February 9th: Practicing Communities of Practice with Ernst & Young

Please join us for our February meeting at 5:30pm when Darrin Brogan and Brad Kenney will discuss "Practicing Communities of Practice with Ernst & Young." Meeting location details can be found on the sidebar to the right.

It's one of the more interesting, and often exasperating, aspects of managing enterprise communities of practice that each -- by necessity -- has its own character and culture, sponsors and managers. Building and maintaining long-term, healthy communities of practice take practice.

Ernst & Young recently sponsored an APQC report entitled Sustaining Effective Communities of Practice . In this study, we partnered with leading KM research organization APQC to study companies that have successfully leveraged Communities of Practice (CoPs) to identify, share and create valuable knowledge. In the research, APQC identified 18 best practices that enable organizations to sustain thriving, impactful CoPs. These best practices are organized around 5 themes:

1. Create a sustainable community strategy
2. Practices and approaches for sustaining communities
3. Tools and resources for community managers
4. Promote awareness and communicate value
5. Measures

The best practices identified in the report address the organizational challenges that often prevent the launch of successful CoPs and offer a guide for how they can be woven deeply within the fabric of an organization. Talking about the report will be Darrin Brogan, an associate director within the EY Center for Business Knowledge, and Brad Kenney, a senior consultant within the EY Advisory practice.

Helping KMers in Transition, a Roundtable Discussion

Welcoming the new year, on January 12th KM Chicago will host a roundtable discussion focusing on helping KM practitioners in transition. Please plan to join us for this free-form discussion where we have the opportunity to learn more about what our KM colleagues do, share hiring experiences, discuss transferable/required skills, and tips and tricks for locating KM-focused positions.

Not Your Typical Information Overload Presentation

Please join us for our November meeting as Craig Roth will share with us, "Not Your Typical Information Overload Presentation."

It is not difficult to find confirmation that there is “too much information”. Declaring “e-mail bankruptcy” is the new fad. Meanwhile others pooh-pooh the “information overload” crowd as a bunch of hand-wringing complainers who haven’t adjusted to new technology yet. There’s no “right” answer in the debate between those that believe information overload will soon cause the heads of information workers will begin to pop like popcorn as they slump over in their fuzzy cubicles and those that believe we’re just adapting to the new flow. Instead, this presentation will find a way around “information overload” to a more actionable approach: enterprise attention management (EAM). EAM focuses on how enterprises can help information workers to pull the important messages forward and push the less important messages back. Whether you see information overload as a crisis or just one more thing people are adapting to, improving efficiency is something everyone should be able to get behind.

Craig Roth is the Collaboration and Content Strategies Service Director for the Burton Group (www.burtongroup.com).

Please note: The downtown Chicago meeting location has changed. We will be meeting in the YMCA offices at 101 North Wacker, 13th floor.

Oct 13 meeting -- Collaboration at P&G

How Collaboration Drives Innovation at P&G
Joe Schueller is part of Procter & Gamble's Global Business Services Innovation organization. Joe graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Computer Science Engineering in 1995. Over the last 14 years at P&G, Joe has been at the forefront of electronic collaboration at one of the world's largest consumer goods companies. With a variety of IT and business experiences, Joe has emerged in the last 3 years as a leading expert in the application of social and collaborative computing in the enterprise environment.
Joe will be presenting virtually.

Reminder: Sept 11 Midwest Knowledge Management Community Symposium

Hello Everyone,
The time is drawing near for our 2nd annual Midwest KM Community Symposium on Friday, September 11th. The Symposium will replace the regularly scheduled KM Chicago meeting for the month of September. There will be no remote attend option for this meeting.

Time: 8:00AM - 5:00PM

Location: GSA Conference Center Ralph H. Metcalfe Federal Building 77 W. Jackson, (3rd floor) Chicago, IL 60604

We look forward to seeing you all there. Please view details and eVite here and respond to confirm your attendance.

Also, there will be a dinner that evening please let us know if you would like to attend the dinner when you respond to the eVite.

On behalf of Midwest KM and KM Chicago communities, we look forward to seeing you there.

Sincerely,
Karla Phlypo-Price
Midwest KM Community