Following is an interview that I did a while back with Canberra blogger Steve Collins.
Steve Collins wrote The ACME Guide - one of the most popular ColdFusion programming resource eBooks on the web today. He’s putting together a knowledge worker resource called thoughtglue. I interviewed him for Facibus Reviews on this and a range of associated topics.
Andrew: Steve, thanks for your time. I suppose first questions first - what is thoughtglue and what difference will it make in my life? How is it different from, say, existing social networking applications like LinkedIn or del.icio.us?
Steve: First, calling thoughtglue a social networking app is a bit of a stretch; it’s essentially a blog. Although we do have a group on Tangler for discussion.
At its heart, thoughtglue is about getting knowledge workers and their managers in the same headspace. So often I find myself at client sites where the knowledge workers - and they’re a growing group no longer restricted to IT - are to one extent or another restricted in their capability to do their work. This restriction takes several forms - application of policy without adequate research or thinking, imposition of “it’s always been done that way”, or simple failure to understand that knowledge work isn’t like other work.
Knowledge work isn’t an always on, 100 per cent face time kind of thing. There are a large number of organisations out there that don’t yet have a good grasp of what knowledge work is and what it entails. Managers in those organisations are often unaware of what their knowledge workers actually “do”. Or if they are, its *their* managers that don’t understand. Because of this, these workers frequently don’t have access to, or have inadequate or incomplete access to the sorts of tools they need to facilitate giving true value to the organisations they work for. Things as simple as having access to del.icio.us or other social computing platforms, or being able to use a wiki or run a blog from inside the company wall, or having instant messaging available can make a huge difference to how valuable a knowledge worker can be.
But it’s a two-sided coin. Knowledge workers too, need to understand that there are often good historical reasons for restricted or no access to the tools they need. There folks need to equip themselves with reasonable, well-researched and defensible positions on why the status quo needs to change - why more open access to the tools they consider important should happen, or why a 40-hour week isn’t a valuable investment in their time, or why they spend so much time reading information on the ‘Net. It’s not going to be an overnight thing, but approaching it from a strong platform and working the change up from their immediate supervisor to senior management is eventually going to happen. It shouldn’t be a “them and us” thing, although unfortunately it often is.
In terms of differentiation, I hope that thoughtglue will become the place that’s pointed to *from* del.icio.us and LinkedIn Answers when people have knowledge work questions.
Andrew: A related topic - what does the term “knowledge worker” mean to you?Steve: The shift from process work to think work is a change we’ve all noticed over time. It used to be your knowledge workers were restricted to IT and the library. Or they were expensive consultants brought in to solve “management” problems. I don’t think this is the case any more.
To my mind, any role these days where the core component of the worker’s business is the creation, collection, management and/or dissemination of information qualifies as knowledge work. These people might be in finance, or sales, or supply line or marketing or IT or who knows where else. Frankly, that’s a hell of a lot of people! And when management doesn’t really know how to deal with them, that’s a huge problem.
Andrew: How are knowledge workers different than, say, process workers?Steve: As I said before, when information is your job, rather than the production of a thing or the repetitive management of a task (pay, travel, etc.), I think you’re a knowledge worker. This might not cut it as a definition in terms of say, Peter Drucker’s work, but I think it’s a useful everyday one.
Andrew: Let’s say that you’re a knowledge worker, and I am your manager. How can I take best advantage of what you do and how you do it? What can I do right, and what can I do wrong?
Steve: First, understand that my work *isn’t* process-based. I don’t necessarily spend my day with Outlook (or whatever) open answering emails as they arrive. Continuous presence isn’t a core component of my work - a 40-hour week or immediate availability for meetings isn’t part of my habits. I might spend a lot of time thinking, or of speaking off the cuff with other parts of the business - that can *look* like idle time to other managers and my co-workers, but it’s not.
Second, many businesses that still manage their work top-down don’t necessarily mesh with my world view. Knowledge work is largely a meritocracy and for that reason, your position as a senior manager may not be as valuable to me as my discussions with Jenny, who is the company expert on a particular aspect of the business.
To take best advantage of me, and to keep me in a place where I want to give back my best, having an understanding of the way I work, and the tools I want to work with are pretty core. Businesses that restrict access to social computing platforms, or ban internal wikis, or that aren’t ready to adopt corporate blogging - even if the blog is internal only - are going to be frustrating to me. As a manager, you need to find ways to facilitate me having access to those sorts of things while socialising their use with senior management and opening access to them from the top down.
For example, if you look at some old businesses such as Microsoft, IBM and The Sydney Morning Herald that have adapted strongly to knowledge workers, they are driving ahead with incredible success. The level of collaboration between their staff, as well as the collaboration and communication between the businesses and their client bases has gone through the roof. Consequently, productivity and staff satisfaction levels are also higher. Once businesses adapt to this new (well, early 1960s on) knowledge worker approach, it’s a win-win situation.
Andrew: Thanks for your time, Steve. I wish you well with the thoughtglue project.
