What it was

Talks and breakout sessions on social collaboration in defence, with various speakers including knowledge management consultant Chris Collison, held at MOD on 24 October 2018.

What I learned

• Knowledge is key to the defence enterprise
• The need for additional logins is a barrier to adoption of social collaboration in defence
• Not everyone is happy to use a personal device for work
• We need processes and curation around wikis and similar tools.

Social Collaboration:

• Collaboration is the combination of:
  • Authenticity
  • Trust
  • Passion
• Authenticity – being your own open self, known to yourself and to others – is key for successful social collaboration
• Trust requires vulnerability. It thrives under reciprocation.
• Tom Davenport’s “kindergarten rationale” posits on when and why
• Passion is enthusiasm, commitment, devotion, curiosity
• A simple model for online communities:
  • Communities of interest
  • Communities of practice
  • Communities of purpose
• Learning communities can be thought of across various dimensions:
  • Inside vs outside
  • Formal vs informal
  • Learning from, each other with
• The Met Office have a simple charter for their communities of practice: its purpose, membership, roles, ways of working and tools, behaviours, and its outcomes and measures
• Consumers, contributors, creators – the rule thumb ratio is
  90:9:1. Defence connect is about 70:20:10 which is healthy.
• Syngenta used “TREE” awards for their communities of practice; for Transfer of a good practice, Reuse of a good practice, Embedding a good practice, sharing a difficult Experience.

What I will aim to do differently as a result

• Explore whether we can get the app installed on official phones
• Export and explain the success that the Army has had.
• Explore how Defence Connect can formally support learning via the DLMC project
• Re-engage with the online defence and wider Government communities