Now that we’ve seen why taxonomies are important, it’s time to discover what makes for a good taxonomy. Effective and useful taxonomies have the following properties. Common Across Systems. Many enterprise applications require taxonomies to work properly. Since these enterprise applications are managed by different groups, it’s natural that each taxonomy will start out different and […]
KM
The Care and Feeding of Taxonomies, Part 1: Why Should I Care?
This is the first in a series of four blog posts about taxonomies. In this one, it’s my job to explain why what sounds like an incredibly dry topic really makes a difference. In succeeding posts, I’ll describe what makes a good taxonomy, provide a step-by-step approach to creating yours, and lay out some common […]
KCS℠ v6: Support’s Time to Shine
The Consortium for Service Innovation just released Version 6 of the KCS Practices Guide, along with a document that lays out the principles and core concepts of KCS. V6 isn’t just an incremental improvement to KCS; it’s a game changer that can put us in the driver’s seat of knowledge management for the whole enterprise. […]
Knowledge Management vs. Content Management
Over the years, we’ve been asked frequently about the overlap between knowledge management (KM) and content management (CM). A recent spate of these questions had me revisit some work I’d done with a KM vendor some years ago to share it with you.
Free Your Knowledge Base
Some good reasons to put your knowledge base on the Internet–and some outdated myths that keep it locked up behind a customer login today.
KCS for the Rest of the Enterprise
You know KM works. You probably want to share the good news. But mention “knowledge management” to people in other parts of your company, and they’ll probably tell you about useless SharePoints full of out-of-date documentation.
In Support, we know it doesn’t have to be like that. In Support, we use KCS. And KCS works. And KCS works for other parts of the company, too.
Reflections on Collective Wisdom on the Occasion of its Release as an Ebook
In 2006, my industry colleague Francoise Tourniaire and I wrote a book called Collective Wisdom: Transforming Support With Knowledge. At the time, we billed it as the first book on knowledge management for the support industry; as time passes, I think it’s increasingly safe to call it the only book on KM for support… By […]
Metrics Myth Seven: Find Industry Peers and Benchmark Against Them
As a consultant, I find it rare to spend fifteen minutes with a capable executive before she asks me to assess how they’re doing compared with other companies. It’s a fair question: how can you know if you’re best in class unless you know how well other organizations are doing? And if you’re not yet […]
Metric Myth Five: There Are Good Industry-Standard Measures. Use Them.
(A quick note to start: our February KCS Foundations Workshop is filling up. If you or a colleague are interested, now would be a good time to register.) It’s a cliché that you get what you measure. So before we start picking from the standard list of reports provided by your KM, CRM, or BI […]
Metrics Myth Four: If We’re Doing a Great Job of Delivering Customer Satisfaction and First Contact Resolution at High Efficiency, We’re Doing a Great Job of Support
Because, you know, that’s what support does. Close cases. Quickly. In a way that satisfies customers. Mission accomplished; let’s grab a beer! Not so fast. This myth begs the question of why the Support organization exists. Because most of the activity, headcount, and budget are tied up in closing cases, it’s easy to assume […]
