1. Thriving in the New Information Profession
The Fundamentals of
Knowledge Services
Guy St. Clair Dale Stanley
SMR International Genentech
New York NY San Francisco CA
Special Libraries Association
San Francisco Bay Region Chapter
March 26, 2007

2. What We’ll Do Think about Knowledge Services
Evolving as a new profession (or at least as a new discipline)
Think about your role as a knowledge services professional – and how your work affects how business is done (Practical: what will you do differently tomorrow?)
Think about how you get started in introducing knowledge services in your organization – your leadership role
Wrap up with a new perspective on how each knowledge services professional can leverage knowledge, both individually as a professional, and as an employee of the larger organization

3. Introducing… Knowledge Services The Convergence of: Information Management Knowledge Management Strategic (Performance-Centered) Learning

4. Knowledge Services
Knowledge services is an enterprise-wide service delivery function that enables companies and organizations to achieve excellence, both in the performance of internal staff and in interactions with external customers.

5. Knowledge Services Organizations use knowledge services to:
establish – or enhance – a proactive environment within the organization
ensure that knowledge development/knowledge sharing (KD/KS) is practiced throughout the enterprise
ensure that the organization’s intellectual capital is captured organized, analyzed, interpreted, and customized for maximum return to the organization

6. Knowledge Work in Today’s Business/Research Environment
The work of most employees in the business/research environment is knowledge work.
The new workplace environment requires a new kind of knowledge work - the work of conversation (sharing), analysis, and synthesis.

7. Knowledge Services
The successful organization in today’s business and research environment is a knowledge-centric organization…
Knowledge services is the basic management tool in the knowledge-centric organization, providing tangible and measurable benefits for all organizational stakeholders
Knowledge services converges information management, knowledge management, and strategic (performance-centered) learning into a single over-arching operational function

8. Knowledge Services Why is it Important?
“In the past decade, a new and unprecedented challenge for companies of all sizes has arisen, one that could mean life and death for a particular organization. That challenge is finding a way to successfully capture and communicate the knowledge within it. With the dramatic shift from an industrial to a knowledge economy during the last 25 years, a company’s success is predicated on being able to tap into its biggest asset – the knowledge of its employees.”
Jonathan B. Spira
KM World September 2006

9. Knowledge Services: It’s All About Knowledge as a Competitive Asset
In today’s business and research environment, the management of information as a “stand-alone” activity is insufficient.
For an enterprise to succeed in achieving its operational objectives, and to function as a knowledge-centric organization, enterprise management must include the management of intellectual capital as a competitive asset.
“Intellectual capital is the sum of everything everybody in a company knows that gives it a competitive edge.”
-Thomas A. Stewart

10. It’s About Information Management
Information Management - the management methodology concerned with the acquisition, arrangement, storage, retrieval, and use of information to produce knowledge.

11. It’s About Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management - the management practice for making relevant information readily available, so that users can make timely valid decisions.
The most critical requirement for workplace success is Knowledge Management – a way to gather, share, and provide easy access to technical data and information related to the work.

12. Knowledge Management KM is not a product or a thing. KM is
...a management practice that helps an enterprise manage explicit, tacit, and cultural information in ways that enable the organization to reuse the information and to create new knowledge
...an established atmosphere or environment in which KD/KS (knowledge development and knowledge sharing) is established as the essential element for the achievement of the corporate mission

13. And It’s About Strategic (Performance-Centered) Learning
“Organizational Learning”
… the successful achievement of skills, competencies, knowledge, behaviors, and/or other outcomes required for excellence in workplace performance
… enables those who develop knowledge to share it, for the benefit of everybody in the organization (i.e., combines knowledge development with knowledge sharing)
…provides training / learning that is specific to the workplace, and that focuses on applications

14. Strategic (Performance-Centered) Learning
Can be Formal
When, for example, an employer gives a talented employee release time to pursue a Ph.D. in a particular discipline that, when achieved, will realize specific and measurable benefits for the company as well as for the employee…

15. Strategic (Performance-Centered) Learning
Can Be an Internal or External Learning/Training Activity
When, for example, the company’s “corporate university” offers career advancement learning to employees….
Or training courses are offered to employees to help them develop or improve workplace skills….
Or workshops are attended at a conference or meeting….

16. Strategic (Performance-Centered) Learning
Or Strategic Learning Can Be Informal
When, for example, your buddy in the next cubicle will show you how to access a particular database or other tool….
Or you demonstrate to a fellow employee in another department how to set up an international telephone conference call….

17. Knowledge Services Defined
Knowledge services converges information management, knowledge management, and strategic (performance-centered) learning into a single over-arching function that enables research support, contextual decision-making, and innovation.
Information Management
Strategic Learning
Knowledge Management
Knowledge Services

18. Contextual Decision-Making
Knowledge Services
Knowledge Services
Research Support
Contextual Decision-Making
Innovation
Strategic Learning
Information Management
Knowledge Management

19. Knowledge Services Research Support Contextual Decision-Making
Innovation
Knowledge Services
Strategic Learning
Information Management
Knowledge Management
Knowledge Services Professional
Knowledge Facilitator / Consultant
Knowledge Coach
Knowledge Thought Leader

20. Knowledge Services Research Support Contextual Decision-Making
Innovation
Knowledge Services
Information Management
Knowledge Management
Strategic Learning
Approaches
From Reactive to
Proactive to
Interactive and Integrated
Roles
Knowledge Services Professional
Knowledge Facilitator / Consultant
Knowledge Coach
Knowledge Thought Leader

21. KM or Knowledge Services?
Knowledge Services goes beyond KM:
Knowledge Management builds on and is a result of the essential and critical element of knowledge services, the collaborative interactions that take place between those who are conducting research and those who partner with them in their efforts.

22. KM or Knowledge Services?
KM is a management practice, an environment….
Knowledge Services adopts the KM ambiance
Knowledge Services enables
Application
Realization
The transformation of identified and/or developed knowledge into new knowledge

23. What’s So Special About Knowledge Services?
Founded on Knowledge Development/Knowledge Sharing (KD/KS)
“… a framework for service delivery that embodies the highest objectives of knowledge management and combines them with the basic principles of the learning organization and the teaching organization.”
Guy St. Clair
Beyond Degrees:
Professional Learning for Knowledge Services

24. KD/KS (Knowledge Development / Knowledge Sharing)
“… builds on the assumption that all stakeholders accept their responsibility to develop, to learn, and to share tacit, explicit, and cultural knowledge within the enterprise.
“… exists for the benefit of the organizational enterprise with which the learning stakeholders are affiliated and which provides support for their learning endeavors, and for the growth and development of these stakeholders as lifelong learners.”
Guy St. Clair
Beyond Degrees:
Professional Learning for Knowledge Services

25. Knowledge Services
Knowledge services converges information management, knowledge management, and strategic (performance-centered) learning
With knowledge services, Knowledge Development and Knowledge Sharing (KD/KS) are basic to every transaction and every interaction that occurs
With knowledge services, evidence-based research support, contextual decision-making, and innovation are supported by specific and critical information

26. Why Knowledge Services and Not KM?
KM not clear to management, executives, lay people (i.e., people who are not information specialists)
Return-on-investment not clearly demonstrated with KM – thought of as too nebulous, too “soft”
Financial savings not proven with IT (in fact the opposite has been the case), so why take a chance on KM?
Knowledge services moves the concept to the practical – not theoretical – the “service” piece is tangible and can be measured

27. “Managing” Knowledge
Knowledge cannot be managed – only information can be managed
Larry Prusak (with Tom Davenport): would like to “take back” the term – “It really is working with knowledge (not managing knowledge). You can’t manage knowledge per se. You can’t manage love, or honor, or patriotism, or piety. It is clearly working with knowledge, but the words got there, and there it is.”
Information Outlook 5 (5) May 2001

28. Knowledge Services: Practical Function
Important to recognize the progression from reactive to proactive to interactive and integrated
Opportunities for synergy
Combine three knowledge services elements with proactive approach to information, knowledge, learning management
Use for interactive service delivery
Use both to enable matching internal and external organizational strategies with local implementation, in concert with local operations

29. Knowledge Services: What’s in it for Employees?
A healthy, enabling work environment
from competition to collaboration
from “information power” to “relationship power”
from stress to resilience
Drivers of retention and commitment
quality of management
empowerment / entrepreneurship
impact / community Nancy Reed Marsh
Vice-President, Organization Development
GlaxoSmithKline Beecham

30. The Knowledge Services Professional
Expertise and competencies that enable proactive and continuous improvement within the company
Expert knowledge of content
Assesses needs and designs and markets value-add knowledge services/information management services
Develops specialized knowledge/information products
Evaluates outcomes of knowledge use
Continually improves knowledge/information services and service delivery

31. Knowledge Services Knowledge Leadership
As knowledge services/information management professionals, our job is to smooth the progress of research management, contextual decision-making, and innovation in the company or organization.

32. Knowledge Services Professionals Lead the Way
“My job is to help an extended organization, including its customers, partners, and suppliers, manage or leverage their collective intellect in order to produce a change in its profitability and growth – and to renew themselves as a business by better organizing its knowledge assets to create new knowledge, new products and services, and to change the entire competitive playing field.”
- Kent Greenes Chief Knowledge Officer & Senior Vice President
Science Applications International Corporation

33. Knowledge Services Knowledge Leadership in the Organization
“We have a responsibility to our organizations to provide knowledge leadership.… We have the ability, the knowledge of concepts, and many of us have the skills, [and] that’s where knowledge leadership in the organization comes into play. It’s a role we have to play, whether it’s expected of us or whether we take it. It’s in the workplace that we see – and act on – the connection between the organization’s intellectual capital and the organization’s success….”
Kevin Manion
Director, Strategic Planning and Information Services
Consumers Union

34. Knowledge Services Professionals Ambitions for the Parent Organization
“I want to embed knowledge services in every part of the organization. That’s my goal. And I particularly want knowledge services to be a critical component in the high-profile parts of the organization. I want the knowledge services staff to partner and collaborate everywhere we’re needed. That’s the strategic direction I’ve chosen, and it’s what I’m trying to bring to the National Academies.”
- Victoria Harriston National Academies of Sciences
Washington, DC

35. Knowledge Services How Does the Organization Benefit?
Better leverage of resources and capabilities
Enhanced service delivery practices, with higher quality deliverables
Just-in-time performance-centered training and learning (for both clients and staff)
Improved customer/staff satisfaction

36. Knowledge Services What is so exciting about knowledge services?
“We’re describing a non-linear paradigm, an organic evolving model that never sets up just one way of looking at a query or a search but uses any arrangement of those elements.
“We take whatever arrangement that is required for the customer, whether that customer is a Nobel Laureate scientist or a student with a science fair project.”
Peter R. Young, Director
U.S. National Agricultural Library

37. Knowledge Services: The Value Proposition
Five factors enable the business case for the knowledge services function within the enterprise, for converging information management, knowledge management, and strategic learning:
Competitive marketplace
Global information services environment
M&A
Mobile work force
Changing employment contract

38. Knowledge Services: The Value Proposition
Societal factors with respect to information management, knowledge management, strategic learning:
Technology a major impact in knowledge seeking
Sources of knowledge vary widely
Traditional sources (“classical” librarianship) minimized
“Good enough” often good enough

39. Knowledge Services: Success Attributes
is holistic, integrated, and top-level
reflects an understanding of complex business and societal issues
reflects a broader, more inclusive relationship throughout the larger enterprise
enables enterprise-wide service delivery that reflects the competitive global environment

40. Knowledge Services: The Value Proposition
Building the business case for knowledge services:
Identify the bottom-line impact
Focus on projects with short-term payoff
Establish meaningful measures of progress and demonstrate results
Talk about future opportunities in a knowledge services environment

41. Knowledge Services What’s the Result We’re Seeking?
Desire to Achieve Corporate/Organizational Goals
Organizational and operational excellence
Optimization of performance through geographic and functional diversity and integration
Increased efficiencies through global functional organization
Attracting and retaining exceptionally qualified and highly motivated people

42. “World-Class” Knowledge Services
Holistic management, integrated into the larger organizational framework/cross-functional collaboration is a given
The operational unit performs a strategic function, and is recognized as the central information/knowledge/learning connection (the knowledge nexus) for the organization
Clear vision/mission/values
Awareness building is accepted as central and critical, not “extra”
Thomas Pellizzi, Victoria Harrison, Guy St. Clair
“Toward World-Class Knowledge Services: Emerging Trends in Specialized Research Libraries”
Information Outlook, June-July 2004

43. “World-Class” Knowledge Services
Service ethos builds on higher-value services/adding value to services, products, and consultations is standard practice
Customer needs are tracked on an on-going basis
New paradigms of service delivery are recognized as opportunities for enhancing Knowledge Services in the larger organization
Advocates and users recognize the value of the function and make efforts to see that it is supported
Thomas Pellizzi, Victoria Harrison, Guy St. Clair
“Toward World-Class Knowledge Services: Emerging Trends in Specialized Research Libraries”
Information Outlook, June-July 2004

44. First Steps: Creating the Operational Structure
Identify context and strategic purpose
Understand (and accept) role as a knowledge services/ information professional
Recognize and embrace leadership role
Establish knowledge services objective
Conduct knowledge services audit
Determine goals and expectations for knowledge services
Develop a strategic plan

45. How Do We Get There? Guy’s Mantra
(with a nod to Peter Drucker)
Imagine the Future
Assess Current Services/Structure
Focus on Results

46. What Do Knowledge Services Customers Want?
Information Customers look to knowledge services professionals to help them…
Find information
Transform information into knowledge
Share knowledge with someone else

47. Knowledge Services: Content Access and Management
In assessing the need for value-add services, and in designing and marketing them, the knowledge services professional recognizes that
Knowledge services/information management customers want a single interface, expanded online content, more access via a commercial search engine, and a “wizard” to help choose the best tools for a topic
“if material isn’t available digitally it won’t be used”
Role of knowledge services professional is obvious: identify the need/”read the runes”/negotiate as the expert

48. Knowledge Services: Content Access and Management
The age of enterprise content management (ECM) is fast approaching
Companies/organizations now require a comprehensive knowledge services/information management services strategy that embraces all content (e.g., internal documents and records, digital assets, web content, project reports, etc.)
Tools are important but success comes with the expert (and sympathetic) human interface – the special librarian/records manager/knowledge services/IMS professional
Open and non-threatening negotiation and collaboration with all stakeholders – including IT leaders – is critical

49. Knowledge Services: Content Access and Management
“No matter how good your products and services are, research customers always want more…. We are coming to learn that enterprise content management (ECM) is expected, even required… the industry’s hot new topic…. Access to organizational content beyond that usually found in libraries is what the library’s customers want. And smart knowledge services managers know they can strengthen the role of the corporate library if it could embed access – usually electronic – to other types of materials and resources in with their usual service offerings.”
Tom Glad
National Press Club Library

50. Knowledge Services: The Service Philosophy
“How can we help you do your work?”
“The automation market is constantly changing, and while in the past there has been an emphasis on the development and marketing of tools, our approach now is to listen to the client and take into consideration how the end user will be using our solutions. And, most important, how easy it will be for them to access information and use that information as they turn it into knowledge for their day-to-day decision-making. There are critical issues for us.”
Tony Saadat CEO
EOS International

51. The Knowledge Services Function
Three unique attributes….
Collections (or services provided, if what you have is an information center or a knowledge services center that is not a collection of materials) are particular or “special” to a subject or field of interest
Information customers’ interests are also particular and unique
The relationship between the information provider and the customer is highly collaborative, almost intimate….
“Knowledge Services and SLA’s History: An Interview with Guy St. Clair”
Information Outlook, September, 2003

52. Knowledge Services Organizational Social Networks = KD/KS
“Knowledge services pulls it all together…. Of course there’s confusion because information professionals have focused long and hard on the book, the journal article, the thing that contains the information, and that’s what most people think libraries are – collections. But with knowledge services, we are enabled. We can focus on the people, on the people who require our services and the people who provide them. Libraries aren’t about books. Libraries are about people.”
Nerida Hart
Canberra, ACT Australia

53. Knowledge Services: Collaboration is Critical
“Collaboration is a principle-based process of working together, which produces trust, integrity, and breakthrough results by building true consensus, ownership, and alignment in all aspects of the organization…
“Put another way, collaboration is the way people naturally want to work…
“Collaboration is the premier candidate to replace hierarchy as the organizing principle for leading and managing the 21st-century workplace…”
--Marshall, Edward M. Transforming the way we work: the power of the collaborative workplace
(New York: American Management Association)

54. Knowledge Services Critical Factors
Trust
Collaboration (and no disincentives for collaboration)
Collegiality
Concentration on relationship building
Part of everyday worklife / not something “extra” to “regular” work (“It’s part of your desktop.”)

55. Collaboration, Consensus, Cooperation “From Collections to Connections”
“I think one of the important things that support and enhance the power of networking and relationship building is the technology. It allows me to network with people I don’t even know. It’s a virtual relationship with my customers that I think is terrific – it’s like online dating! My OPAC is my virtual face!”
Marlene Vogelsang
Pacific Gas & Electric

56. Knowledge Services Marketing
Vision, mission, and values statements in place
Cross-functional collaboration
Mission-specific service delivery
Enterprise-wide service vision links knowledge services delivery with institutional/organizational success

57. Knowledge Services Marketing
Awareness building within the constituent user base is a given
No assumption that everyone who can benefit from knowledge services delivery knows about it
Adding value to information services, products, and consultations is standard practice
Awareness-raising and strategic marketing plan in place

58. Knowledge Services Measuring
Established point-of-service query framework
Regularly scheduled user meetings
Continuous evaluation of service delivery, products, and user satisfaction

59. Knowledge Services Measuring
When feasible, benchmarking with knowledge services delivery in similar organizations
Established research evaluation tools
Public relations/”good show” activities
Rewards and recognition program in place

60. Knowledge Services Leadership Support
Awareness-raising to all levels of management
High-visibility projects (particularly with positive financial impact)
Advocates and user recognition

61. Knowledge Services: What’s Required?
A Willingness to...
Change
Take leadership and “let go”
Recognize that knowledge work (as it has evolved) is different now — it’s not what we thought we were going to be doing
Transform specialized librarianship into knowledge services
Move to an “opportunity-focused and results-focused” operational framework (and way of thinking)

62. Knowledge Services: What’s Required?
Also requires some personal choices:
Leading (not following)
Volunteering (not waiting to be asked)
Asking (not waiting for an answer)
Thinking (not just duplicating)
Questioning (not accepting the status quo)

63. Knowledge Services: And Why Do I Do This?
Because what I want to do is put people in front of Knowledge, make them feel the Power of Knowledge, make them stop whatever else they are doing and think about Knowledge, think about the Role of Knowledge in their lives, and experience Knowledge for what it is, the very thing that makes them function successfully and happily as human beings.
And I want you to do it, too.

64. Knowledge Services Research Support Contextual Decision-Making
Innovation
Knowledge Services
Strategic Learning
Information Management
Knowledge Management
Knowledge Services Professional
Knowledge Facilitator / Consultant
Knowledge Coach
Knowledge Thought Leader

65. Knowledge Services: Next Steps
How can I learn from this workshop?
Back at work, what will I do differently on my first day?
Am I willing to be a knowledge thought leader, a knowledge coach?
Am I willing to talk about the practicalities of knowledge services, the benefits to the company, the benefits for my unit’s constituent user base (and, yes, the benefits for me, as a knowledge services professional)?
With whom? Who participates (or should participate) in my Knowledge Services Community of Practice?
And how will I deal with perceived barriers, impediments, lack of enthusiasm, etc.? How will I make it work?

66. Contact Information
Guy St. Clair
Consulting Specialist for Knowledge Services
SMR International
527 Third Avenue (# 105)
New York NY USA
Tel: