1. #awards
  2. Knowledge Marketing Campaign

Knowledge Marketing Campaign #selling

Kim Tillano
 

Hello everyone!  I'm new to the group and wanted to glean some input from everyone.  I am the knowledge manager at my company.  Our knowledge base resides in ServiceNow and I am following the Knowledge Centered Service (KCS) Principles.  


I have been trying to build up our knowledge base and get as many contributors as possible.  We are not where I had hoped to be at this point in time, but we are trending in the right direction.  I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on when to roll out a marketing campaign to bring awareness to the knowledge that is available.  Is it ok to advertise when many things they could search for may not exist yet?  I don't want to encourage them to search and then have them find very little useful information.  On the flip side, I don't want to wait to long if we could be reaping the benefits before it is truly robust.


Please vote using the Poll choices and provide any feedback.  Thanks in advance for your input!
aprill@...
 

Hi!

I’m a certified KCS trainer, so can answer your question with confidence. If you are capturing reuse rate, a good time for turning on self-service is when the reuse rate of internal articles is equal to or greater than creation of new articles. This means people will find answers at least 50% of the time. People will come back to self-service if they find a relevant answer even just half the time. Ask your KCS leadership team how that metric is going. It’s good for you to know, anyway, so you can know what success looks like.
If it’s already live, and if KCS is mature enough, there should be team members looking at failed searches and creating new knowledge articles from those, or improving existing ones.

Provide your readers with easy knowledge access to assisted support if they don’t find their answer.

If you’re doing those things, then start marketing your self-service. :)

Feel free to connect with me, directly.

knowledgebird on Twitter

Aprill at knowledgebird dot com
Kim Tillano
 

Thank you, Aprill.  I am capturing usage data, but right now the service desk is not linking/creating knowledge as expected.  So, the creation rate is actually dropping now, but not because most relevant articles have been created.  I get the verbal buy-in, but not the follow through right now.  I am the sole leadership, but just can't seem to get folks on board. 

I am hosting monthly training classes to cover the basic concepts of KCS and teach them how to use the tool to create the articles.  Everyone leaves the class all pumped up, and then they get back to their job and knowledge goes to the wayside.  I also host a monthly meeting to discuss challenges, progress, etc, but not too many folks attend.

I don't want to force the issue or it could backfire.  Instead I want to start some sort of game or contest to get more participation.  However, I am truly alone and don't have anyone else inspiring any support.  I have chosen a couple people to be coaches, but I feel we area stagnating.  Over the past month is the first time that our articles views and creation dropped when they had been steadily increasing.

I have also been working on some system enhancements to make things more user friendly and to enable access to link knowledge to incidents, etc (right now I am the only one who can do it) and am hoping these things will encourage more use.

Kim
Kim Tillano
 

Oh, I should add that self service is live and accessible by all, but it has not been advertised.
Arthur Shelley
 

Hi Lioacki,

 

Welcome to SIKM Leaders. This is wonderful place for gathering a range of insights and perspectives. The people here share their knowledge in response o questions that are relevant to their contexts.

 

I highlight this as it is directly relevant to your quest. Most (but not all) participants here will argue that the “Knowledge” you seek is in the heads of the people in your domain.  What is in your knowledge base (assuming this to be some sort of computer application) are insights and artifacts of that knowledge, rather than the knowledge itself. Such artifacts can be used to communicate some information and insights, but to get the optimal benefit from the whole knowledge you are best advised to engage with the people (as you have done here).

 

Stimulating relationships and conversations between people is the best marketing campaign you can have for any initiative and this often creates new knowledge and uncovers insights that were never  able to put into some tangible system. Build an ecosystem of people in trusted relationships (as Stan had nurtured here) and the knowledge will flow beautifully to create value for many.

 

Regards

Arthur Shelley

Producer: Creative Melbourne

Author: KNOWledge SUCCESSion  Sustained performance and capability growth through knowledge projects

Earlier Books: The Organizational Zoo (2007) & Being a Successful Knowledge Leader (2009)

Principal: www.IntelligentAnswers.com.au 

Founder: Organizational Zoo Ambassadors Network

Mb. +61 413 047 408  Skype: Arthur.Shelley  Twitter: @Metaphorage

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=4229168

Free behavioural profiles: www.organizationalzoo.com

Blog: www.organizationalzoo.com/blog

 

From: sikmleaders@... Sent: Wednesday, 18 July 2018 7:47 AM
To: sikmleaders@...
Subject: [sikmleaders] Knowledge Marketing Campaign

 

 

Hello everyone!  I'm new to the group and wanted to glean some input from everyone.  I am the knowledge manager at my company.  Our knowledge base resides in ServiceNow and I am following the Knowledge Centered Service (KCS) Principles.  

 

I have been trying to build up our knowledge base and get as many contributors as possible.  We are not where I had hoped to be at this point in time, but we are trending in the right direction.  I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are on when to roll out a marketing campaign to bring awareness to the knowledge that is available.  Is it ok to advertise when many things they could search for may not exist yet?  I don't want to encourage them to search and then have them find very little useful information.  On the flip side, I don't want to wait to long if we could be reaping the benefits before it is truly robust.

 

Please vote using the Poll choices and provide any feedback.  Thanks in advance for your input!
Matt Moore <innotecture@...>
 

Hi Kim,

- What kind of organization is it? (KCS and ServiceNow suggests an IT services organization)
- Who are the contributors?
- Who are the users? Are they the same?

Based on what you have said, what you have here sounds like a relevance problem. Is your KM one of your organizational leader’s top 3 priorities? Based on what you have said, it is not. Can you find a way of linking your activities to one of those top priorities? Not trying to take them over, but making it a small but vital part?

It also sounds like you have no allies. If true, that is a significant problem. How do you intend to get some? What do your potential allies care about?

Regards,

Matt Moore
+61 423 784 504

On Jul 18, 2018, at 6:54 PM, loiacki@... [sikmleaders] <sikmleaders@...> wrote:

 

Thank you, Aprill.  I am capturing usage data, but right now the service desk is not linking/creating knowledge as expected.  So, the creation rate is actually dropping now, but not because most relevant articles have been created.  I get the verbal buy-in, but not the follow through right now.  I am the sole leadership, but just can't seem to get folks on board. 

I am hosting monthly training classes to cover the basic concepts of KCS and teach them how to use the tool to create the articles.  Everyone leaves the class all pumped up, and then they get back to their job and knowledge goes to the wayside.  I also host a monthly meeting to discuss challenges, progress, etc, but not too many folks attend.

I don't want to force the issue or it could backfire.  Instead I want to start some sort of game or contest to get more participation.  However, I am truly alone and don't have anyone else inspiring any support.  I have chosen a couple people to be coaches, but I feel we area stagnating.  Over the past month is the first time that our articles views and creation dropped when they had been steadily increasing.

I have also been working on some system enhancements to make things more user friendly and to enable access to link knowledge to incidents, etc (right now I am the only one who can do it) and am hoping these things will encourage more use.

Kim
Kim Tillano
 

Hi Matt,

  1. We are a financial company, but we have a large IT department.  KM is primarily targeted for IT related issues (internal incident resolution as well as "internal customer" facing self-service).  I am also attempting to rope in management in other departments offering them their own knowledge base and providing the vision of what knowledge can do for them.  This would include facilities, sales, HR - any departments who can benefit from their own set of "how-to's" and policy related documentation.
  2. The contributors can be anyone in any department who can share their knowledge.  Part of the KCS principles is the concept that everyone contributes.  However, until they've proven to consistently have quality content, a second set of eyes needs to review/publish.
  3. The users are grouped 2 ways - we have a self service KB that is open to all employees to view.  In addition, many departments have their own, internal KB that is only viewable by specific staff.

Your observations are spot on.  Even though upper mgmt/exec level sees the value in knowledge, nobody has (or will) actively support it with any actions.  So is it a priority?  To myself, my immediate ITSM team, and the service desk it is a priority.  To anyone else - your guess is as good as mine.  The mandate to get KCS certified and kick off our knowledge process was suggested by middle management.  I took it and ran with it - I have a training program and monthly support meetings.  I still need to get sufficient buy-in.  Recently I asked my C-level for a show of support and to make a statement and address our knowledge initiative.  Instead, he suggested that I integrate myself with external knowledge groups (how I found you) to see how they accomplished company wide buy-in.  In other words, it is my fail if I can't figure out how to get full support and cooperation.


I have allies in various departments who do see the value in what I am trying to implement - I get lots of lip service.  I sincerely believe they want to do this and they see the benefits, but everyone is overworked and stressed and has deadlines up the wazoo, so KM continues to take a back seat.  I have even offered to write/convert their articles for them to seed their KB if they could provide Word docs or PDF's of their info, or a list of the top 10-20 hot button self service issues and nobody can seem to find the time.


The main reason I have reached out to you guys on here is to see if anyone else has been in this situation, and if anyone has some ideas on how I can get some responsiveness.  While I was just discussing this with a coworker I did come up with one thing I can do.  I have a distribution group that I created for all KB owners/managers/authors.  I have used it only a couple times to invite folks to my monthly knowledge conference call.  I will begin using it to provide interesting facts and statistics on the value of knowledge as well as some of the knowledge related metrics I have been tracking.  Maybe I can intrigue them and keep knowledge in the forefront of their minds to get more participation.


I am very passionate about this, and I successfully get people excited when I show them how KCS works and what it can do, but it fades once they return to the "real world".  The biggest stumbling block is that it takes lots of extra work at first, then it saves time later.  It's kind of like selling someone on all the benefits of having a fireplace.  Everyone wants to bask in the warm glow until you tell them they have to chop their own firewood.




---In sikmleaders@..., <innotecture@...> wrote :

Hi Kim,

- What kind of organization is it? (KCS and ServiceNow suggests an IT services organization)
- Who are the contributors?
- Who are the users? Are they the same?

Based on what you have said, what you have here sounds like a relevance problem. Is your KM one of your organizational leader’s top 3 priorities? Based on what you have said, it is not. Can you find a way of linking your activities to one of those top priorities? Not trying to take them over, but making it a small but vital part?

It also sounds like you have no allies. If true, that is a significant problem. How do you intend to get some? What do your potential allies care about?

Regards,

Matt Moore
+61 423 784 504

On Jul 18, 2018, at 6:54 PM, loiacki@... [sikmleaders] <sikmleaders@...> wrote:

 

Thank you, Aprill.  I am capturing usage data, but right now the service desk is not linking/creating knowledge as expected.  So, the creation rate is actually dropping now, but not because most relevant articles have been created.  I get the verbal buy-in, but not the follow through right now.  I am the sole leadership, but just can't seem to get folks on board. 

I am hosting monthly training classes to cover the basic concepts of KCS and teach them how to use the tool to create the articles.  Everyone leaves the class all pumped up, and then they get back to their job and knowledge goes to the wayside.  I also host a monthly meeting to discuss challenges, progress, etc, but not too many folks attend.

I don't want to force the issue or it could backfire.  Instead I want to start some sort of game or contest to get more participation.  However, I am truly alone and don't have anyone else inspiring any support.  I have chosen a couple people to be coaches, but I feel we area stagnating.  Over the past month is the first time that our articles views and creation dropped when they had been steadily increasing.

I have also been working on some system enhancements to make things more user friendly and to enable access to link knowledge to incidents, etc (right now I am the only one who can do it) and am hoping these things will encourage more use.

Kim
Matt Moore <innotecture@...>
 

Hi,

I may be wrong here but I would not try to sell “knowledge management”. I would not even ask your C-level for support. I would ask him: “what are the three big things you are trying to achieve?” and then I would find a way for KM to support at least one of those. He will make those things happen. You need to find a way to hop on board.

That’s my take. May be you have tried this already. What do you think?

Matt Moore
+61 423 784 504

On Jul 19, 2018, at 6:16 PM, loiacki@... [sikmleaders] <sikmleaders@...> wrote:

 

Hi Matt,

  1. We are a financial company, but we have a large IT department.  KM is primarily targeted for IT related issues (internal incident resolution as well as "internal customer" facing self-service).  I am also attempting to rope in management in other departments offering them their own knowledge base and providing the vision of what knowledge can do for them.  This would include facilities, sales, HR - any departments who can benefit from their own set of "how-to's" and policy related documentation.
  2. The contributors can be anyone in any department who can share their knowledge.  Part of the KCS principles is the concept that everyone contributes.  However, until they've proven to consistently have quality content, a second set of eyes needs to review/publish.
  3. The users are grouped 2 ways - we have a self service KB that is open to all employees to view.  In addition, many departments have their own, internal KB that is only viewable by specific staff.

Your observations are spot on.  Even though upper mgmt/exec level sees the value in knowledge, nobody has (or will) actively support it with any actions.  So is it a priority?  To myself, my immediate ITSM team, and the service desk it is a priority.  To anyone else - your guess is as good as mine.  The mandate to get KCS certified and kick off our knowledge process was suggested by middle management.  I took it and ran with it - I have a training program and monthly support meetings.  I still need to get sufficient buy-in.  Recently I asked my C-level for a show of support and to make a statement and address our knowledge initiative.  Instead, he suggested that I integrate myself with external knowledge groups (how I found you) to see how they accomplished company wide buy-in.  In other words, it is my fail if I can't figure out how to get full support and cooperation.


I have allies in various departments who do see the value in what I am trying to implement - I get lots of lip service.  I sincerely believe they want to do this and they see the benefits, but everyone is overworked and stressed and has deadlines up the wazoo, so KM continues to take a back seat.  I have even offered to write/convert their articles for them to seed their KB if they could provide Word docs or PDF's of their info, or a list of the top 10-20 hot button self service issues and nobody can seem to find the time.


The main reason I have reached out to you guys on here is to see if anyone else has been in this situation, and if anyone has some ideas on how I can get some responsiveness.  While I was just discussing this with a coworker I did come up with one thing I can do.  I have a distribution group that I created for all KB owners/managers/authors.  I have used it only a couple times to invite folks to my monthly knowledge conference call.  I will begin using it to provide interesting facts and statistics on the value of knowledge as well as some of the knowledge related metrics I have been tracking.  Maybe I can intrigue them and keep knowledge in the forefront of their minds to get more participation.


I am very passionate about this, and I successfully get people excited when I show them how KCS works and what it can do, but it fades once they return to the "real world".  The biggest stumbling block is that it takes lots of extra work at first, then it saves time later.  It's kind of like selling someone on all the benefits of having a fireplace.  Everyone wants to bask in the warm glow until you tell them they have to chop their own firewood.




---In sikmleaders@..., wrote :

Hi Kim,

- What kind of organization is it? (KCS and ServiceNow suggests an IT services organization)
- Who are the contributors?
- Who are the users? Are they the same?

Based on what you have said, what you have here sounds like a relevance problem. Is your KM one of your organizational leader’s top 3 priorities? Based on what you have said, it is not. Can you find a way of linking your activities to one of those top priorities? Not trying to take them over, but making it a small but vital part?

It also sounds like you have no allies. If true, that is a significant problem. How do you intend to get some? What do your potential allies care about?

Regards,

Matt Moore
+61 423 784 504

On Jul 18, 2018, at 6:54 PM, loiacki@... [sikmleaders] <sikmleaders@...> wrote:

 

Thank you, Aprill.  I am capturing usage data, but right now the service desk is not linking/creating knowledge as expected.  So, the creation rate is actually dropping now, but not because most relevant articles have been created.  I get the verbal buy-in, but not the follow through right now.  I am the sole leadership, but just can't seem to get folks on board. 

I am hosting monthly training classes to cover the basic concepts of KCS and teach them how to use the tool to create the articles.  Everyone leaves the class all pumped up, and then they get back to their job and knowledge goes to the wayside.  I also host a monthly meeting to discuss challenges, progress, etc, but not too many folks attend.

I don't want to force the issue or it could backfire.  Instead I want to start some sort of game or contest to get more participation.  However, I am truly alone and don't have anyone else inspiring any support.  I have chosen a couple people to be coaches, but I feel we area stagnating.  Over the past month is the first time that our articles views and creation dropped when they had been steadily increasing.

I have also been working on some system enhancements to make things more user friendly and to enable access to link knowledge to incidents, etc (right now I am the only one who can do it) and am hoping these things will encourage more use.

Kim
Kim Tillano
 

That's a valid point.  I have done that, in a sense, by showing how implementing KM according to the KCS principles can speed up time to resolution and significantly reduce overall incidents/requests, making everyone more efficient.  Time is money, so I am sure this ties into some high level goals.  Maybe I can look at finding a way to revisit this and specifically show how this benefits the company.
Matt Moore <innotecture@...>
 

Hi,

I would suggest spending a bit more time investigating those priorities. The issue with the request resolution / efficiency argument is that everyone involved with that process will also be claiming to impact those metrics (and, to be fair, they are). It is so general that the you get lost in the noise.

Regards,

Matt Moore
+61 423 784 504

On Jul 19, 2018, at 8:47 PM, loiacki@... [sikmleaders] <sikmleaders@...> wrote:

 

That's a valid point.  I have done that, in a sense, by showing how implementing KM according to the KCS principles can speed up time to resolution and significantly reduce overall incidents/requests, making everyone more efficient.  Time is money, so I am sure this ties into some high level goals.  Maybe I can look at finding a way to revisit this and specifically show how this benefits the company.
Soha Radwan
 

Hi

Totally agree with Matt.

Also based on somewhat similar experiences, KM departments started to open in some organisations where KM itself was the end target. So they started to market for it and what it can do for people. Km staff were busy getting buy-in and launching initiatives. However, he main missing ring was why they were there, i.e why the department opened. They started to offer solutions without identifying what needs/ priorities they were trying to address. Accordingly no significant results achieved. 

Linking KM objectives to business objectives is the key for the sustainable buy-in.

All the best,
Soha.



On Thursday, 19 July 2018, 22:19:41 GMT+4, Matt Moore innotecture@... [sikmleaders]


 

Hi,


I may be wrong here but I would not try to sell “knowledge management”. I would not even ask your C-level for support. I would ask him: “what are the three big things you are trying to achieve?” and then I would find a way for KM to support at least one of those. He will make those things happen. You need to find a way to hop on board.

That’s my take. May be you have tried this already. What do you think?

Matt Moore
+61 423 784 504

On Jul 19, 2018, at 6:16 PM, loiacki@... [sikmleaders] <sikmleaders@...> wrote:

 

Hi Matt,

  1. We are a financial company, but we have a large IT department.  KM is primarily targeted for IT related issues (internal incident resolution as well as "internal customer" facing self-service).  I am also attempting to rope in management in other departments offering them their own knowledge base and providing the vision of what knowledge can do for them.  This would include facilities, sales, HR - any departments who can benefit from their own set of "how-to's" and policy related documentation.
  2. The contributors can be anyone in any department who can share their knowledge.  Part of the KCS principles is the concept that everyone contributes.  However, until they've proven to consistently have quality content, a second set of eyes needs to review/publish.
  3. The users are grouped 2 ways - we have a self service KB that is open to all employees to view.  In addition, many departments have their own, internal KB that is only viewable by specific staff.

Your observations are spot on.  Even though upper mgmt/exec level sees the value in knowledge, nobody has (or will) actively support it with any actions.  So is it a priority?  To myself, my immediate ITSM team, and the service desk it is a priority.  To anyone else - your guess is as good as mine.  The mandate to get KCS certified and kick off our knowledge process was suggested by middle management.  I took it and ran with it - I have a training program and monthly support meetings.  I still need to get sufficient buy-in.  Recently I asked my C-level for a show of support and to make a statement and address our knowledge initiative.  Instead, he suggested that I integrate myself with external knowledge groups (how I found you) to see how they accomplished company wide buy-in.  In other words, it is my fail if I can't figure out how to get full support and cooperation.


I have allies in various departments who do see the value in what I am trying to implement - I get lots of lip service.  I sincerely believe they want to do this and they see the benefits, but everyone is overworked and stressed and has deadlines up the wazoo, so KM continues to take a back seat.  I have even offered to write/convert their articles for them to seed their KB if they could provide Word docs or PDF's of their info, or a list of the top 10-20 hot button self service issues and nobody can seem to find the time.


The main reason I have reached out to you guys on here is to see if anyone else has been in this situation, and if anyone has some ideas on how I can get some responsiveness.  While I was just discussing this with a coworker I did come up with one thing I can do.  I have a distribution group that I created for all KB owners/managers/authors.  I have used it only a couple times to invite folks to my monthly knowledge conference call.  I will begin using it to provide interesting facts and statistics on the value of knowledge as well as some of the knowledge related metrics I have been tracking.  Maybe I can intrigue them and keep knowledge in the forefront of their minds to get more participation.


I am very passionate about this, and I successfully get people excited when I show them how KCS works and what it can do, but it fades once they return to the "real world".  The biggest stumbling block is that it takes lots of extra work at first, then it saves time later.  It's kind of like selling someone on all the benefits of having a fireplace.  Everyone wants to bask in the warm glow until you tell them they have to chop their own firewood.




---In sikmleaders@..., wrote :

Hi Kim,

- What kind of organization is it? (KCS and ServiceNow suggests an IT services organization)
- Who are the contributors?
- Who are the users? Are they the same?

Based on what you have said, what you have here sounds like a relevance problem. Is your KM one of your organizational leader’s top 3 priorities? Based on what you have said, it is not. Can you find a way of linking your activities to one of those top priorities? Not trying to take them over, but making it a small but vital part?

It also sounds like you have no allies. If true, that is a significant problem. How do you intend to get some? What do your potential allies care about?

Regards,

Matt Moore
+61 423 784 504

On Jul 18, 2018, at 6:54 PM, loiacki@... [sikmleaders] <sikmleaders@...> wrote:

 

Thank you, Aprill.  I am capturing usage data, but right now the service desk is not linking/creating knowledge as expected.  So, the creation rate is actually dropping now, but not because most relevant articles have been created.  I get the verbal buy-in, but not the follow through right now.  I am the sole leadership, but just can't seem to get folks on board. 

I am hosting monthly training classes to cover the basic concepts of KCS and teach them how to use the tool to create the articles.  Everyone leaves the class all pumped up, and then they get back to their job and knowledge goes to the wayside..  I also host a monthly meeting to discuss challenges, progress, etc, but not too many folks attend.

I don't want to force the issue or it could backfire.  Instead I want to start some sort of game or contest to get more participation.  However, I am truly alone and don't have anyone else inspiring any support.  I have chosen a couple people to be coaches, but I feel we area stagnating.  Over the past month is the first time that our articles views and creation dropped when they had been steadily increasing.

I have also been working on some system enhancements to make things more user friendly and to enable access to link knowledge to incidents, etc (right now I am the only one who can do it) and am hoping these things will encourage more use.

Kim


Virus-free. www.avg.com

1 - 11 of 11