Much has been written about best practice for developing and nurturing on-line communities , such as Communities of Practice (CoP), and the accepted wisdom is that technology by itself - no matter how good – will NOT deliver vibrant and successful communities. ‘Build it and they won’t come’ should be the mantra, as Google Wave so amply demonstrated (and I know this was not an on-line community in its purest sense before I get flamed!).
I’ve previously tried to illustrate this using the analogy of baking a cake, where the cake’s ingredients e.g. sugar, butter, flour, eggs, milk are the component parts of an on-line community. To bake a really good cake you need all of these ingredients – missing out any one of them can result in something which either looks or tastes nothing like a cake.
Similarly missing out one of the ingredients in an on-line community will lead to potential failure of the community. Clearly some ingredients will be key – e.g. technology is going to be pretty important if it’s an on-line community! Members/users are important because they ARE the community. But let’s not forget the other ingredients, such as the community facilitator (also variously known as the community manager, steward or moderator) the business sponsor, the subject matter experts, the mentors, the librarians etc. Some of these roles may be combined, but the functions they perform are distinct. For now, I want concentrate on the role and function of the community facilitator, for I would argue that this role is the difference between the success and failure of an on-line community (and especially a CoP) – and I have the empirical evidence to prove it!
For any prior readers of this blog you will know I had (and still have) a key role in the development of the local government on-line community platform. Currently over 65,000 registered users and 1,300 CoPs. Using various metrics available on the platform, I can clearly see the correlation between a successful community and the capability of the facilitator. If this role is so important to the health of the community, what skills and attributes are needed to be a successful facilitator? I’m still not entirely sure, though I do know it’s not a case of just providing some training – though this does help. It’s more about personality; enthusiasm; willingness to share; being sensitive to the community environment; and energy….lots and lots of energy. Not the sort of things you can learn or teach using a pedagogical approach. I recall co-hosting a community facilitator’s story-telling session using the excellent Anecdote story-telling guidelines. We got ten or so of the LG Improvement and Development (previously IDeA) exemplar community facilitators together to share their experience of what worked so that we could perhaps identify some key lessons that could be shared with all the other community facilitators. One recurrent theme was how hard they worked at making the community successful. There was nothing really unique or special that they were doing, other than putting energy and enthusiasm into their role. They believed in the goals for their community and worked at helping the community achieve them.
So, coming back to my original theme – what makes a successful on-line community? The community facilitator is the answer, and though it’s clear we need some useful technology to support an on-line environment, that alone will not deliver success. If you will excuse me for switching metaphors, an on-line community (CoP) without a good facilitator is like have having a battery-driven toy without the batteries – and hence the title of this blog. This concept is supported by the accompanying slides, developed for a recent IBM webinar hosted and arranged by my good friend and colleague Luis Suarez (@elsua) – and available for download from Slideshare.
To conclude – a brief story about a recent response to a proposal I received from a large government body who wanted a cost effective solution to improving knowledge sharing for their dispersed staff. There was a limited budget, and I identified a fairly low-cost collaborative technology solution that was well within the available budget. However, I also included a dependency on having a community facilitator/manager to ensure the success of this nascent community. Unfortunately the cost of the community facilitator/manager was more than twice the cost of the technology, and consequently the solution was starting to look expensive and unlikely to be accepted and implemented by the client. Yes, I could have just quoted the cost of the technology and then left them to get on with it, but then again, I’m not a technology vendor and I don’t believe in perpetuating the myth that technology delivers successful on-line communities. It would have been like leaving them with a battery-driven product but not telling them that the batteries were not included!
I hope the slides are useful for anyone involved in bulding and sustaining on-line communities – and if you happen to be a community facilitator, you have my utmost respect!
I had the privilege if being invited to present at the EDO 2010 International Congress in Barcelona at the Centre for Legal Studies and Specialized Training on 12, 13, 14 May 2010. The conference theme was “New training strategies for oganisations” and I did a session on ‘Cultivating Knowledge Through Communities of Practice”. The slides I used are available for download from Slideshare and embedded in this post.
My sincere thanks to Jesús Martinez Marin and the organiser for the exceptional hospitality I received.
The following is taken from the EDO website and has been translated from Spanish to English.
More than 350 experts and specialists in the subject mostly from Spain and America have actively participated in the five international conferences, the ten symposia and four tables of communications, analyzing and discussing the more than 75 selected contributions. The general conclusions:
The current society considers the knowledge and training of workers as strategic elements of organizations. Thus, intellectual capital has become one of the main resources that are available to institutions to achieve their ends.
The organization is an association of persons, governed by a set of rules, to be able to create, develop and disseminate new knowledge to increase its innovative capacity and competitive. Therefore, knowledge management should focus its attention on the possibility that members of the organization share the greatest number of sources of information and collaborate in the creation of new knowledge.
Knowledge management promotes organizations create intelligent, able to transform information into knowledge through collective learning processes. Included in this connection to distinguish between “managing” and “stacking” the knowledge of the organization between the various technological supports.
Organizations need to understand and manage the existing knowledge or which may be created from an impulsive reflective practice of co-construction of knowledge. The co-construction of knowledge involves not only a dynamic work that is scheduled and help to move from the informal knowledge to formal knowledge, but also requires experience in which you want to work.
The organizations have expressed new forms of living on the virtual network, which becomes an essential tool for the exchange of information, knowledge and experiences. The virtual communities of practice are considered in this connection, a good practice that encourages learning and promotes the integration of informal learning, in line with a change of training model.
Collaborative work is successful when it occurs among peers, there is a mutual commitment, the organization is flexible and e-moderator exercises its role effectively. It’s about the content and learning processes that take place in virtual communities of practice, being the Information Technology and Communication (ICT) are just a tool that helps make communication more effective.
Organizational learning theories agree on the existence of certain internal and external factors that facilitate or hinder learning. Such factors include, among others, collaborative culture, leadership, collaborative and / or the existence of a flexible structure. Change does not preclude the assumption of error, nor problem-solving and competent incompetence.
The self has a high attitude component. Thus, self-learning experiences and networking are built among all participating members with the community and in the context of uncertainty. Is stressed in this connection the words of M. Benedetti: “When we thought we had all the answers, they changed the questions.”
The importance of identifying informal learning has increased in recent years. In fact, there are already systems and methodologies, European and Spanish level, certifying skills acquired on the job. It is envisaged, therefore, other ways to access traditional knowledge related to the formal processes established.
The creation and management of knowledge in the educational system implies a paradigm shift which includes the participation and experimentation of new scenarios by inducing agents of change. In this regard, there is talk of optimal conditions for their development as transformational leadership and sparse, teamwork, collaborative culture and flexible structure, if and when they occur simultaneously and seamlessly.
It stresses the need to create models in the education system, combining knowledge management and quality management, address the objectives of the education system and teacher not only in itself.
Managing knowledge is synonymous with a continuous cyclical process of identification, modification, use and evaluation of that knowledge. The EFQM model or similar can help this by emphasizing its usefulness as a tool for self-evaluation. Barcelona, June 2010 contributions and specific conclusions can be analyzed in the book of Acts of Congress to which reference is: Gairín, J. (Ed.) (2010): New training strategies for the organizations. Madrid: Wolters Kluwer Education. à Review available in: http://edo.uab.es/PDF/FichasActividades/Formacion/Pub_CIEDO.pdf
As some of my regular readers will know, I’m involved in a major new project to deliver the ‘next generation’ community of practice platform for UK local government organisations – see previous blog posts about the ‘Knowledge Hub’. The current platform has been (and continues to be) a huge success, with over 63,000 users and more than 1,300 active CoPs, working towards various outcomes but with a common goal to improve public service. These will eventually be migrated to the new platform when it goes live early in 2011.
The new platform will use open source software and delivered using an agile development process (a series of Sprints and Scrum workshops), which means incremental but rapid delivery of features and enhancements. More about this in a future post.
Having been heavily involved in the architecture and design of the current platform, I was caused to reflect on some of the key design characteristics that need to be considered as we progress to the new platform. In fact, we should be able to learn from the mistakes (yes, there were quite a few) in the design of the original platform and ensure these characteristics are optimised for the new environment. Not all of this is hard-wired stuff, but it should cause developers and system administrators to ponder on whether their design solution will support the usability and sociability requirements needed to encourage community engagement, collaboration, reciprocity of knowledge and an inherent trusted community space. Understanding the users and their needs is a key starting point.
Users typically want to know whether they can find and do what they want, when they want, and that their interactions are comfortable. The eight questions that follow raise the typical concerns expressed by most users. The answer to these questions provides heuristicsfor developers, system administrators and community moderators/facilitators. In conjunction with guidelines, they are useful for guiding the development process and planning evaluations. They will be used as we begin the development and design for the Knowledge Hub.
User Questions
Usability Concerns
Sociability Concerns
1. Why should I join this community?
Does the community have a clear and meaningful name? Is there a clear description of the community’s purpose? Is the content attractively presented (design, colour, graphics etc.? Will the site be updated regularly
What title and content will communicate the community’s purpose effectively and attract people?
2. How do I join or leave?
Are the instructions for registering clear? Is it a short procedure? Is there a statement ensuring privacy and security?
Should this be an open or a closed community? How sensitive are the issues and participants?
Do we want to control who joins?
3. What are the rules?
Are policies clearly and concisely worded and appropriately positioned?
What polices are needed? Should a facilitator guide and enforce rules? Do we need disclaimers ort other statements of intent?
4. How do I read and send messages?
Has appropriate support been defined and provides (e.g. templates, emoticons, FAQs, single messages or digests for listservers?
Is support needed for newcomers? Should the system facilitate sending private and group messages?
5. Can I do want I want easily?
What capabilities will best meet communications needs (e.g. different formats for information, such as Web pages , FAQs, content variation; search facilities, effective help at the appropriate level; private communication, etc.)?
What is the best way to ensure that the community is a congenial place, one where people can do what they want to do? What are the communication needs of the community?
6. Is the community safe?
What are the best ways to protect personal information, secure transaction processing, support private discussion, and protect members from aggressive behaviour?
Will the community need a facilitator to ensure appropriate behaviour? What level of confidentiality and security is needed?
7. Can I express myself as I wish?
Will users need, want or expect emoticons, avatars, content icons, a seamless link to private email, Web pages etc.?
What kind of communication capabilities does a community with this purpose require, and how should they be supported?
8. Why should I come back?
How often and by what method should content be changed (e.g. news, broadcast, provocateur to stimulate discussion, etc.)?
What will entice people to return on a regular basis?
It’s taken a while for me to get around to posting an update to my ‘Knowledge Hub Part 1’ post, mainly as a result of being fully immersed in the technology procurement process these past several months. This phase is now almost complete and we will shortly be starting on the actual development of the Hub, so now seems to be an opportune moment to remind everyone what this ‘Knowledge Hub’ thing is, and to give a first airing of the accompanying video (commissioned from Learning Pool – thanks guys). The following is brief summary, partially lifted from an explanation I produced for http://www.local.gov.uk/knowledgehub – and in plain English as far as I’m able:
What is it?
The Knowledge Hub is essentially the next generation development of the highly successful local government CoP platform (a previous project of mine). It will replace the existing infrastructure with new open technology facilitating integration with mainstream social media applications (for example Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN) and the rapid assimilation of new applications and web services as they emerge. This will enable, for example, much better personalisation and permeability of content. In addition Knowledge Hub will provide facilities that allow data on performance to be combined and shared (so called “linked-data”) potentially providing the framework to deliver the wider move to transparent government
Why is it important?
As the UK moves towards economic recovery it is expected there will be greater demands on local government to:
continue to demonstrate cost-effective delivery methods
be ‘fleeter of foot’ in gathering and using sector knowledge – not only to learn from others’ experience but also to accelerate the development and implementation of innovative delivery.
The strategy is based on the premise that knowledge of ‘what works’ and ‘what doesn’t work’ can be found within the local government community. Unleashed, this knowledge can be collectively focused on excellent public service delivery.
The overarching outcome of the Knowledge Hub programme is that by 2012/13, the culture of local government will be one of collaborative knowledge generation. This will involve everyone learning, sharing and problem-solving using a technology platform provided by LG Improvement & Development but owned by the local government sector.
While a working title of a ‘Knowledge Hub’ is being used it is perhaps more appropriate to use the metaphor of a dynamo-powered light, which shines brighter and illuminates the way more clearly the more involvement there is from participants and users.
What is the scope?
The Knowledge Hub will comprise three interdependent elements:
(a) Technology:
This includes the systems, software applications, hosting and service support.
Support for and development of culture and user behaviours that will foster the dynamic evolution of knowledge sharing and innovation through improved evolutionary networks of collaboration.
Some of the key features
The Knowledge Hub will not replicate or replace any similar initiatives currently being used, developed or proposed by individual councils or partnerships. Rather, the Hub will bring together information about innovation and good practice from any number of these sources to help the development of the whole sector.
It will be a web-based service and will be accessible through any device with web capability, including mobile phones and PDAs.
The technology and systems will support ‘agile’ development, allowing new functionality and services to be added quickly.
It will find and follow people with same/similar interests, leading to opportunities for collaboration coproduction and partnership working.
It will provide visualisation tools e.g. ‘heat maps’ showing emerging trends and ideas.
It will enable performance data to be shared between councils for comparison and benchmarks.
It will have a ’serendipity engine’ which will identify related ideas and themes.
It will aggregate and integrate conversations and content from different sources and enable key themes to ‘bubble up’ to the top.
It will support open standards and be available as an open platform with a published application programming interface (API) enabling third party developers and social innovators to create new applications, widgets and mashups.
The presentation looks at the phenomenon of Communities of Practice and how they can develop into effective knowledge sharing environments. Topics include:
What is a ‘Community of Practice’ (CoP)?
Moving from conversations to collaboration
Community culture and behaviours
What makes a successful community?
Measuring success and the elusive ROI
Lessons learnt from deployment of CoPs in local government.
My thanks to Jesus Matinez Marin and the organising committee for inviting me to address the Congreso Internacional EDO 2010 Conference in Barcelona (12-14 May). I only hope that I didn’t cause too many problems for the Spanish and Catalan translators who gave a real-time audio translation to the audience. I am particularly honoured to have been included in the official book “Nuevas estrategias formativas para las organizaciones“, which (relying on Google Translate) means “New training strategies for organizations”.
The presentation I gave is available on Slideshare and embedded below.
I very much appreciate the hospitality shown to me during my stay in Barcelona and look forward to continued collaboration with the Generalitat de Catalunya Department de Justicia as they develop their knowledge management strategy.
The presentation I gave looks at the phenomenon of Communities of Practice in the public sector and how they can develop into effective knowledge sharing and learning environments. Topics I covered included:
What is a ‘Community of Practice’ (CoP)?
Moving from conversations to collaboration
Community culture and behaviours
What makes a successful community?
Measuring success and the elusive ROI
Lessons learnt from deployment of CoPs in UK local government.
I’ve just completed my first ‘Hot Seat’ session for the IDeA Communities of Practice. My specialist subject “The Knowledge Hub”. I think I managed to answer all of the questions correctly, and was encouraged to see that we had over 470 page views during the 2-hour session. I was encouraged by the interest in this project from such a wide variety of users. Some challenging questions as well – all available at the Facilitation Now! conference 26th Feb.
I think that most community of practice (CoP) facilitators or moderators will recognise the challenge in getting conversations started within the community. The ratio of ‘lurkers’ to ‘contributors’ is one of the standard indicators that should be measured for any CoP in order to gain a better understanding of the dynamics and health of the CoP. It’s unreasonable to expect that everyone will be a contributor, and the fact that members don’t contribute doesn’t mean they are not getting some value from the CoP. However, there’s nothing wrong in encouraging more contributions, and I’ve seen various incentives used to increase contribution rates.
I thought this particular scheme being implemented for the local government CoP platform was particularly inventive, and I’ll be interested to see how successful it is (I have access to the platform-wide metrics). This message was sent out to all registered users of the CoP platform:
Dear CoP member,
It hasn’t been long since communities of practice welcomed its 50,000th member, yet we’ve hardly had time to register such a momentous milestone before that number is actually closer to the 55,000 member mark. And with a pool of over a thousand different communities to choose from, the potential benefits to the local government and wider public sector of those members sharing what they know grows significantly every day.
It’s no surprise to hear that the secret behind the platform’s success is its members – you! Without you, there would be nothing to share, no one to share with, and the variety and vibrancy of many communities wouldn’t be close to the level they are today.
To celebrate reaching this milestone, we want to say thank you by giving something back to all you sharers out there.
So, from February 16, we’re beginning a new campaign, Everyone ’s a sharer! where the first hundred CoP members each month to make their very first contribution on the platform will receive a small-but-tasty appreciation of our gratitude, with further reward going to each month’s top sharers, as well as to those members who make the highest number of contributions.
We’re also looking into starting a recognition system for those who make a lot of contributions to communities. In the coming months, members who make over 50 contributions will see a bronze heart appear on their profile; 100 contributions will be silver; and 150 gold.
So get involved by contributing as much as you can to your communities, and share your knowledge. Because after all…
… Everyone ’s a sharer!
Hopefully this post might stimulate some more ideas on how to increase contribution rates from those involved in CoPs. I would add this mantra for CoP facilitators/moderators: “Know who your contributors are….and look after them!”
It’s always pleasing to get some good publicity about how Communities of Practice are reshaping the way that local government works; creating new opportunities for knowledge sharing, collaboration and co-creation.
The article in e-government bulletin says it all, and indeed I was one of the panel of three who were invited to judge the entries for the CoP of the Year award mentioned in the article. A very difficult decision I might add, since all of the entries demonstrated the passion and commitment of the facilitators and community members in delivering improvement in local government services. Well done to all involved.
I would just like to add (before I get completely air-brushed out of history) that I was responsible for the original concept and strategy for the IDeA CoP platform, which emerged from a 3-year knowledge management strategy I was asked to produce for the Improvement and Development Agency, and I’m still involved in the strategic development of the platform. Some background to the project can be found as a Case Study on my website. It seems I need to take care of my own publicity!
If anyone is interested in ‘what happens next’, the follow-up strategy (’the next 3 years’) is all wrapped up with the Knowledge Hub, a topic I’ve previously posted on and will be adding to over the coming weeks. A case of ‘watch this space!
There has been much written about measuring the value of online communities such as Social Networks or Communities of Practice. However, most pundits tend to think of measuring value from a purely financial perspective, i.e. the Return on Investment (ROI). Clearly this is an important factor, but it’s not the only factor that should be considered. Surprisingly few organisations consider the value that is being created by having better informed and more knowledgeable staff, or the potential value of getting closer to customers and local communities. These latter factors are quite difficult to measure in terms of ROI, and will normally take more than one business cycle (e.g. a financial year) before any meaningful financial measures can be made. Unfortunately – and especially in today’s financial climate – organisations plan around 1 or 2 year business years, whereas online communities will not usually be time-limited, and very rarely be driven by finance and budgets. Allowing for the relatively small cost of bandwidth and technology, conversations are – for the most part – deemed to be free.
I was pleased to see that Matt Rhodes over at Freshnetworks did refer to non-financial ROI, though I would have liked to have seen more emphasis on the value that is generated for the members of these online communities, rather than the usual social media impact measures (numbers of page hits, numbers of conversations etc.) – important as these are, and adequately illustrated in the accompanying presentation.
I have taken a slightly different approach to the issue of how the value of online communities is measured, giving more emphasis to the discovery of value rather than the dispassionate assembly of a series of metrics – financial or otherwise. I should also add that the perspective is on public sector communities since this is where I’ve been primarily engaged over the past few years. The main points are covered in a presentation I gave to the Public Health Information Network Conference earlier this year and reproduced below:
1. We need to distinguish between cost and value.
I used the humble nutmeg to illustrate this point. Weight for weight more valuable than gold in 17th century Europe. The spice was held to have powerful medicinal properties. It rocketed in price when physicians in Elizabethan London claimed that their nutmeg pomanders were the only certain cure for the plague. So, cost was very high, but the value? Well, despite the assertions of the medical experts of the day, it certainly didn’t cure the plague!
The point is reinforced by the following quotations:
I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things. Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790.
A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900.
2. We are more likely to find and create value from the communities we choose for ourselves than the communities we are compelled to join.
I have argued that one of the key characteristics of a Community of Practice is the fact that the members are self-selected, i.e. they are there because they want to be there and not because they have to be there. They may select to become members because they share the same interests, passions and goals as the other members. A successful CoP will create value for the members – either collectively in terms of working towards a common goal or objective, or personally, e.g. through self-development or sharing knowledge.
3. We are re-discovering networks and communities and through them, re-learning how to have conversations.
It’s sad fact that 20th century working practices and pressures of modern life have led to a sense of personal isolation. Mass production, prescriptive and repetitive tasks and limited social opportunities in the workplace have created a workforce conditioned to think and act as a corporate entity, limiting individual aspirations and creative thought. The opportunities for sharing information and knowledge have been gradually eroded over the past 50 years; social clubs have closed; people don’t have the time (or money) to regularly socialise after work; we are increasingly driven by task-oriented emails.
What is sometimes forgotten is that professional communities, where good and notable practice is shared amongst fellow artisans, are still flourishing today in the form of Worshipful Companies (over 800 in London alone), with most having existed for many hundreds of years. Communities of Practice are not new; they’ve just discovered they can exist in a virtual world. The key issue for many people though, is learning how to have on-line conversations. The following points from one of the slides are worth re-iterating:
We don’t know what we don’t know
People don’t learn from content – they learn from other people.
We don’t know the value of knowledge until it is shared
We need to find where the conversations are happening….and join in!
And…
Dialogue is NOT:
Discussion, deliberation, negotiation
Committee, team, task or working group
Majority wins, minority dominance, groupthink
Dialogue IS:
Free-flowing exchange of ideas among equals
All ideas are solicited and are considered
Best ideas rise to the top
4. ROI doesn’t just mean ‘Return on Investment’
I’ve taken the liberty of using something I once heard Euan Semple say: “Keep the I small and the R will look after itself”. I think this is a good mantra because anyone worth their salt in the Social Media/Social Web world knows that implementing a social media strategy doesn’t have to cost a fortune. The days of multi-million pound corporate websites is fast diminishing, and anyone with this amount of money to spend is going to be quite rightly questioned on ROI – and they better make sure they have the answers.
I’ve given some alternative definitions for ROI, such as:
Return on Influence
Return on Interaction
Return on Impact
These are the things which should be measured for value, and add a different dimension to the traditional financial measures.
5. Recognise that value to the organisation is different from value to the individual.
There is an over-emphasis on measuring value of online communities from the organisational perspective. I’ve given a (financial) example in the slides, using cost savings of online conferences as an example. However, it is important to remember that there is also a value to the individual in being a member of an online community, and this aspect often goes unrecognised (and unmeasured). The value or benefit to a community member is quite difficult to measure (the member may not be able to articulate or recognise what knowledge they have gained from the community) and any outcomes may not be easily aligned with corporate goals (e.g. job satisfaction). It is nevertheless important to consider this dimension in any overall value measurement. Qualitative metrics can provide some answers, but it’s also useful to examine quantitative data to gain a better understanding of the community itself, e.g.:
Number of community members
Number of contributions
Number of contributors
Number of inactive users
Having a Social Network Analysis (SNA) application is even better, since this can reveal who the key ‘nodes’ are in the community chatter. It’s a useful discipline to consider what would happen to the online community if these community members decided to leave the community. Dependency on one or two ‘power’ contributors should be recognised as a risk.
The presentation concludes with a number of lessons learnt from the IDeA CoP platform, which has now been active (and by all measures, successful) for over 3 years. It’s always useful to have a distilled list of “do’s” and “don’ts”, herewith reproduced:
Do…
..identify and look after your facilitators – they are quite often the difference between successful and unsuccessful communities
..let users drive their own experimentation and use of tools.
..target and support areas that have a clear desire and need.
..build trust and relationships face to face where possible.
..condition your managers for failure – not every CoP is going to be successful.
..use online conferences and ‘Hot Seats’ to build membership growth and encourage conversations.
Don’t…
..think you can force people to collaborate
..assume everyone understands how to use Web2.0/social media tools.
..assume everyone knows how to contribute.
..worry about the ‘lurkers’.
..let command, control or hierarchy hamper or kill your community
..set unrealistic targets
I hope this has been helpful to anyone involved with social networks or communities of practice, and particularly those who need to show that their online communities are delivering value. Just remember there is more to ROI than finance!
The second meeting of the Knowledge Hub Advisory Group took place yesterday, 7th December. ( For some background to the Knowledge Hub see previous posting).
It was regretable that we didn’t get more attendees from local authorities, but those who did manage to attend were involved in some excellent workshop sessions aimed at teasing out their vision for how the Knowledge Hub would deliver efficiency and performance improvements for the local government sector. This was a valuable exercise because we managed to put some flesh and bones onto what has been up until now an abstract concept for many people. Before reporting on the outcomes from the meeting, a brief summary of the terms of reference for the Advisory Group:
The Advisory Group membership will be made up of technical and social innovators and local authority officers each with practical experience in helping deliver Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 solutions within the public sector or workplace, and with experience in cultivating a culture of knowledge sharing and self-development. The Advisory Group will:
Provide technical advice and strategic insight for the procurement and development of the technical platform.
Identify opportunities and sources for seeding and pump-priming content for the knowledge hub.
Provide expert advice in the development of a new ‘knowledge ecology’ for the sector, where the sector can learn from its own experience and where barriers to participative learning can be identified and resolved.
Advise on new and emerging knowledge sharing techniques such as social reporting, narrative & storytelling, and development of games for simulation of behaviours.
Identify training needs and other support requirements for the sector.
Provide on-going help in resolving problems and provide a quality assurance function for the Programme.
The main element of the meeting was a workshop session where delegates worked on two scenarios and my thanks to Ingrd Koehler for making these both challenging and a reflection of the sort of issues facing local authority staff.
Scenario 1
You work with Hubville City Council. You are new to the Youth Offending Team. In a meeting with the Performance Officer in charge of LAA (Local Area Agreement) monitoring and another officer from the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership you discover that councillors are concerned that your area doesn’t look on track to meet a key monitoring figure for its LAA : NI 111 (national indicator) – First time entrants to the Youth Justice System aged 10-17. It’s a single measure, but part of a wider set of priorities about reducing youth crime and anti-social behaviour among youth in general – and in some ‘blighted’ communities in particular. You are going to conduct a snapshot review of your current programme and try to identify a network of people who can help you. How will Knowledge Hub help you to: Identify your current performance and compare it with others. Understand how you can track and monitor information which might be related to or influence NI 111 (for example – reported crimes, prosecution rates, NI 117 the number of 16-18 year olds who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs))
Know what ‘best in class’ are doing
Identify people locally who are working on similar issues
Identify people across the country who are at the same stage in your improvement journey.
Find resources to help you deliver improvement against NI 111
Share your story and help others find the resources that worked for you.
Map your journey using the paper and materials provided. How will you come into the hub? What will it look like? What data sources do you expect to find? How will you navigate through it? How will you others be able to see and learn from what you’re doing? What ‘new’ data, aggregated data or mashups do you expect to create with the resources you have found? How will you make these new resources available to others?
Use the sheets provided, markers, stickers, etc to draw your map.
Output from Scenario 1
Scenario 2:
You work for Hubville Primary Care Trust. You’ve never worked for local government, but now you’re looking at working with Hubville City Council on a partnership target of reducing: National Indicator (NI) 39 Rate of hospital admission for 100,000 population for alcohol related harm. As well as a serious problem with binge drinking among young people, there is an older workless population with a high incidence of alcohol related illness. This has only gotten worse since the Hubville Automated Industries closed down last year. As people in the council don’t feel the direct financial impact of this indicator you have to work to influence council partners and other local public service, business and voluntary sector partners. You know something about Local Area Agreements and the local strategic partnership, but you’re unsure how to find out all the information you need. How will Knowledge Hub help you to:
Identify your current performance and compare it with others and identify how the council’s performance is contributing to this indicator.
Understand how you can track and monitor information which might be related to or influence NI 39 (for example NI 20: Assault with injury crime rate NI 21: Dealing with local concerns about anti-social behaviour and crime issues by the local council and police )
Know what ‘best in class’ are doing
Identify people locally who are working on similar issues
Identify people across the country who are at the same stage in your improvement journey
Find resources to help you deliver improvement against NI 39
Share your story and help others find the resources that worked for you.
Use the sheets provided, markers, stickers, etc to draw your map.
Output from Scenario 2:
The key fetaures that surfaced from this mapping process process were:
A central dashboard function, allowing you to choose types of information and subject areas – it would allow you to see what’s new, what’s hot and what’s relevant to you
High levels of personalisation – you can choose your own dashboard – the functions that you want, but at the same time it would help you make links to things you didn’t know existed.
It would allow you to make associations with ‘people like me’ – those who had similar responsibilities in their work – as well as to identify ‘experts’ in different specialised areas. Or be recognised as an expert yourself.
It would make it easy to share your experience and your views – even if you didn’t always know that you were doing so – that is – just the fact that 20 performance officers in a council had downloaded a document would have more weight than if no one had – or that only external consultants had.
It would help central and local government facilitate the development of a community (of interest or practice) around a particular indicator, where the community would define the performance parameters and measurement criteria for the indicator.
We followed this up with a Knowledge Cafe, where we posed the questions:
What social media skills are required to navigate and share information and stories of improvement?
What’s the best way of explaining what the Knowledge Hub has to offer? (i.e. it’s not just another website)
Outputs from these discussions as follows:
And finally, the wrap-up courtesy of David Wilcox, Social Reporter:
So, grateful thanks to all who attended the meeting and for both arcticulating and mapping out for us what the Knowledge Hub is all about. The next stage is conveting all this into a real product – which is well underway as part of the procurement process. The next meeting of the Advisory Group will be in the first quarter of 2010.
Similarly missing out one of the ingredients in an on-line community will lead to potential failure of the community. Clearly some ingredients will be key – e.g. technology is going to be pretty important if it’s an on-line community! Members/users are important because they ARE the community. But let’s not forget the other ingredients, such as the community facilitator (also variously known as the community manager, steward or moderator) the business sponsor, the subject matter experts, the mentors, the librarians etc. Some of these roles may be combined, but the functions they perform are distinct. For now, I want concentrate on the role and function of the community facilitator, for I would argue that this role is the difference between the success and failure of an on-line community (and especially a CoP) – and I have the empirical evidence to prove it!
