The videos are up!

I’m really excited to announce that the talks from KA Connect 2012 are live on the web. You can watch them here:

http://ka-connect.com/talks.php

Our speakers shared their stories, ideas, and insights with us on topics ranging from social media to research and development, from innovation to thought leadership, and even a few skunkworks projects.

I hope you enjoy them and share them with your tribe.

Best,
Chris

The Connected Practice

Knowledge Architecture believes that architecture and engineering practices who integrate research and development, thought leadership marketing, and knowledge management will sustain a competitive advantage over their more siloed competition.

These early adopters exploit emerging technology, such as social media, by leveraging their existing investments in analog processes, tools, and culture. They understand the value of seamlessly moving between digital and analog worlds, and they invest their financial and human resources accordingly.

The success of this all-of-the-above approach to knowledge and information management lies not simply in creating documents and organizing databases, but also in connecting people and ideas.

We believe the future belongs to these practices. We call them Connected Practices.

Do we know what we know?

I’m enjoying Charles Van Doren’s book about the history of knowledge. It is as ambitious as it sounds, tracing the way we think about knowledge throughout humanity, including the invention of writing, the rise of science, and so on. I just read a chapter called “The Nineteenth Century: Prelude to Modernity.” I wanted to share this section with you:

Whether economics is “good science” is really beside the point. Economists do know so many things that are true, even though they do not know them with the certainty of a physicist, say, trading on the assurance of three centuries of Newtonian mechanics. The point is that we all, thanks to economics, know many important things our forefathers did not know. First and foremost, we know that, in the world of today and any world we can imagine, labor, experience, and expertise are salable, and life consists in learning how to sell our labor, experience, and expertise at the highest price that we can get consistent with certain definable conditions.

We also believe that this is the natural order of things. Perhaps it is and always will be. But we should not forget that only two centuries ago it was not thought to be the natural order. Perhaps that should make us wonder more than we ordinarily do about what we know.

Two reasons I love this book:

1) This book, like The History of Scientific Revolutions, reminds you that we are most certain about what we know right before someone or group of someones bursts through the existing paradigm with the next best version of truth. In other words, it appears that much (most?) knowledge is temporary, serving as a placeholder until we can improve it.

2) I was a history major in college. Not because I liked memorizing dates and names,  but because of what my freshman World Civilizations professor called “the waves.” Historians zoom way up high in the sky and watch waves develop slowly and repeatedly. Yes, every wave is different, but the vantage point of history trains you to understand that what we are seeing now has happened(ish) before and will change again. And again. 

Once Professor Sarah Watts showed me the power of understanding the waves of history, I was hooked. And I still am.

“Beyond Marketing” Social Media Webinar now on YouTube

The presentation starts at the 5:20 mark.

You can download the original PowerPoint file I used here.

Have fun!

What do you dream of?

Imagine practicing a craft at such a high level it may take a lifetime to transfer your expertise to your successor.

Imagine your successor is your son.

Imagine you have such a transformative impact on your chosen field, people tell your son he must become twice as good to be your equal.

Imagine that at eighty-five, you insist you are not at the top of your game, so you wake up every morning determined to take one step closer to perfection.

Jiro dreams of Sushi. He wakes up in the middle of the night to write down his visions. He instructs, “You must fall in love with your work.”

Are you in love with your work? If not, why not?

The All-of-the-Above Approach to Knowledge Management

Much of the knowledge in architecture and engineering firms is tacit, silent—residing deep in the intuition and experience of employees. Codifying tacit knowledge is often the central goal of knowledge management initiatives. This is understandable, because the firm’s core assets walk out the door every evening. Leadership hopes they return the next morning.

For many industries, especially product-centric industries such as manufacturing that create repeatable goods, the return on investment for codifying knowledge is clear. If capturing knowledge can improve efficiency, quality, and profits while costing less than the time and money required to capture it, well, then, there you have it, a clear case for the return-on-investment (ROI) of knowledge management.

Knowledge in Architecture and Engineering Firms

But in professional services, especially architecture and engineering, codifying knowledge is more complex, largely due to the one-off nature of architecture and engineering projects. Obviously, there are routine processes and procedures inside architecture and engineering firms that can and should be documented. Checklists, templates, and design guidelines can be powerful tools for capturing lessons learned on previous projects. However, most firms spend too much time creating documents and organizing databases and not enough time connecting people. Both are important, and a balanced approach to knowledge management is the golden ticket.

A powerful use of documents and databases is to provide pointers to the people who might have answers to the problems we are trying to solve. An illustration of the evolution of knowledge management strategy is the recent surge in the deployment of social networking tools inside organizations to promote knowledge sharing. Again, firms should remember the importance of the balanced approach to knowledge management and not simply rush to adopt the tools that all the cool kids are using. It is not a question of either or, but yes and.

Two Degrees of Separation

My good friend Ed Friedrichs, formerly the President of Gensler and currently the Chairman of ZweigWhite, exemplifies this approach with a concept he calls Two Degrees of Separation. Two Degrees of Separation means that within two phone calls (or e-mails) I should be able to either find the person who knows the answer to my question, or, find the person who knows the person who knows the answer to my question. Ed insisted that every asset uploaded to Gensler’s first intranet contain the most relevant expert’s name, phone number, and e-mail address, because he understood that “data, diagrams and facts are rarely helpful to the person making the inquiry. After all, their problem is unique and needs interpretation to adapt what is on the Intranet to their individual application. Only a person with expert knowledge can interpolate for the situation at hand.”

Amen to that.

Connecting People

An under-leveraged component of knowledge management strategy in architecture and engineering firms is connecting people. The way you design your knowledge management strategy should flow from that insight. Your knowledge management team must be comprised of strong communicators and technologists. Think about how the systems, services, and value your knowledge management platform provides can be optimized to connect people, as well as organize documents.

Here are a few excellent examples of architecture and engineering firms that have taken a balanced approach to knowledge management:

• Einhorn Yaffee Prescott and their A16 program for up/down mentoring.

• Arup’s integration of knowledge management and thought leadership.

• Degenkolb’s Technical Conference and New Technologies Group.

Is your firm taking an innovative approach to knowledge management? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

– Chris

NOTE: This blog post is was originally written for the AIA Practice Management Spring 2012 Digest. It’s a great issue and group. You should check them out.

Social Media Webinar This Week

The AIA Practice Management Knowledge Community was kind enough to invite me to speak as part of their 2012 Webinar Series. Here are the details:

Beyond Marketing: Social Media for Recruiting and Retention, Research and Development, and Knowledge Management

Thursday, March 22, 2012
1:00-2:15 PM Eastern / 12:00-1:15 PM Central / 11:00-12:15 AM Mountain / 10:00-11:15 AM Pacific

Registration is free, but required. Go to: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/628447094

Description:

Knowledge Architecture recently completed a study on the social media activities of over 250 of the largest architecture and engineering firms in North America. Over half of the architecture and engineering firms we surveyed are actively using social media. Of those firms, almost all of them were using social media to market their firms, which did not come as a surprise. However, we were surprised by the number of firms who were using social media for purposes other than marketing, such as recruiting and retention, research and development, and knowledge management. This session will contain three parts: 1) Presentation of research findings 2) Discussion of key insights and trends yielded by our research 3) Presentation of case studies which indicate where social media is heading for architects and engineers.

I hope you can join us! If not, I’ll make sure to update this post with the recording once it is up.

KA Labs Webinar :: Vision-Constant Contact Connector

You might have heard the rumor that Knowledge Architecture is building a connector between Deltek Vision and Constant Contact.

It is true. We are.

We run our business on both systems — Deltek Vision for CRM and Constant Contact for e-mail marketing. Keeping the two systems in sync was driving us crazy, so we decided to build a tool to save us time and improve the quality of our information.

We’re planning on releasing version one of the connector this July. We would love to show you how it works and hear your feedback on how you might want to use it at your firm.

Join us on March 29th at 10 AM PST for a KA Labs Webinar featuring our new Vision-Constant Contact Connector.

You can register here: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/298378110

UPDATE: You can download the recording of the webinar here.

Does work make you happy or does being happy make you work?

This video is so great that I don’t have much to add. I love the focus on optimism and positive outliers. Take a break today and watch it.

Preliminary Findings: Research-Based Practice

© Knowledge Architecture, 2012

Last week at the A|E Advisors Annual CEO Forum I presented our preliminary findings on the state of R&D in architecture and engineering firms.

My presentation was built around ten trends and insights that we uncovered in our research, with case study examples to illustrate each one.

You can view my presentation slides here.

Bonus feature: For your convenience, each case study slide contains hyperlinks to source material.

Don’t see your firm reflected in the presentation? Please reach out to me and let me know what your firm is working on. I’d love to talk to you.

Best,
Chris

P.S. If you are looking for a shot of inspiration, many of the firms highlighted in our R&D study will be speaking this April at KA Connect 2012.