Kathy Harris

Search and social software are not KM — no “get out of KM jail free” card — yet!!

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I’ve spent the last few weeks on the road meeting with CIOs and IT leaders. Most of our discussions have involved strategic planning. Maybe it’s just that time of year or the current state of business, but many organizations seem to be struggling with redefining their strategy for the next 3-5 years. They tell me that strategic decisions and planning are more difficult [...]

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I’m just starting to update some work on productivity I did a few years ago. One of my key findings in the original is that if you make your customers more productive, they will actually take work away from your organization. This is a simple concept with powerful implications – to make your organization more [...]

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Wow, that’s a big title, isn’t it? I’m not overreaching - just some observations. I paid a lot of attention last week to people all around me and how they use personal technology without realizing the behavioral changes that have come with it. Here are four short stories. 
A ten year old is visiting me this week and she [...]

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I frequently have conversations with great companies hoping to improve their innovation capabilities. They will usually describe what they’re doing with quite a long list of innovation activities such as idea generation, crowdsourcing or brainstorming. Then, they’ll admit that no real progress has been made and the program needs a shot in the arm.
The missing element and one reason [...]

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I recently led a group of CIOs in a discussion on Web 2.0 and specifically, the skills needed to create and manage social features such as communities, crowdsourcing, opinions, new media and games. Several of the CIOs admitted that despite having some of these features in use (and requests for many more), they really don’t [...]

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I often use the word “compelling” when it comes to describing great technology.  For example, a compelling user experience can make or break the success of a product or service (whether the user is internal or external or is an employee, customer or stranger).  You can create a rich new face for an older application and give it [...]

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I’m often asked to review strategy documents for organizations that are starting innovation, KM or other workplace initiative. These documents are usually a presentation or written proposal making the case for pursuing the initiative.  There are several common mistakes that I see so often, I decided to talk about them here. 
First, many strategy documents read like an [...]

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In a Gartner research meeting, we discussed how the IT organization can help the business innovate. One of the topics that generated most discussion is that IT is often stifled and unappreciated when they bring well-developed ideas or well-designed prototypes to a business unit or manager. Apparently, this happens quite often — IT takes the initiative to [...]

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I’ve published several new research reports during the last 2-3 months. Here are examples and a summary of three interesting and varied topics. I’d like to hear your comments on these. If you’re a Gartner client, I’ve provided links to the full research report. If not, I’ve included an excerpt from each so you can [...]

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