Cannon-Lear Enterprises L.L.C.
Knowledge Consulting and Mediation Company
I had a great time talking Knowledge Management with Aurélien Vasinis, CEO of Brainsfeed. To hear some perspective on pay walls, the academic side of Knowledge Management, and Knowledge Management within the U. S. Department of Defense grab yourself a cup of coffee and click the link below. I will embed the video on this post soon.
Over this Covid-19 pandemic, I have been looking forward to being able to make those business to business networking connections again and gain more clients. One of the most important thing I have learned from this experience is how Knowledge Management can be done with your family.
The four pillars of Knowledge Management are People, Process, Organizational Culture and Tools. Applying these to your everyday day life can help with a multitude of things from the kids school and activities schedules, bills, doctors appointments, work schedules (yes even when WFH).
The people part of this equation is easy (your family) and each person has a role they play in the family unit. This includes doing the dishes to feeding the animals. Establishing what each person does helps manages what needs to be completed.
Process like it or not is just as important in the business arena as in the home. Processes on how bills are paid, what the approval process is for the kids to be able to get time on their Xbox or electronic devices. Establishing a clear process for your family on how things gets accomplished can help get things done more effectively.
Organizational culture, the family unit is a culture on its own. You have the parental unit(s) as well as the kid(s) and there is a definite cultural dynamic that comes into play on how situations are dealt with on a daily basis.
Tools so how do you keep your family organized, connected and be able to still be able to live. In my home, we utilize Microsoft Office products to include SharePoint and Outlook to keep our documents, bills and other important information where we can collaborate on any decisions that need to be made or have access to our information while we are out in the community. Another tool we use a lot of is whiteboards. I have a Kanban board to monitor my business and we have boards all thought out the house for kids chores, tracking medication, important events and bills. We also take handwritten notes exclusively on Rocketbook notebooks. In terms of our digital meetings we rely on Fireflies to capture audio notes which it does have the capability to transcribe the notes in order to search for information after the fact.
Looking back from the beginning of this pandemic until now, my family and I have gotten closer as well as become better stewards of our Knowledge that each of us has. We are also communicating better as a family.
If you our your company would like to know how Knowledge Management can help improve your business and your bottom dollar. Please feel free to contact me via email at cannonco@cannonco.net or by phone at 620-719-6004.
Since March, I have been asked how can Knowledge Management help me (or my company) to control this or any pandemic. The answer I give them is to treat this pandemic like any other operation your company was in prior to the pandemic but your environment now has some more barriers to overcome before your clients can get to purchase your goods or services.
Part of this is to be aware of the environment we are all facing. Be aware of the trends and where the outbreaks are occurring. A good source of information is the John’s Hopkins University COVID-19 Tracker
Another source of information is the Center for Disease Control where they give advice on how to protect yourself and others from this disease. Also your state and local governments have policies in place to help prevent the spread.
So what are other ways Knowledge Management can help contribute to the larger fight against this particular problem. The work from home or remote work policies for companies need to be reviewed and updated to make sure both quality of service as well as the internal information the employees share can be accessed wherever they are located. Even after this pandemic has run its course, companies should practice how to operate outside of the office spaces. This is something the corporate world can learn from the military.
Having operated in Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, Malaysia, Japan and other areas in the world I can honestly say that the most meaningful take aways were those times we operated outside of the normal headquarters and worked in either a combined environment with the host nation or joint environment with the other services. We all learned from each other and this was also done in remote areas away from the cubicles.
Back at the first of the year, I had a meeting with Benjamin Anyacho, a Knowledge Manager from the Texas Department of Transportation, at a local restaurant in Austin. I mentioned to him that we need to pool our collective resources and start having a conversation with other Knowledge Managers within the Austin and Central Texas area.
With the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition of many of us to work from home, we have been delaying the start of this KM Community. After talking with each other for the past few weeks we decided that it is actually a good time to start up and have conversations and possibly share ways we as a community can get to a place of the new normal.
On June 25th at 11:30 AM until 12:30 PM Central Time (in the US and Canada) will start the Knowledge Management Community of Austin (KMCA) Knowledge Cafe. We want to brainstorm with other Knowledge Managers within the Austin and Central Texas community towards a possible knowledge exchange. Knowledge management practice is increasingly becoming a sine qua non for business success. Several smart cities and regions are organizing themselves around KM practice and community.
Please register in advance for this meeting:
Zoom registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUudOCqqjIoGdEdvRJGVonwU84W5DzAQVu1 After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Information on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/knowledge-management-community-of-austin-area-tickets-106014347768?ref=esli&utm_campaign=201308&utm_source=LinkedInenivtefor001
Benjamin also created a LinkedIn group for this new community of professionals and is located at the following web site: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12436066.
Figure 1 depicts on what the audience should be within the meeting being held. If the information is similar or related, then you can have one meeting starting with inviting all the members of the coalition first and as the information gets more and more restrictive take a short break and excuse those members that are not privileged to the information. This will do two things. First, this construct fosters communication and information sharing with the members of the coalition, thus making all the members of the coalition feel that they have a say n the decision-making cycle. Second, it allows both the Commander and their staff more white space within their calendar to do the jobs they were slotted to perform
Table 1 shows an example agenda of how the meeting can be executed. As one can see going through the topics in this manner can save the entire staff time as well as give the decision-maker the information from multiple viewpoints that can affect the mission, the decision and ultimately lives that are out in the front lines implementing these directives.
When one develops the architecture for how the meetings will run for a multi-hatted Commander one has to be cognizant of the needs of the coalition, needs of the staff and most of all the needs of the Commander. 
