AnnouncementsCategory Archive

Opportunity: A Survey (with a Report!)

By: David Kay 0 Comments
25 Oct

I just got a note from our friends at ServiceXRG.  They’re doing a survey that some readers of this blog may be interested in participating in.  Pasting from their email:

I want to drop you a note about a KM study I am doing…It is a two-part study to examine how and where customers (Knowledge Consumers) go for service and support information and the practices companies (Knowledge Producers) use to create knowledge.

The Knowledge Consumer study is compete with input from over 650+ individuals (consumer, small business, and large enterprise). I am now working on the Knowledge Producer study. If you know of anyone that may want to participate I have included the link below. All participants will get a copy of the published results. [...]

To participate just click the link or copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/XRG_KM  All responses are confidential and we will share the published results with participants.

I like their work, and I expect the report will be well worth the time required to complete the survey.  Let us know what you think about their questions in the comments below.

New Offerings! (Or, A Blog Post That’s All About Us)

By: David Kay 0 Comments
31 May

Regular readers of this space know we generally like to talk about the interesting things other people are doing in the world of knowledge management, self-service, and social support.  But we’ve been busy working on a number of new offerings, and we wanted to celebrate their launch today.

KCS Practices v5 Certification is now part of every KCS Foundations or KCS Design Workshop DB Kay delivers.  The question we get asked most about our workshops is, “can I get certified now?”  Prior to now, there wasn’t a very good answer.  But now that the CSI’s KCS Academy has launched this new certification for program managers and line managers, we’ll leave time at the end of each workshop for a review session and the proctored exam.

A KCS Foundations Workshop, Bi-Coastal Style.  It’s great to get the whole team on the same page, but sometimes that’s hard with distributed teams and tight travel budgets.  We’ve teamed up with The Vergis Group to deliver a simultaneous KCS Foundations Workshops in San Francisco / Silicon Valley and Boston, July 10-12.  You now have an opportunity for multiple members of your organization to attend the workshop closest to where they are located, while at the same time gaining the same knowledge, similar experiences and collaborating with local attendees. Learn how KCS can improve your current KM processes and transform your organization.  Both classes will meet the same days and, on the final day, we will collaborate on our capstone exercises.  You will get the benefit of two certified KCS v5 Trainers, two groups of attendees, and one tremendous experience.

A Virtual Classroom version of the KCS Foundations Workshop, starting August 13-16.  We’ve had excellent success delivering KCS workshops to clients using virtual classroom technology, so we’ve decided to apply the same approach to our open enrollment workshop.  Using web meeting software and a conference bridge, attendees interact with an experienced KCS v5 Verified instructor without ever leaving their desks. This allows everyone to gain the benefits of this KCS Foundations Workshop without impact to travel budgets.

KCS Publisher Certification in a Box.  Whether you’re looking to reinvigorate your KCS program, motivate your team, recognize your stars, or just get everyone on the same page, KCS Publisher Certification gives your KCS program a boost.  But, it can be complex to administer, and without the right refresher training, even experienced KCS staff are likely to fail the certification exam.  DB Kay provides process management, communications, exam-prep training, review sessions, and proctored exam delivery, all for a simple per-person fee.

We hope you can join us for training, certification, and KM success.  Let us know what you think!

2012 Kickoff: What’s Happening in KM and KCS

By: David Kay 0 Comments
3 Jan
Checkered Flag on 2011

2011 Takes the Checkered Flag. Photo credit: iStockphoto

I was going to do a “New Year’s Resolutions for Knowledge Program Managers” blog post, but really, it’s the Tuesday after New Years.  Who wants to be nagged?  So I decided to highlight some of the things that we think are new and notable in the world of KCS and KM.

  1. KCS practitioners get industry certification.  Industry certification had been a gap in KCS for many years.  Sure, certification is a part of the KCS practices, but that’s in-house certification, which doesn’t have the same credibility as industry certification.The for-profit arm of the Consortium for Service Innovation has set up a rigorous process by which support practitioners participating in KCS for six months can receive KCS Publisher certification.  Like other serious industry certifications, it’s a big deal: it requires a demonstrated commitment to the practices, and the test is pretty tough.  (Full disclosure:  Jenn on our team contributed to the questions.)From our perspective, it’s about time that KCS practitioners have something to put on their LinkedIn profiles that tells the world they’re proficient at capturing, structuring, reusing, and improving knowledge in the service delivery workflow.  And we think it’s great that program managers have a new tool to motivate and evaluate progress.

    We think this is so useful, we’re building certification in to our customer engagements…and we’re working with the CSI on the next round of certifications, too.  Please comment below if you have thoughts or suggestions, and let us know if you have questions.

  2. Social gets rational.  Last holiday season, it seemed like all the Facebook pages were hung by the stockings with care, and visions of tweets were dancing in people’s heads.  Fortunately, the sugarplum rush seems to have passed and support leaders have settled into a more balanced approach to social.Yes, social support continues to be important (and it always was, of course; it’s just that you have better visibility to it now with new technology.) But most organizations have stopped incenting customers to complainin public by providing better service.  And most organizations realize that social isn’t just another channel.The social tulip mania we experienced for a while was a good reminder that most of the support that happens doesn’t happen in the support center.  It was a good reminder that customers are talking, and that we now have new ways of listening to and engaging with them.  And it paved the way for a more rational strategic approach to social, one that will continue to build on successful support communities and the knowledgebase.
  3. KCS has officially “crossed the chasm” in support.  Next stop?  The enterprise.  Go to an industry event and ask how many people are doing KCS, and watch the hands fly up.  (How closely they’re following KCS practices is another story, but for now, we’ll say perception is reality.) As thought leaders, we miss the early adopter cachet, but as pragmatists, we don’t miss the hypothetical objections about why KCS can’t possibly work.If support has crossed the chasm, it’s time for a new bowling pin, and fortunately, we have a whole lane set up: the rest of the enterprise.  We’re seeing major KCS adoption in professional services, field services, sales, and HR, among others.  We expect that much of our business in the coming years will be helping to migrate and adapt successful KCS practices from support to the rest of the enterprise, accounting for the fact that measures, workflows, and organizational personalities are very different.

What are you seeing?  Please leave a comment and let us know.

ps – consider starting 2012 with a jumpstart in KCS.  We’re offering the KCS Foundations Workshop on February 1-3 in the Silicon Valley / San Francisco area.  Register or find out more, and contact us for discounts for multiple attendees.

 

Welcome to the new DBKay.com!

By: Jennifer Crippen 0 Comments
13 Oct

Welcome to the new DB Kay & Associates Website! We are pleased to announce our long overdue update, and we can’t wait to get your feedback.  (Once every five years, whether it needs it or not.) In addition to the new design, there’s updated content.  Behind the scenes, we’ve moved to the WordPress content platform, which means that it should be so easy to update the site that even a consultant can do it.

This is our first Blog post, and we encourage you to subscribe.  David or Jennifer will be posting something brief about support, knowledge management, self-service, and social support about once a week.