Lil Jackie's 2010 KM Roadmap

I've never been a starfucker.

Forgive the indelicacy, I'm still waking up.

I was reminded of this (in a roundabout way) during a brief conversation with my mom this morning. I mean, I still care enough about being "in the know" to pay attention to pop culture, but I'm just not one of those people who look to celebrities to give meaning to my life or provide me with non-stop entertainment...well, maybe Sarah Palin, I manage to get a chuckle out of everything that involves her (to the dismay of my mother who LOVES her). But, I don't get gaga when I pass famous people on the street (not even Lady Gaga), I'm not impressed to find out someone has more money than the combined GDP of every Latin American country, you'll never see me breakin' down cryin' 'cause some singer waves at me or says "hello", and even if you could ruin my life with a snap of your fingers, I still ain't studdin' you.

And why should I?

For one thing, my life is good - warts and all. For another, it's incredibly interesting (to me) and so unbelievably entertaining (to everyone around me) with equal parts high comedy and salacious drama (truly stuff that only seems to happen on daytime TV) that it's a crime I haven't written my own little "Peyton Place" to share with the rest of the world. (When I'm past the point of caring about what my friends and family will do to me - or simply out of their reach - I just might do it, lol.)

No, I'm not impressed with celebrity or status. What impresses me is realness and authenticity; having values and relationships that are more about being true to oneself (even if they clash with mine) than trying to fit in, be "better than" (whatever the hell that means), and/or impress others. And this is the same mindset I bring to my KM work. I'm not trying to win popularity contests, suck up to anybody, or get embroiled in bullshit office politics. Like hairstylist/salon "guru" Tabatha, I'm there to help organizations address the problems that are preventing them from being successful (though with slightly less colorful language than she uses on her show or I use in my blog). With KM that means improving how critical knowledge is identified, shared, and leveraged across an organization.

Obviously, it helps to develop positive, collaborative, constructive relationships in the workplace and if you're able to do your job well AND have fun, more power to you. But, sometimes, I think we tend to treat the workplace like an elementary school playground or, ugh, high school. Guess what? It's not. It's a place of business. You're paid to be there to do a job - it's not therapy (unless it is) or a dating service (unless it is). And from where I stand, often it's that high school/playground mentality that contributes to a sloppy knowledge sharing ethic and a poor KM environment.

(Note: If this is the first time you're reading one of my posts you should know that one of my biggest pet peeves are organizations that equate themselves to being "one big family". Families don't fire Uncle Earl, even if he does act kinda pervy around the ladies or layoff Nana 'cause she's gettin' up there in age. And when there's a crisis or money gets tight families (are supposed to) close ranks and tighten the belt to come through on the other side together, not distribute pink slips and have security escort you out of the building...I'm just sayin').

Anywaaaaay, that's my soapbox rant for the day.

The real goal of this post is to introduce y'all to Lil Jackie! I'm forever exploring ways of simplifying my KM message to my various audiences and Lil Jackie is going to be my muse and assistant in 2010 ("Lil Jack-ehhh, wants to be-e a staaar...).

About six months ago I challenged myself with the task of re-modeling my KM Roadmap to reflect the intersection of people, process and technology. And then my harddrive crashed (which, honestly, sucked more than getting heart failure from a bronchial virus). Luckily, I'm brilliant enough to be able to re-create my work from scratch and old notes/documents. I really think this roadmap is even better than the last one and Lil Jackie and I would like to share it with the masses!


The graphic displays my six major mile posts. Previously, I had these as five phases (Knowledge Audit, KM Strategy Blueprint, Development, Deployment, and Evaluation) but after plotting things out and looking at the relationships between each phase, I realized it was better to flesh out the design work from development activity. It was also important to represent both the cyclical nature of each mile post as well as the fact that education and/or buy-in should be occuring between each transition. Sometimes you'll be doing one or the other and sometimes both. And, to clarify, although learning is inherent (and effort should be made to document lessons learned) during every mile post, the LEARN mile post is concerned with the formal process of synthesizing all of the information and knowledge acquired throughout the project lifecycle in preparation for the next cycle.

To the left of the cyclical graphic, I've presented examples of the roles that people, process, and technology might play as well examples of possible output or yield. These examples are by no means exhaustive and should serve purely as a starting point for anyone looking to build their KM strategy.

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or criticisms (I'm always looking to improve this thing), please post your feedback, otherwise enjoy!