August 2003 Archives

Reviewing KM and the social network by Patti Anklam, I was wondering about the statement made that it creates new credibility for KM by providing executives with concrete data to illustrate the dynamics of informal networks. "SNA cracked the code of talking KM with the executive team. ", it says...

I am under the impression that there are major obstacle to the use of Social Network Analysis in corporate settings. It goes beyond the traditional legal issues regarding profiling of individuals, which incidentally are much more stringent in Europe than in the US.

The #1 problem with SNA surveys is that you actually ask people to give names. The #2 problem is that there can be tens of thousands of names to process. Employees will necessarily feel uneasy, to say the least, about answering questions about who is knowledgeable about this, and who is meeting with whom. –Why would the management want to analyze the social fabric of the company anyway ? Whose business is that ? Is that another trick for downsizing ? etc. I challenge the willingness of employees to participate in systems which coud be used to minimize the impact of their own eventual layoff!

I can only think of a few set of rules that would allow SNA to be performed in companies:

• Linking people together on the map should be an automated process, like analyzing the origin and destination of e-mails (a.k.a. Tacit Systems) or phone conversations.


• The interviewee owns his social network profile and it should not be used without his consent


• Only the names that the interviewee has actually declared could be seen on the map. Others would be hidden.


• Only aggregate results would be communicated to the management (no names)

In Napsterize Your Knowledge: Give To Receive the primary lesson is "The more that a company shares its knowledge, the more valuable it becomes". It seems so obvious now than more and more top management speeches emphasize the value of sharing "best practices" across the organization. Yet, very few companies actually give more than lip service to this. Why is that?

Because knowledge sharing is not a new management fad, a trick that makes your company a little more effective. It's a new way of doing business. When we managers encourage the free flow of knowledge inside the organization, we loose control, and this can generate a lot of stress in our minds, because we have made our career precisely on our ability to control. The only way out of this dilemma is up: less bureaucracy, and more vision. We need more Chief Cultural Officers, and less Chief Operating Officers.

The problem is that corporate managers are by essence bureaucrats: They are appointed from the top; they report to the top; the opinions of their subordinates do not really matter. It is thus quite normal for them to prefer outsourcing knowledge (by hiring consultants and by acquiring companies) to cultivating knowledge (by developing education programs and by building communities)

I tend to compare the present shift in management mindsets to the shift that Gorbatchov wanted to introduce in the Nomenklatura of the Communist Party of the USSR: democracy and empowerment, perestroïka and glasnost...

I like this diagram of Prof Goshal. it illustrates what "new management" is gradually becoming:

Well, I like it anyway. It was taken by my friend Niels.

Quand rentre-t-on sur un forum en ligne dans le milieu professionnel? Quand on a une question sans réponse, quand on ne trouve pas son bonheur dans les FAQs… bref, quand on cherche de l’aide de quelqu’un qu'on ne connait pas encore. C'est une économie de demande, qu'on voit à l'oeuvre principalement dans le service client, mais qui ne marche pas très bien ailleurs. Combien de "forums" a-t-on ainsi lancé en interne dans les intranets des grandes entreprises et qui se sont révélés des fiascos.

Il est vrai que les adolescents, eux, utilisent aussi les forums (ou plutôt les "chatrooms") pour converser. Il préfère ce mode de communication pour repecter leur pudeur naturelle, car il est bien des sujets qu'on n’ose pas aborder en face à face à cet âge. C'est uniquement là par exemple que mon fils de 14 ans "parle" avec ses copains de la mort de sa petite soeur, qui l'a beaucoup affecté. On peut imaginer des comportements du même type en entreprise. Il y en a parfois besoin (le mail y sert bien parfois d'exutoire à certaines frustrations). Mais ça me paraît un peu marginal.

Pour lancer de nouvelles idées comme autant de bouteilles à la mer, le professionnel utilisera plutôt le weblog, version moderne du journal intime, qui permet à la fois de réfléchir sur son expérience, d'imaginer l'avenir. Le weblog public (comme le mien) est une invitation au dialogue lancée au monde entier, mais de façon discrète et respectueuse des personnes. C'est une économie d'offre.

Quand les deux se rejoignent, c'est-à-dire quand les weblogs coalescent en un archipel de liens et quand les forums de questions-réponses deviennent actifs et efficaces, on assiste à la naissance d'une économie communautaire. C'est celà au fond une "communauté de pratique".

I currently hold the position of Director of Knowledge Management at Schneider Electric, a 10 billion Euro company and a global leader in Electrical Distribution and Industrial Controls. A strong believer of knowledge-conscious management, I was one of the first, with my colleague and friend Gilbert Brault, to introduce communities of practice as a an organization to gain new customer insights, support sales people and transfer good business practices across country organizations.

I have come to the conclusion that effective learning and intelligence networks have now become the most important, if not the only, source of competitive advantage in business. I also realized that building learning and intelligence networks allowing corporations to become adaptive and innovative is a job that requires a lot of social and technological expertise. That's why my intent is to devote my career to building those social networks on behalf of a top management. My mid-term objective is to hold the position of (Chief) Learning Officer, in charge of a major corporate university program.

Herewith my resume in English and my résumé in French