Forrester's Content and Collaboration Forum 2011: ConocoPhillips

Last week I attended Forrester's Content & Collaboration Forum 2011. Forrester notes that in five years, almost half of US workers — about 63 million people — will work virtually. I am already one of them. This will change everything in workplace IT support from designing workplace information strategies for collaboration, to delivering content experiences tothe firm. For this international, integrated energy company with thousands of job sites (often quite remote) spread across 30 countries, the challenge of sharing knowledge was very real — and the potential payoff was large. Facing fierce competition on all fronts, ConocoPhillips knew that to continue on its success trajectory, it needed to rapidly and effectively harness the knowledge of its highly skilled but geographically distributed workforce. Instead of assuming that technology either was the solution or was irrelevant when creating online communities, senior managers understood that effective global communities required new processes, roles, cultures, and technologies. Moreover, they recognized that each had to be focused on solving difficult business challenges. Seven years later, the ConocoPhillips' knowledge-sharing program is ranked as best-in-class across industries.”
Dan mentioned that Conoco Phillips is fourth largest traded company in US with 30,000 employees around the world and many contractors who also participate in their knowledge sharing. They have been many changes in the last 12 years as a number of companies were acquired, along with the merger of Conoco and Phillips. This activity has triggered a big need for knowledge sharing. He likes the term knowledge sharing rather than knowledge management. I completely agree. Dan said it is about getting people to talk to each other. Trust is important for this.
They are now going to reorganize and the solid state of their knowledge assets will help with this effort. Dan said that more than 70% of their good ideas have come from their