The October 11th meeting of KM Chicago will be at CNA Insurance in the Loop, rather than at Factiva. Directions and webinar information available shortly.
Abstract: The concept of CNA’s Performance Support Tool (PST) originated with business requirements to satisfy an ever-challenging business issue – “to deliver expert information to users at the right time and in the right place”. The concept of performance support is important as it indicates CNA's commitment to using Knowledge Management (KM) best practices to achieve measurable results. The relationship between knowledge management and performance support is straightforward: KM tools, techniques, strategies, and processes serve as the enablers of performance support. In this view, performance support answers the question of why CNA is engaging in KM-related initiatives. Similarly, KM initiatives provide the answer of how CNA will be executing and supporting performance support initiatives.
CNA’s Knowledge and Learning Group centrally manages the collection, clustering, sharing and presentation of knowledge, manuals, guidelines, procedures, and management of content. The PST aids this business process by providing an electronic easy-to-navigate user interface that provides anytime, anywhere access to knowledge.
The tool is built on collaboration software that has been customized to allow pre-selected business subject matter experts to manage their own content without knowing any specific programming language. The tool integrates common communication software (i.e. email, corporate portal, instant messenger) and a “Google-like” search to allow for both push and pull of expert information. Content is loaded into a business process-based taxonomy that is pre-developed by a core group of subject matter experts. The PST requires that the content owner add meta-tags to all information. Some examples of required meta-tags are: effective dates (go-live date), expiration date (date that the content will be deleted unless refreshed by the content owner), key words (acronyms or common misspellings), and a content owner (an active CNA employee).
Users are able to search within their own function or across multiple functions for key information needs. Additionally a user can provide direct feedback to the content owner’s through the tool. This feature has created a heightened awareness of the content’s accuracy, clarity and quality.
In sum, CNA’s Performance Support Tool enhances CNA's business operations through the careful growth and development of critical information, knowledge tools and resources.
Bios
Jay Kostrzewa, PMP, is the Assistant Vice President in the Knowledge and Learning Group for CNA Financial. Mr. Kostrzewa is responsible for CNA's Knowledge Management program, IT Learning and Development curriculum, and Learning Systems and Metrics. He has been responsible for CNA's Knowledge Management for the past 4 years. Prior to CNA, Jay led Whirlpool Europe's (Milan, Italy) Knowledge Management practices within their Finance department.
He holds a MBA in International Marketing and Finance from DePaul University.
Brooke Lord is the Operations Consultant for CNA's collaboration tools. Brooke joined CNA in 1994 and has held a myriad of roles. She started on the business side of the house in Risk Control and eventually made her way to CNA's Knowledge & Learning Group in 2002 focusing on Performance Management. In 2004, she moved to KM within KLG. Her prior experience includes Risk Control work for three other insurance carriers over a span of 21 years.
On a personal note, Brooke is walking a bit gingerly of late as she ran her second Chicago Marathon on Sunday, October 2.
Bob Guardi is a Project Manager in the Knowledge & Learning Group (KLG). He has managed or advised on various KM type projects at CNA for the past 4 years including Executive Dashboards, Expert Locator, Online Reference Centers, Taxonomy Development, Application User Interface (Usability), and Portals. Bob is the hands-on administrator for many of the KLG applications and adviser for most KLG technology initiatives. His prior experience includes 4 years in CNA IT leading a development team as well as programming client/server applications. Before coming to CNA he was a programmer and network administrator for a Market Research company based in Chicago.
Brian Richardson, PMP, is the president of Richardson Consulting Group (RCG), a management consulting firm with expertise in knowledge management, talent management, process improvement, and technology deployment. Mr. Richardson specializes in the financial services industries and his recent engagements include work at CNA, Wells Fargo, HomeBanc Mortgage and First American Tax Services. Prior to RCG, Mr. Richardson was a project manager at Allstate and a Senior Manager in the Financial Services practice at Accenture.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
KM Chicago -- September 13th Meeting -- KM at Baker & McKenzie
Jason Marty will provide an overview of KM in the legal industry (terms & trends), a review of the KM initiative at Baker & McKenzie, and a forward look at KM opportunities in the coming years. The discussion will combine some analysis of technical trends with a focus on the cultural and organizational aspects of implementing a knowledge management program.
BIO:
Jason Marty is the Global Director of Knowledge Management for Baker & McKenzie Global Services, LLC. Mr. Marty is responsible for implementing the Firm's knowledge management program and managing the efforts of a global team of lawyers and professional staff. He holds a Masters degree in Rhetoric from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA and a Bachelors degree from Drake University in Des Moines, IA.
MEETING DETAILS:
Jason Marty is planning to present from the Factiva offices, and we will also have the usual webinar / teleconference to the Allstate location. See the location details in the sidebar at http://kmchicago.blogspot.com/. As usual, we are scheduled from 5-7 pm.
BIO:
Jason Marty is the Global Director of Knowledge Management for Baker & McKenzie Global Services, LLC. Mr. Marty is responsible for implementing the Firm's knowledge management program and managing the efforts of a global team of lawyers and professional staff. He holds a Masters degree in Rhetoric from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA and a Bachelors degree from Drake University in Des Moines, IA.
MEETING DETAILS:
Jason Marty is planning to present from the Factiva offices, and we will also have the usual webinar / teleconference to the Allstate location. See the location details in the sidebar at http://kmchicago.blogspot.com/. As usual, we are scheduled from 5-7 pm.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
48 Years of Paper – Changing the Culture of the Allstate Financial Contact Center
presentation by Theresa Calabrese, Jenny Matya, Barbara Miller & Nancy Wise of Allstate Financial
9 August 2005 (Tuesday)
5 - 7 pm at Allstate with webcast to Factiva (see sidebar for directions)
Strategic Challenge
Allstate Financial has several contact centers located in three different states, each of which operations semi-autonomously. As we have integrated these call centers to handle calls from other locations, we discovered a need for sharing of information by customer service representatives. Much of the information used to answer customer and agent calls was inconsistent among representatives and across service centers and largely paper based. Life insurance and annuities are, by and large, heavily regulated by state. Approval of all content by our Legal, Tax and Compliance departments created a challenge many organizations undertaking content management do not have to face. Training already takes far too long and taking representatives off the phone for training they may not use immediately is not effective.
Solution
We needed to create a content management solution that would transform existing paper and scattered on-line documents into dynamic, interactive knowledge delivered at the moment of need.
We developed a new paradigm, where the employee/learner is viewed as a knowledge seeker, with constantly changing learning needs and timeframes.
Presenter Bios
Theresa Calabrese is a graduate of National-Louis University and has over 24 years of experience with Allstate Insurance in Human Resources, Training Design and Delivery and front line management. In addition to co-leading the Knowledge Management initiative, she is working on a project to enhance Leadership development and accountability
Jenny Matya is a graduate of Indiana University. She interned two years with Allstate Financial training and accepted a permanent position upon graduation. In 2004, Jenny joined the Knowledge Management team and has worked extensively with our technology partners to create system specifications and the automated workflow in Interwoven.
Barbara Miller brought 21 years of personal trust administration experience to Allstate during the inception of the Allstate Bank. Barb has a MLIS from Dominican University and earned her 6 Sigma Black Belt certification in 2004. Her library science and 6 Sigma skills are a great asset to the Knowledge Management initiative. She has worked extensively in developing and analyzing measurements for the project.
Nancy Wise brought over twenty years of management experience when she joined Allstate Financial in 1998. Since joining Allstate, she has managed the training department that supports the Allstate Financial Operations service centers and most recently is managing the Knowledge Management team.
9 August 2005 (Tuesday)
5 - 7 pm at Allstate with webcast to Factiva (see sidebar for directions)
Strategic Challenge
Allstate Financial has several contact centers located in three different states, each of which operations semi-autonomously. As we have integrated these call centers to handle calls from other locations, we discovered a need for sharing of information by customer service representatives. Much of the information used to answer customer and agent calls was inconsistent among representatives and across service centers and largely paper based. Life insurance and annuities are, by and large, heavily regulated by state. Approval of all content by our Legal, Tax and Compliance departments created a challenge many organizations undertaking content management do not have to face. Training already takes far too long and taking representatives off the phone for training they may not use immediately is not effective.
Solution
We needed to create a content management solution that would transform existing paper and scattered on-line documents into dynamic, interactive knowledge delivered at the moment of need.
We developed a new paradigm, where the employee/learner is viewed as a knowledge seeker, with constantly changing learning needs and timeframes.
Presenter Bios
Theresa Calabrese is a graduate of National-Louis University and has over 24 years of experience with Allstate Insurance in Human Resources, Training Design and Delivery and front line management. In addition to co-leading the Knowledge Management initiative, she is working on a project to enhance Leadership development and accountability
Jenny Matya is a graduate of Indiana University. She interned two years with Allstate Financial training and accepted a permanent position upon graduation. In 2004, Jenny joined the Knowledge Management team and has worked extensively with our technology partners to create system specifications and the automated workflow in Interwoven.
Barbara Miller brought 21 years of personal trust administration experience to Allstate during the inception of the Allstate Bank. Barb has a MLIS from Dominican University and earned her 6 Sigma Black Belt certification in 2004. Her library science and 6 Sigma skills are a great asset to the Knowledge Management initiative. She has worked extensively in developing and analyzing measurements for the project.
Nancy Wise brought over twenty years of management experience when she joined Allstate Financial in 1998. Since joining Allstate, she has managed the training department that supports the Allstate Financial Operations service centers and most recently is managing the Knowledge Management team.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Plug-n-Play Knowledge Management
Kevin Desouza of The Engaged Enterprise will present on "Plug-n-Play Knowledge Management" at the July meeting of KM Chicago. He will be located at our Loop location (Factiva) with live webcast to our Allstate location (see sidebar for details).
Date:July 12, 2005
Time:5:00 - 7:00 pm
Summary: Knowledge management agendas are most often characterized as static, one-time, and inflexible. Organizations may gather knowledge, code it, store it, and apply it. Yet, when faced with a similar problem in the future, most organizations will be forced to reinvent knowledge and move through the creating and application cycles again - a costly and ineffective proposition. One reason, for this is the lack of foresight and upfront care in devising a flexible knowledge management system. What does it mean to build a knowledge program that is flexible and agile? Mr. Desouza will highlight how one can build a knowledge program that resembles the "plug-n-play" approach. The concept of "plug-n-play" is familiar to us from the computer hardware domain. Without plug-n-play capabilities integration of seemingly unrelated and distinct hardware components will become cumbersome and unfriendly. In the presentation, Mr. Desouza will discuss what features and components are required in order to build a knowledge program that emulates the plug-n-play nature.
Biographical detail: Kevin C. Desouza is the President of The Engaged Enterprise, a strategy consulting firm with expertise in the areas of knowledge management, crisis management, strategic deployment of information systems, and government and competitive intelligence assignments. He also serves as the Director of the Institute for Engaged Business Research, a think-tank of the Engaged Enterprise. He has authored Managing Knowledge with Artificial Intelligence (Quorum Books, 2002), and co-authored Managing Information in Complex Organizations (M.E. Sharpe, 2005). He recently edited New Frontiers of Knowledge Management and co-authored Engaged Knowledge Management both books are scheduled for release by Palgrave Macmillan in early 2005. In addition, he has published over 80 articles in prestigious academic and practitioner journals such as Information and Management, Communications of the ACM, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Technology Forecasting and Social Change, Government Information Quarterly, Journal of Business Strategies, International Journal of Technology Policy and Management, Business Strategy Review, Emergence, IT Professional, Journal of Knowledge Management, Knowledge Management Review, Knowledge and Process Management, International Journal of Information Management, European Management Journal, HR Magazine, among others. He is currently serving as an associate editor of the Journal of Information Science and Technology and is on the editorial board of several journals. Mr. Desouza has been an invited speaker on a number of cutting-edge business and technology topics for industry and academic audiences.
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Learn about Intellext's Watson at June Meeting
The June 14th meeting will feature a presentation by Jay Budzik, PhD, founder and CTO of Intellext, Inc., based in Evanston. The presentation will include a demo of Watson.
Dr. Jay Budzik, co-inventor of Intellext's core product, Watson, leads the research and development efforts of the company. Prior to founding Intellext, he was an active researcher in computer science for the last seven years at Northwestern University's Intelligent Information Laboratory, where he led a wide array of research projects aimed at facilitating access to information. Dr. Budzik's other projects included an intelligent question and answering system for delegates at the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago in 1996, and the Flytrap system, which automatically synthesizes new music experiences for a group based on observed preferences. He is widely published on topics ranging from groupware to intelligent agents. One Budzik paper, "User Interactions with Everyday Applications as Context for Just-in-time Information Access", is cited frequently by top international researchers and industry leaders. Budzik has delivered demonstrations and lectures to audiences ranging from international research groups to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, including invited talks at Ford Motor Company, the MIT Media Lab, the International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, and the American Society for Information Science. Articles on Budzik's research have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Chicago Sun-Times, WGN-TV and L'Ordinateur Individuel.
Budzik earned a B.S. with both general honors and honors in computer science from The College of The University of Chicago, and holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University.
Dr. Jay Budzik, co-inventor of Intellext's core product, Watson, leads the research and development efforts of the company. Prior to founding Intellext, he was an active researcher in computer science for the last seven years at Northwestern University's Intelligent Information Laboratory, where he led a wide array of research projects aimed at facilitating access to information. Dr. Budzik's other projects included an intelligent question and answering system for delegates at the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago in 1996, and the Flytrap system, which automatically synthesizes new music experiences for a group based on observed preferences. He is widely published on topics ranging from groupware to intelligent agents. One Budzik paper, "User Interactions with Everyday Applications as Context for Just-in-time Information Access", is cited frequently by top international researchers and industry leaders. Budzik has delivered demonstrations and lectures to audiences ranging from international research groups to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, including invited talks at Ford Motor Company, the MIT Media Lab, the International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, and the American Society for Information Science. Articles on Budzik's research have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Chicago Sun-Times, WGN-TV and L'Ordinateur Individuel.
Budzik earned a B.S. with both general honors and honors in computer science from The College of The University of Chicago, and holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Northwestern University.
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