Knowledge Management for IT

Session Topic\Audience:
   * Knowledge Management geared towards the IT Support community
What are we looking for?
   * Easy entry knowledge management system (twitter like) easy to enter, natural language, easy to search
   * Needs to be curated regularly, peer review (up vote\down vote)  
   * Forum to ask questions and provide answers, move good information from Forum to KB
   * A tool that has a bigger reach, a single information repository (how can we leverage/integrate/knowledge transfer to/from StanfordAnswers?)
   * Add endorsements\commenting\upvote\downvote, use it as an incentive. We look for the up vote answers
   * We shouldn’t differentiate our support roles from a Knowledge Management perspective, do not create information silos
Current Issues:
   * Large body of knowledge all over the place
   * Current systems not accessible to everyone (information silos, how do we bridge common information)
   * Inspiring people to make excellent documentation -
   * how do we make time to create documentation? Performance management goal or reward system (upvoting).
   * Translating customer needs to the tech solution and vice\versa
   * Not enough marketing for our existing knowledge such as Stanford Answers and TechCommons
   * Too many systems: Confluence, Stanford Answers, TechCommons
   * There isn’t a singular internal Stanford site, most is geared toward external users
   * GI\GO - screen shots, don’t always get them…
   * Too many hops to get through to get information sometimes
   * Skype group - good\helpful but chaotic - how does it go from live chat to a KB
   * Hard to get ppl to do good documentation, build incentives. Sanitize for the larger community without compromising internal data.
   * How to validate anomalies?
   * Out of date, or wrong in the first place, there has to be a way to validate the information
   * How does information get into Stanford Answers?
What are our options?
   * Tech Commons (anyone with a sunset can post, is there some value there in the short term)
   * Forum style: come to ask\answer questions with moderators and then turn that into an internal KB and then review for end users
   * Stanford Answers website, simple Drupal site, how do we get in, does it meet the needs?
   * Stanford IM
Other options:
   * IT Ninja - top 15 questions of the week mailed out, serves as a marketing vehicle as well
   * Hire someone, but what about the Stanford specific issues?
   * Hire someone to clean up tickets, open the knowledge base to users as system grows
   * Central doc repository, searchable topics (ownership of documentation)
   * Knowledge base with a chat room and then take a good experience in chat and make it an article
 
Next steps for continuing the conversation:
   * Lets get a TechCommon Forum KB/ started (Sharon Krossa)
   * Create a mailing list (Jeremy Tavan\Shannon Santanocito)
   * Assign a rotating  moderator to keep language concise, use upvoting to validate good information
 
The knowledgebase being discussed would contains the types of knowledge that Stanford helpdesk staff provide to Stanford endusers
Want a low barrier to entry KM system e.g., I just solved a problem, I'll enter it.  The KM equivalent of Twitter. Some desired features:
    Ease of adding the problem/solution, Ease of curating, Ease of archiving
    Capbility to add endorsements
Are there existing services e.g.,
    vendor offerings of desktop support solutions, Q&A knowledgebase
    compilation service that converts a long email message thread into a cohesive 'tip' document
Can we create one common, internal website that is a campus-wide knowledgebase
Starting point to create the knowledgebase might be:
    http://techcommons.stanford.edu
    http://answers.stanford.edu
    Instant Messaging
Create this to be a Stanford-wide support knowledgebase, not silo'd by school or department.