Far Wise in Knowledge Management

Partial learning

I had a good laugh yesterday with my friend S., when he told about his dog (a Rhodesian Ridgeback,
one of my favourite dogs!). This dog is a young one and he has an older dog as well. His family has taught the older dog that if he needs to go outside for a pee, the dog rings a bell and they let him in the garden. The younger dog picked up the bell ringing idea quickly, but... only for going outside. So the dog rings the bell, my friend lets him out. The dog stretches a bit, walks around the garden, sniffs here and there, but no pee. Then he wants to get in. And later he rings the bell again and my friend lets him out because the dog didn't do anything the first time. But no, again the dog just needs to get a bit of fresh air!

So the dog has learned one part (ringing the bell to go outside), but doesn't make the connection with the real intention of his owner (going outside only when he needs to go for a pee). I can imagine this could happen in the human world as well. If a person learns the skill but doesn't really know or understand the reason behind it, when he or she then teaches the skill to a novice the emphasis will be on the surface part and not the full intention. Teaching means not only getting into the how, but the why as well.

Of course this won't work for the dog, explaining the why of an action. I'm not a dog training expert, so I leave any recommendation to others. Meanwhile, the dog is giving my friend some exercise!

Report "Design-centered innovation" (Conference Board of Canada)

The Conference Board of Canada, a think-tank, recently published a report titled "Design-centered innovation" (link to pdf). The title suggests that it discusses Design thinking, just named differently, and since I like the work of the Conference board, I downloaded and read the report.

Design-centered innovation is defined in this report as: 

Design-centered innovation uses contextual observation and the involvement of customers to enhance product value and create a unique and satisfying experience. 

I think the description confirms my earlier suggestion that there is similarity with design thinking (I have to say that I don't really like the term "design thinking", I think it's confusing, so maybe "design-centered innovation" is a better term - something to think over). Oh well, later on 'design thinking' is used, so there is the answer. What's in a term anyway? I'll stick with 'design-centered innovation' (DCI) for now.

DCI is a response to the 'experience economy' that we're moving into. Customers don't want just a product or service, they value the experience it brings (more). DCI facilitates this, being "... a process that incorporates a holistic, end-to-end, customer-driven approach". The customer becomes the starting point of the process (which is not new, as Lean thinking puts the customer or the voice of the customer at the centre too). Participating companies confirm that the best ideas come from the people that talk to customers. All levels of the organization are engaged, the DCI approach carrier though the whole product life cycle, from inception to marketing.

Two cases are described, one in health care sector and the other in the business services sector. Although different cases, there are some similarities. Both changed their ways of working: co-creation, observations, prototype building and failing (often) are key now. Co-creation, working with customers is interesting. Instead of the company 'knowing' what customers want, customers are involved and work with employees.

To be truely successful, DCI must be embraced by the whole company and become part of the culture. "Hearing the voice of the customer is certainly important, but capturing the subtle yet critical insights gleaned from contextual observation and real-time, real-life interaction with customers is often the difference between an OK product or service and a great one. "

A short report but I hope it will be picked up by Canadian industry. I think design thinking (or DCI, or whatever term is used) has a lot of potential, but it will not be easy to integrate, let alone it be the corporate culture. 

 

Back from a (too long) break

I've been switching a few times, external blog - internal blog (at BlackBerry) and now back to my external blog again. I found it hard to put energy in my internal blog posts and keep up this blog at the same time. I also learned that when I left the company all my internal postings are gone. At least this one is still there and I can look back at what my thoughts and interests were in the past. Not much has changed. While I've started with Twitter in the meantime, I felt that Twitter doesn't satisfy my needs to explore a topic.

So yes, I neglected this "history of my thinking" terribly! But I'm going to give it a new try, even knowing that I lost any reader from the last 5 years. Forgive me.

I will still post about knowledge management and related topics. I also realized that although I read a lot of books (for review), I hardly take any learning points from them. It's like: I read, write the review and move on, next book. I want to use this blog to write down a few take-aways from those books. So that when I look back, I'm reminded of these lessons and maybe (but that's almost wishful thinking) learn something.