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Preparing
for Conversations with Ash Sooknanan
WSIB:
From Worst Case KM to Best Practice
Edited by Jerry
Ash
Editor's
Note:
The Association of Knowledgework (AOK) has secured the volunteer
services of Ash Sooknanan, Corporate Knowledge Manager, Workplace
Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), Toronto, Canada, as the third
in a monthly series of guest moderators for AOK discussion groups.
Ash is the guest moderator for the Knowledge Work/Systems Community
of Practice (CoP) for March, 2001. The accomplishments of WSIB
under the leadership of Ash Sooknanan confirm AOK's contention
that nonprofit organizations are ideal environments for the application
of knowledge enterprise strategies.
This white
paper provides background for Conversations with Ash Sooknanan.
The Year 2000 was touted
as the beginning of a new millennium for the world, but it was
the peak of success for a non-profit board and its KM leader
(Ash Sooknanan) in Toronto, Canada.
The Workplace Safety
and Insurance Board's KM practice was recognized as a leader
in knowledge management in the industry and in recent months,
the WSIB has been widely acclaimed for its ground breaking work
in the field of KM The program and its Corporate Knowledge Manager
have been published and referenced in a number of prestigious
Canadian and American publications. Regarded as an 'early adopter'
of knowledge management, and a leading KM practitioner in Canada,
WSIB won gold and silver medal awards at the national Technology
in Government (GTEC) Distinction Awards in October, 2000.
Ash Sooknanan's
professional career spans 25 years in the private and public
sector, working closely with and in the information technology
field, with a flair for marketing and communications. Ash started
his career, working for the first six years in the financial
environment with a major international bank. This followed a
five-year period working with one of Canada's oldest and largest
retail organizations. He joined the WSIB (formerly the Worker's
Compensation Board (WCB), Ontario, in 1987 and progressed through
applications development to become a project/manager in the international
award-winning Rapid Applications Development (RAD) - Rapid Solutions
Delivery (RSD) practice at the WSIB. This successful role served
as a springboard for Ash to become the pioneer, and one of the
architects of the WSIB's successful knowledge management practice,
which started in the summer of 1994.
Commenting on the
gold and silver medals awards recognition, David Williams, WSIB's
President and CEO said, "The WSIB is very proud of winning
these national awards, which recognize the WSIB's pioneering
and leadership role in knowledge management in Canadian industry
since 1994."
Today, the KM Intellectual
Capital KnowledgeBase (ICK) application is the single most used
online vehicle for information and knowledge sharing within the
WSIB organization. Every operational area in the WSIB now owns
one or more of the knowledge databases, and the average monthly
number of hits to the ICK, now exceed 800,000. There are 224
knowledge databases, a 1,400 percent increase from December 1997,
with over 70 new knowledge databases created in the year 2000
alone. There are 2.5 staff in the Knowledge Management Competency
Centre (KMCC) to support the KM Practice's ICK. While this number
is quite low, the KMCC depends on well over 150 individuals throughout
the province who act as Moderators for one or more knowledge
databases or forums, to help manage the ICK's content.
Following are URLs
to reports and publications recognizing and describing in more
detail the WSIB accomplishments:
Some
of the Media/Publications/Press Coverage
The US version of
CIO
Magazine (December 2000) (Hard Copy) and Online Version:
If there (were)
ever a textbook model for a worst-case knowledge management scenario,
it would have to be the über-bureau featured in Franz Kafka's
novels. Drawn from his experience working at a workers' compensation
agency, Kafka's fictional bureaucracy was an institutional nightmare
of incomprehensible information, lost files and maddening dead
ends. While Kafka toiled on his 1914 novel, The Trial, lawmakers
a continent away in Toronto were creating what is now known as
The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), a government-owned,
employer-funded workers' comp agency. As recently as a decade
ago, calling the WSIB "Kafkaesque" would have been
an apt reference.
The National Post
(October 2000) (Hard Copy) and Online Version
During an online
'chat room' meeting between certain employees of Ontario's (WSIB),
an uninvited employee butted in with what turned out to be very
useful information. Somebody who had not been asked to the meeting
. . . told us we couldn't really make a decision until we contacted
(his) division first because of . . . certain changes" taking
place, recalls Ash Sooknanan. "It was . . . important for
us to know but
. . . we had no way of knowing at the time."
KM
World Online Magazine (July 2000)
'Think big, start
small and build incrementally' is the mantra adopted by the Ontario
WSIB in its approach to managing knowledge. WSIB's job is to
share information about workplace health and safety, to help
employees return to work quickly and safely, to ensure appropriate
healthcare for injured workers and to compensate workers with
work-related injuries or illnesses.
According to Ash
Sooknanan, the board is becoming a more customer-focused learning
organization.
National
Canadian Award(s) Recognition
Technology in Government
(GTEC) Distinction Awards 2000: Gold Medal Award for WSIB's CIO,
Valerie Adamo (in part for her role played as early champion
for WSIB's KM Practice) - Category V: Unique Achievement (all
of Canada)
Technology in Government
(GTEC) Distinction Awards 2000: Silver Medal Award for WSIB's
KM Practice: Intellectual Capital KnowledgeBase (ICK) - Category
Group II: Innovative Solutions in the Provinces - Ash Sooknanan
- recipient.
Advisory/Boards/Memberships/Affiliations
Royal Roads University,
Victoria, BC - member of the Knowledge Management Advisory Board
(KMAB)
Queen's University,
Kingston, ON - member of the Queen's KM Forum, a "think
tank" group on knowledge management with representatives
from industry and academia from both the US and Canada
University of Toronto, Toronto,
ON - founding
participant/member of U of T's Knowledge Management Institute
(KMI)
Association of Knowledgework,
FL., US
Speaking
Engagements/Case Study Presentations/Lectures/Exhibits
- InterVista "Enterprise
Strategy & Knowledge Management" Workshop - Real World
Case Studies, CBC Conference Centre, Toronto, November 2000
- International Quality
& Productivity Centre, "Intranet Content Management,"
Delta Chelsea, Toronto, November 2000
- Lotus Global Government
Summit, Washington D.C., October - November 2000
- Canadian Information
Processing Society (CIPS), Toronto, October 2000
- International Conferences
for Management (ICM) Group "Knowledge Management" Conference,
Sheraton Centre, Toronto, September 2000
- KM World 2000 Conference
and Exposition, Santa Clara, California, September 2000 (see
Session C202)
- Showcase Ontario
2000, MTCC, Toronto, September 2000
- Information Highways
2000 Conference "The BA" KM Exhibit, MTCC, Toronto,
March 2000
- University of Toronto's
Faculty of Information Studies (FIS) KM Portal Series, Toronto,
December 1999/January 2000
- International Knowledge
Management Summit (IKMS) '99 Canadian Summit, Toronto, November
1999
Planned
Case
Studies/Partnerships
Royal Roads University,
Victoria, BC - as a member of the KMAB, partnership in helping
to create the 1st Master's Degree in Knowledge Management in
Canada and one of the 1st of its kind in the world.
Queen's University,
Kingston - partnership working with the WSIB and Queen's organizations
on a teaching Case Study to be used by the prestigious Queen's
School of Business and for possible sharing and use inside and
outside Canada.
University of Toronto,
Toronto - partnership includes lecturing at the Faculty of Information
Studies (FIS) and working with the WSIB and U of T organizations
on a Case Study on the WSIB's KM Practice for publication of
a book by an international publisher on Canadian knowledge management
initiatives.
Lotus Canada - Case
Study on the WSIB's KM Practice focusing on the technology enablement
perspective of knowledge management of the WSIB's current KM
Practice tools, for publication available globally and on the
Internet.
Canadian e-Knowledge
Consortium - by invitation only membership, to a select Research
Working Group to significant companies with a serious interest,
and ones with a more developed KM culture so they can harness
and make effective use of the collective learning in an applied
way.
Additional
reading
The Association
of Knowledgework is fortunate to catch this rising star for the
Star Series of guest discussion group moderators. His tenure
in the AOK Knowledge Work/Systems Community of Practice: March
19-30, 2001.
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