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