Rethinking Training

Good piece in the HBR,   this needs to be done much better than it is.   With emphasis on retaining key knowledge.

Rethinking Training
Willy C. Shih, Howard Rudnick, Coleen Tapen

“When I graduated, I was 56. I was surprised that there were people who were not worried about my age and who believed I was still a valuable member of the workforce. You start to worry when you get close to retirement whether anybody wants to hire you…I was made to feel valued there regardless of what my age was or where I came from. It gave me back my self-confidence after losing my job.” —Darlene Mickelson

"... The conventional wisdom on retraining older workers is they are too old or set in their ways to learn new things and update their skills. We don’t agree. We think this is a narrow view that overlooks the significant value these people can bring to the economy. As a recent report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers suggests, investment in skill development in the United States is largely “front-loaded” during the first 25 years of life, after which public contributions to formal education are substantially smaller. Yet we live in a time when both demographics and the very nature of work are undergoing a dramatic shift. Rapid technological change, automation, globalization, and offshoring all serve to shrink industries and spawn new ones at what feels like an ever-quickening pace. The booming job market and the evolving nature of work are altering the skills American employers need in their employees, and we believe that reskilling should play a vital role in meeting these needs. We should not ignore the tremendous value that older workers can bring. And with life-spans increasing across the globe, many people need or want to continue to work to help fund their eventual retirement or just to stay active.      ... " 

No Retirement

Agreed, good thing.  Establish working relationships, make changes to what you really want to do and do best.  Be ready to adapt quickly. Short piece:

There Is No Retirement--And That's A Good Thing
If you are someone who works with your brain, you can never really retire and you shouldn't.   By Jim Schleckser in Inc.  .... " 

Virtual Assistants for Retiree Communities

Had thought these devices could be good for retired communities.  Here is an example from Technology Review. 

" .... A community of San Diego retirees is using the personal-assistant gadget to listen to audiobooks, keep current with family news, and control home appliances. ...   by Elizabeth Woyke   

Ultimately these systems will need to be more intelligent and more able to interact in complete conversations to provide the most value.    Also, the selective use of autonomous notification will make them more useful in these situations.

Retirement a Flawed Concept

Interesting thoughts in the HBR: Retirement is a Flawed Concept.  Will comment when I finally try it.

Digital Colleagues for Smarter Aging

Presentation today from Cognitive Systems Institute on the idea of a 'Digital Colleague', by Polly Tremoulet, of Drexel University - Starting with a use case of  "Digital Colleagues for Smart Aging". This uses simplified sensors to aid a aging population to remain effective.  Of course these same methods could augment and thus make any age  population more effective.  Not dissimilar to some of our own work in the idea of automatically getting the right data to people as needed.  Good background history and overview of work underway.

Stop Controlling Ex Employees Knowledge?

In the HBR:   This issue has come up a number of times recently.  Here a  good overview of the topic.  Not everyone agrees.   The coverage of the legal, compliance and regulatory knowledge by US state is particularly interesting.

Using Mind Maps to Support Exit Interviews

We suggested this, but it was never widely utilized.  In Biggerplate.  A good case study of the idea. The question that always came up: Does the additional complexity add knowledge to the result?  Or is it just the equivalent of a outline/checklist?   We suggested that the result could be interlinked among current knowledge, knowledge potentially lost, and knowledge that needed to be replaced. But that would require an accurate ontology of the knowledge to begin with.

Concept Maps Delivered on an iPad

Brian Moon of Perigean Technologies helped us elicit knowledge from experts in the enterprise and convert it to the form of concept maps.   He continues to work with my former colleagues to extract knowledge and transform using CMap Tools.   There is an increasing expectation that such knowledge be delivered on mobile tablet tools like the iPad.  In a conversation he informed me that this has been done is and described in the paper: Knowledge Model Viewers for the iPad and the Web

Abstract. Knowledge Models are used extensively by the concept mapping community for a variety of purposes, including  education, organizing content, and depicting expert knowledge. The CmapTools software suite automatically generates Web-based (HTML) versions of Knowledge Models when they are stored in a CmapServer. As a result, Web browsers are often the  tools used to browse Knowledge Models. However, the HTML generated by CmapTools does not take advantage of new  technologies, such as large high-resolution screens and tablets like the iPad. In this paper we present new Knowledge Model  Viewer programs for the iPad and the Web that provide an improved navigation experience. .... 

I have not tried this yet, but plan to.   Also consider using Brian's services:

Perigean Technologies specializes in Knowledge :

Capture, Retention & Transfer –

Analysis & Assessment –

Elicitation, Modeling & Engineering –

Management & Organization.

We service customers who face the potential loss of knowledge, professionals who want to accelerate the growth of knowledge and expertise, and clients who want to learn to make more profitable and effective use of what they and their customers know ...  " 

Read Me: I am a Curator too

I have been playing with Flipboard for some time.  On the iPhone and Pad. A very nice, image-oriented way to organize and deliver information.  A more sophisticated RSS feed.  I just saw a good discussion and video about the intent of the Flipboard service, which made a big deal about how everyone can be a curator there.  Their newest version allows you to create slick magazine-like creations.  This struck me as what I have been doing here for ten years publicly, and three years privately before that.  I am primarily a curator of a number of topics that support by skills.  Essentially what is now called business analytics.  Most of what I do is curate essential information that relates to the work I do. I save the bulk of my applied creativity for actual paying projects.  This blog also forms a repository for my knowledge and the knowledge of my collaborators.  I often use it as a memory of my past work.  Read it and you will get an idea of what interests me.  You can read me on Flipboard by copying the URL of this site there.

Want to use my skills?  Work with me?  Have an idea you want promoted here? Or collaborate with me by writing an interesting post?  Contact me at the URL embedded in the left hand column.

Thanks,

Franz

Keeping Retired Knowledge in the Game

I met with the management team at YourEncore today and was further impressed by their approaches, projects and future directions, so I thought I would repeat a message that I posted earlier:

Keeping knowledge in the company is an increasingly difficult task. It is a key part of the whole process called knowledge management. Where is the knowledge I need, what do I know and what do I not know? Often it is selectively kept in the minds of people like retirees who have helped develop it over long periods at a company.


I met today with Peter Kleinhenz at YourEncore, a company devoted to dealing with this problem. I was impressed by what I saw. They have four companies that acted as founding members: P&G, Lilly, Boeing and General Mills.


Need some expertise from some of these and other top companies to help with wicked problems? Give them a call. There is also a recent BW article on them that provides additional information.

Talent Analytics

This piece relates to several posts I have done recently on retiree knowledge retention and linking specific corporate needs to expertise based on assignment approach analytics.

"Competing on Talent Analytics
by Thomas H. Davenport, Jeanne Harris, and Jeremy Shapiro
What the best companies know about their people—and how they use that information to outperform rivals.by Jeffrey Stibel

Leading-edge companies are increasingly adopting sophisticated methods of analyzing employee data to enhance their competitive advantage. Google, Best Buy, Sysco, and others are beginning to understand exactly how to ensure the highest productivity, engagement, and retention of top talent, and then replicating their successes. If you want better performance from your top employees—who are perhaps your greatest asset and your largest expense—you’ll do well to favor analytics over your gut instincts.... "

Keeping Retiree Knowledge in the Game

Keeping knowledge in the company is an increasingly difficult task. It is a key part of the whole process called knowledge management. Where is the knowledge I need, what do I know and what do I not know? Often it is selectively kept in the minds of people like retirees who have helped develop it over long periods at a company.

I met today with Peter Kleinhenz at YourEncore, a company devoted to dealing with this problem. I was impressed by what I saw. They have four companies that acted as founding members: P&G, Lilly, Boeing and General Mills.

Need some expertise from some of these and other top companies to help with wicked problems? Give them a call. There is also a recent BW article on them that provides additional information.