be it is not.
• What matters is whether the information make
  sense to the users
• More information NOT information overload (if
  users can make sense out of it)
• The boss cannot pre-define what make sense to
  the users
• We need to make the information available and
  find ways to allow users to interact with vast
  amount of information to create meaning
• How?

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What else can practitioners do? Is there a
bigger and deeper issue we need to address in the
workplace?
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My worries

• (a) Practitioners are not designing practice
  informed by the LIS research findings
• (b) Practitioners do not have influence within
  organisation to get attention and the budget to
  design practices informed by the LIS research
  findings
• (c) IS/KM systems/practices are designed by
  people outside the LIS field and with limited
  understanding of interactions between users and
  information

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If we go beyond providing easy access to
information (and teaching employees how to use
the tools to access information), in an
information abundant workplace, where should we
place the emphasis to create business impact?
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Video Time
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vvoAntzB7EwE
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• Lesson Learn 5
• It is not about the amount of information
  available, and giving people access to them. The
  information is there, right in front of our
  eyes. Do you see them? Do you pay attention to
  them? Do you interact with information to inform
  decision and add value to the business?

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• Snowden, David (2002) Complex acts of knowing
  paradox and descriptive self-awareness. Journal
  of Knowledge Management, Vol 6, no 2, pp 100-111.

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The new role of LIS practitioners in the
workplace context to facilitate information
interaction
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1. Make information service/system so seamless to
the employees day-to-day working lives
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2. Get the information agenda into the business
strategy. Propose how to use information to
create business value. Spot opportunity where
improve information provision can make a huge
difference and create business impact. Sell.
Sell. Sell. Offer your service.
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3. Be an amoeba. Information is only meaningful
in context, through the eyes of the users. Offer
information services in specific business
context. Use your information competence to
address real business issues. Partner with
business executives. Hand hold them to solve a
business problem from the beginning to the end.
Offer project-based information services.
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Help.

• The Customer Service Director wants to find ways
  to capture customers feedback in order to
  identify areas for service improvements
• The product development team want to review the
  product development process to ensure that the
  company is bringing the right product to the
  market
• The global IT helpdesk wants to build a knowledge
  base so they can learn from one another, re-use
  solutions, and provide better support to the
  users
• A company is about to roll out a new email
  system. Work in partnership with the IT Director
  to take this opportunity to introduce more
  effective ways to use email system to increase
  work productivity

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4. Be a facilitator. Bring people together to
have dialogue. Challenge and help employees
stretch their minds through looking at
information from different perspectives (at the
time they need to solve a business problem).
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• Cheuk, Bonnie (2006) Applying Snowdens
  Narrative Technique to Conduct Project Debrief
  within the British Council An Exemplar of
  Knowledge Management Project, Journal of
  Information Knowledge Management, Vol. 5, No.
  4, pp18.

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5. Recognise learning through information
interaction will cause unease. Can we turn this
into a Unique Selling Proposition to create real
business impact, rather than allowing employees
to dismiss the feeling as stressful. (Slogan
Come to the deep thinking session and get ready
to be torn apart)
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Example

• Senior leadership meeting - Help them to think
  about business issues in different ways, and get
  them to challenge each anothers thinking in a
  safe environment
• Support innovation by facilitating workshops to
  help people to look at information from multiple
  perspectives (e.g. customers, RD, customer
  service representatives) to inform decision
  making about product development.

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6. Be a coach. Be a trusted advisor. Provide
one-on-one coaching to C-Level executives, sales
directors on strategies to manage and use
information. They are drowning in information.
They need to understand what options/strategies
are available.
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Example

• Chairman coach him how to use latest technology
  to manage and interact with information
• CEOs coach him on new technologies (e.g. wiki,
  blog) and how to use them to add value to
  business and to engage with customers.
• Sales Directors offer training and coaching to
  personalise his personal information environment
  so he can get easy access to information
  according to their specific needs

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Some thoughts on designing IS/KM system in the
workplace which support employees to create
meaning
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1. Information is not just in documents. It is
in conversation, in peoples personal drive, in
peoples mind, in videos, in voice recordings, in
online chat. How can we integrate information
systems seamlessly with communications system?
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2. Can we build information systems which allow
different voices / multiple perspectives to
surface, and allow employees to co-create
meaning? Rather than building a system which
present only the authoritative (usually the
senior leaders voice)?
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3. Can we build information systems which allow
employees to encounter information in an
unexpected way? Can we introduce serendipity in
systems design?
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Can we build information system which allows
people to scan for patterns? Rather than
expecting people to look at every piece of
information in detail?
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• Cheuk, Bonnie (2006). Using Social Networking
  Analysis to Facilitate Knowledge Sharing in the
  British Council, International Journal of
  Knowledge Management, 2(4), 67-76,
  October-December 2006

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What does that leave us with information literacy
in the workplace?
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Information literacy in the workplace

• I am interested in information literacy in the
  workplace since it has direct impact on my work
• In 2000, I presented a UNESCO paper on
  information literacy. I highlighted 9 problematic
  areas to showcase the lack of ability to interact
  with information in the workplace
• In 2006, I critically reviewed my own paper, and
  asked whether the problems still exist in the
  workplace, I realise that they have not gone away.

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Bonnie Cheuk, "Information Literacy in the
Workplace Context Issues, Best Practices and
Challenges," July 2002, White Paper prepared for
UNESCO, the U.S. National Commission on Libraries
and Information Science, and the National Forum
on Information Literacy, for use at the
Information Literacy Meeting of Experts, Prague,
The Czech Republic. Available at
http//www.nclis.gov/libinter/infolitconfmeet/pap
ers/cheuk-fullpaper.pdfgt
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Information literacy in the workplace

• Case 1 Unable to determine the nature and the
  extent of the information needed
• Case 2 Unable to retrieve information
  effectively from the information systems
• Case 3 Not aware of the full range of resources
  available
• Case 4 Unable to evaluate and filter
  information
• Case 5 Information and Electronic Mailbox
  Overload

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Information literacy in the workplace

• Case 6 Unable to exploit technology to manage
  information
• Case 7 Unable to relate information creation
  and use to a broader context
• Case 8 Unethical Use of information
• Case 9 Unable to evaluate the costs and
  benefits of information management

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Challenges How do I intervene?

• The phrase is not welcome
• ISP is ok, but
• Employees are not here to learn at work
• I know what I am doing, I am good at my work.
• Real challenge
• Does information literacy business impact?
• I intervene when I identify opportunities use
  information to create business impact.

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Information literacy in the workplace How?

• This is not directly about learning, this is
  about make the best use of information to create
  business impact or improve work productivity.
• On the highest level, information literacy is
  about effective use of information to drive
  business growth and deliver business strategy. It
  is not a nice to have, but it is the only way to
  stay competitive, productive and attract talents.
  
• It is a set of principles (a kind of mind set) in
  running the business through (a) making
  information accessible and (b) encouraging
  employees to interact effectively with
  information in order make decisions to create
  business impact.

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Information literacy in the workplace How?

• This is about focussing on specific business
  problems and work in partnership with the
  business executives to resolve the issue.
• This is not about telling the employees what to
  do. This is about promoting self-descriptive
  awareness, i.e. helping your employees to reflect
  and think about issues through multiple
  perspectives.
• This is about the LIS practitioner building
  reputation as a credible partner, facilitator and
  coach to help the business to address business
  problems.

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The real challenge

• This is not about changing the employees,
  offering information literacy training courses,
  giving them the skills to use the tools
• This is about changing the senior and middle
  management to think about information is a
  different way in order to stay competitive in the
  knowledge economy.
• This is about a new management philosophy of
  truly empowering people through giving them not
  only access to information but opportunities to
  look at information from different perspective.
• This means people in power need to recognise
  their views could be (and should be) challenged
  and a willingness to accept good ideas which can
  come from a junior staff.

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Researchers / Practitioners .I need your help
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I want librarians/educators to develop students
into

• Employees who are not afraid of information
• Employees who are capable of using new
  technologies
• Employees who see the value of managing
  information
• Employees who can scan information and see
  patterns
• Employees with good communication skills who can
  engage in meaningful dialogue
• Employees who are open minded and willing to
  learn and unlearn (and to accept criticism
  without being defensive)
• Employees who reflect and critique their own
  thinking and work
• Employees who can challenge and think out of the
  box
• Employees who are able to look at issues from
  multiple perspectives

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Research agenda

• Look at the workplace context. Research which
  draws on theories, models and findings from
  multidisciplinary areas (e.g. psychology,
  decision making, learning, and LIS research)
• What is the impact of information literacy on
  business outcomes? Does it lead to faster
  innovation? More profits? Customer loyalty? Can
  we measure this at all?
• What models can help me to design information
  system which does not only focus on search, but
  to allow people to explore multiple perspectives?
  to scan for patterns out of vast amount of
  information? to create meaning through
  interaction with information?
• What are the learning frameworks I can use to
  design workshops (and design web-based
  information systems) to allow people to be more
  effective in using information?

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Questions? not yet
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What is the one thing you have learnt from this
presentation that you can apply to your work?
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Questions?