June 30, 2009

Knowledge MicroManagement

Welcome to Knowledge MicroManagement 101! I don't know about you, but the "unit of analysis" of the information I organize is not usually at the book or journal article level. It is very often at the level of an email, a conversation, and sometimes even a Tweet!

Flying solo? Add value by tracking and documenting everything. If your mantra is, "I am here to make people's job easier,"** then you will find tons of ways to make lasting contributions. Just remember that the knowledge you are managing is often bite-sized.

Exhibit A: It occurs to me that I never blogged about one of my shining moments, because it seemed lackluster at the time and because I was not blogging very regularly. I was helping one of our workteams edit some documents and they had been comparing color samples side by side on sheets of paper (!). I taught them about RGB color recipes (skipped the hexadecimal web safe color lecture because people don't always want to know all that), and looked up what the exact color balance was in their logo. Then I made a document for them (at left, click to enlarge) with the color values, sent it to everyone, saved it in a logical place, and inserted the filename and path on the document itself so anyone finding a print version of it in a pile somewhere would be able to instantly call up the electronic version.

Exhibit B: I mentioned last week that I was helping with a file management survey to help plan a tech training. This type of survey would vary greatly from one organization to the next, but here is an image of what I was using. (Click to enlarge or email me for a copy.)

The big stuff: Our accessibility statement is up! I am happy to report a BIG VICTORY FOR THE WHITE SPACES! I successfully navigated the revisions and approval process for this statement and its linked web accessibility resources page, and I am helping to adapt it for use on other sites we manage. It is not perfect, so please let me know if you notice anything that could be improved.

And keep smiling!


**There was a long discussion on the SLA Solos list-serve about "other duties as assigned." More on that later.

No comments: