Our work delivers Waykm (pronounced wake’em), which goes beyond offering a compelling facility for the daily work and interaction. It creates a natural process for application of knowledge and harnesses IT to induce a culture for success among busy administrators in the near term. The process is independent of the individual, situation, end result, etc. It protects companies from self-interest, ego, facades, hubris, delusion and division that typify knowledge application by individuals.

We have introduced our work in a 101 format to explain our perspective. The Table Of Contents is linked for easy access to a topic.

Table Of Contents

Intelligent Energy For Better Application Of Knowledge

◄

The Breakthrough. 3

The Core Of Administration. 3

The System - 4Waykm

The Business Model For Waykm’s Service. 4

Waykm In Relation To The Tools Of IT.. 5

Inadequacy Of Conventional IT For Dialogue. 5

Dialogue Quality With Waykm

Relationship Between Waykm And Email 6

Waykm Software Platform.. 6

The Source Of Waykm’s Intelligence. 7

Comparison Of The Waykm Business Communication Paradigm.. 9

The Value Delivered By Waykm

◄ The Breakthrough: IT unerringly guides astronauts on space missions but on earth it needs to be guided by busy administrators for better knowledge application. Companies today are vainly struggling to leverage last century’s learning that focused free flow of knowledge progresses the collective ability to pursue excellence. IT believes a one-size-fit-all process to organize knowledge flow is impossible, and is focused on evolving tools to raise productivity of collaboration. Administrators must understand effective collaboration, voluntarily share knowledge, and drive the collaboration tools to improve knowledge application. The ancient paradigm of dependence upon culture for discipline and subjugation of self-interest continues to apply. Success is rare. Companies are plagued by self-interest, ego, facades, hubris, delusion and division that typify knowledge application by individuals. Judgments, execution, innovation, etc., suffer though knowledge and collaboration are promoted. Large administrations have little hope of transforming themselves for excellence.

Based on the evolution of teamwork we have developed and proven in prototypes the all-sizes-fit-one process integrated with a universal structure to conduct all knowledge flows. It anchors a compelling system for the daily work and interaction, viz., business communication. Dialogue, the most effective form of collaboration, is a by-product. The system induces a culture for better knowledge work, thinking and action to raise team ability.

◄ The Core Of Administration: Unstructured Business Processes (UBP) like strategy formulation, problem definition and solving, mentoring, exception processing, progressing innovations, etc., and their composites determine collective ability. They deal with multiple processes, personnel, groups, etc. As illustrated by the following diagram, personnel discretion in the choice of repeatable interactions and the composite nature of UBP makes their conduct unpredictable. Greater collective ability requires order and work discipline in the conduct of UBP, particularly in an environment of chaos and heavy work volumes where the administrators are distributed in time and space, and anxiety is easily stirred.

A conservative 6:1 ratio between unstructured and structured information (has been estimated at 9:1 by Tucker (1999) of Delphi Group) indicates administrators engage with UBP interactions perhaps four times as often as the transactions of Structured Business Processes (SBP) like Management of Inventory, Production, Sales, Accounts, etc. At the core of SBP are people to database transactions. Their next process step is predictable. Exceptions in SBP are dealt by UBP interactions. Rigorous studies have established that even the best conceived SBP initiatives fall well short of potential without UBP to organize people.

Schematic Diagram of collaboration workflow on a typical event illustrating repeatable Actions. Note: The hierarchy is for illustration only. It may be reduced as needed

◄ The System - Waykm: It adds to the intranet infrastructure. It conducts all the people to people interactions for exchange of information/knowledge on business events. Its service for the daily business interactions is parallel to what email delivers for personal interactions. The next step in a knowledge exchange process is unpredictable yet Waykm applies the processing power of IT to Unstructured Business Processes (UBP) for driving coordination in real time and collective thinking in the virtual space. Waykm is for UBP what ERP is for Structured Business Processes.

◄ The Business Model For Waykm’s Service: Waykm anticipates and drives all work and interaction of the User. This makes it a compelling means for the daily intra-enterprise communication. It converts the systematically captured communication to a discussion string in context in the corporate database. Constructive dialogue follows as a by-product with far greater accessibility, and maybe engaged with anywhere, anytime, including offline. The constructive destruction process of dialogue advances thinking with protection from self-interest, ego, facades, hubris, delusion and division that typify knowledge application by individuals. Waykm is compelling for business communication and replaces email across the enterprise. Regular use of Waykm for communication induces a culture for superior knowledge application.

The primary intelligence of Waykm conducts the spontaneous interactions of administrators to deliver effortless coordination. Its secondary intelligence is structural in nature. The intelligence systematically captures opinions expressed, communicates them to the next in-line person/s, and updates them to the database as dialogue. All intelligence is incorporated in a smart interface supported by Knowledge maps integrated with the structure.

◄ Waykm In Relation To The Tools Of IT: The smart interface of Waykm leverages products that aid interactions, support content creation and dissemination, and knowledge sharing like Sametime and Presence software. These products are powerful tools for discussion and simple collaboration and not systems for effective collaboration, viz., constructive dialogue. Their adoption is suspect. The work discipline they require for systematic capture of exchange is rare. Besides, simple collaboration does not overcome narrow self-interest. Discussion is driven by volition and is subject to the ego whereas dialogue develops opinion. Consequently, the tools by themselves are inadequate for driving knowledge application.

Waykm is invested with intelligence to organize all knowledge events, anticipate the next action, execute the action, assist follow up, and operate a mechanism to channel and categorize any communication that takes place. It’s simple, intuitive, repetitive, on-hand, effortless and anxiety mitigating process for all knowledge events is compelling for work and interaction. It converts the communication to systematic dialogue in the corporate servers effortlessly and reliably, viz., the system drives the sharing of knowledge.

◄ Inadequacy Of Conventional IT For Dialogue: The collaborative tools of IT are designed for discussion, which is ego dominated as compared to dialogue. Further, IT cannot manage seamless and focused collaboration across processes amidst the daily chaos. This ability demands 24x7 means on each event for channeling of knowledge exchange, context, expectations, coordination, classification, flexibility, security, archiving, and offline operation as work load and volumes rise. The means must offer anticipation for ease, the security of a workflow structure, self-coding for the content and context organization of document management, the free and open exchange of blogs, the drill down of a dashboard and the offline ability of email. A science to anticipate the next interaction, define relationships between knowledge work, practices, interactions, security and the organization structure, and provide painless connectivity between the various personnel interfaces is needed to make the means possible. Conventional IT ignores this domain with its belief that a one-size-fit-all knowledge process is inconceivable, and its dependence on business intelligence to throw up relationships. It embraces the conventional wisdom that personnel discretion over the conduct and composition of knowledge flows makes process definition impossible.

◄ Dialogue Quality With Waykm: Waykm delivers a far superior quality of dialogue than paper based dialogue for the following reasons:

· Reduction of anxiety: Follows from prompt overviews and reviews without imposing on time of team members, with alerts to warn against procedural oversights;

· Better resource management: Systematic recording identifies experts for access;

· Control of chaos: Selective access irrespective of work load assists focus;

· Assured adoption: The intelligence for anticipating the next knowledge process step and offering the needed tools makes work natural, reliable and discipline free;

· Opinion formation: IT tools offer same-time discussion and search on each event;

· Evolution of judgments: The opinion free flow vanquishes rigidities and islands;

· Merging of self-interest with teamwork: Personnel get a compelling means for all work. The system-driven knowledge sharing is accepted as a professional need;

· Leveraging experience: Links to precedence are captured for swift access;

· Superior preparation: Virtual interaction promotes productive physical meetings;

· Effective communities: People with common interests and professional overlap are identified by the structure. It facilitates the floating of ideas; and

· Greater flexibility: It is easy to effect structural change in the virtual space.

◄ Relationship Between Waykm And Email: Waykm replaces email only for business communication across the extended enterprise. Email serves an exclusive function if confined to personal communication and exchange with external organizations. Waykm has the intelligence to selectively harvest emails and categorize them for further group action.

◄ Waykm Software Platform: Waykm does not create technology but is a universal process for assembly of interactions to progress business events from a smart User interface. The software remains unchanged across departments, locations and companies. Only contents of the system Knowledge maps undergo a change. The interface offers all content development and presence tools in context in their environment. Its norms drive smart replication for data synchronization across servers and user interfaces. The smart interface can be implemented on all platforms that support replication technology and stand alone operation.

◄ The Source Of Waykm’s Intelligence:

1. The primary intelligence is incorporated in a smart interface that operates a process to anticipate and perform the next action on each business event. This assembly of action also assembles any opinion expressed as per the Knowledge Mechanism. The expectation associated with an action is used to follow up on the action taken.

2. Knowledge maps encapsulate Waykm’s secondary intelligence. They incorporate relationships between the enterprise structure and content of business events. The maps enable codification of the event and its explicit knowledge as well as categorization of any opinion expressed on the content.

3. The interface organizes all business events by categories per the knowledge maps, and provides established tools in their environment for management of content and discussion thereon.

4. Accountability for either action or opinion initiates the flow of knowledge.

5. Waykm treats the infinity of knowledge processes as an assembly of a finite set of actions. As shown by Figure-1 the repeatable actions convert any knowledge process into a workflow. The methodology can assemble any unpredictable knowledge flow.

1) FIGURE – 1: Typical Management Team Process

- Discretionary actions

- Unpredictable number of links

- Choice of recipients

- Chaos on enterprise scale

Note 1: The links demonstrate that a typical management team process is unpredictable.

Note 2: The assembly of repeatable actions shown in brackets creates coordination one step at a time to establish a pipeline for the flow of knowledge irrespective of the chaos. Norms of teamwork determine the next action.

Illustrative repeatable actions: UP=Give Direction, DOWN=Transfer Accountability, INFO=Give Information, CNF=Conference, RETURN=Return to sender. An action may have an expectation for tracking. UP & DOWN create expectation=Done.

Note 3: The group consists of free members united by common goals or is task force based. It is attached to a hierarchy that may be reduced as needed.

6. Figure-1 could be renamed “A Typical Workflow Of Collaboration”. It illustrates the all-sizes-fit-one process.

7. The basic premises for assembling and conducting the interactions are:

a) The Group is the smallest work unit, usually defined as a taskforce. The Group itself reports to a hierarchy where the number of levels is discretionary.

b) Each event has an owner Group though cross Group interactions are possible.

c) An organization exists by charter. The charter defines the business functions or Pursuits of each Group and the Reasons for which each does work within a Pursuit.

d) An organization’s profile and structure, spread over Locations, Divisions and Groups, are related and can be defined in a flexible way. Relationship maps may be developed and extended to define meta-data for capturing events.

e) The event meta-data captures the event definition with a default security. The event’s unstructured content may be captured as a link in its platform.

f) While knowledge flows are unpredictable, norms decided by the evolution of teamwork as reflected by the colonial administration systems establish the next action team members can take on events.

g) Just about fifteen repeatable actions assemble all circulation of events. Their norms may be expressed in terms of the meta-data that defines the events.

8. Data storage by Groups, linked to the organization structure, enables precise security.

9. Natural categories developed from the event meta-data and actions convert the interface into a smart dashboard for swift focus.

10. Personnel are accountable for the events they receive and are responsible for the events they have forwarded for action. Each action generates an expectation that may be used to follow up on the action. Accountability, unsatisfied expectations, undesirable action sequences, the event status, and the need to know the emerging thinking on an event contribute to anxiety. A precise response to anxiety enables its mitigation.

11. The opinion is communication for the recipient but its systematic capture in the company database builds up dialogue. Dialogue fosters natural feedback as well as natural sharing of knowledge for trust.

12. The event and dialogue repositories develop as by-products. They can be independently searched for sense making, e.g., subject experts, processing bottlenecks, patterns, etc.

13. Replication technology, driven by the norms, synchronizes the interface with the corporate database for inter-location and offline operations and any breaks in connectivity.

14. The Figures 2, 3, & 4 illustrate the main screens of Waykm and their relationships.

FIGURE – 2: Smart interface Defined For Each Person

The categorization follows from event capture and Action taken. A person can hold multiple posts. An event space for the workflow of collaboration, shown in Figure-3, is defined for each event in the interface. The interface gives the message on sight for drill down.

FIGURE – 3: Event Workspace

Exists for each event in the smart interface of Figure-2. The applicable Action buttons are shown. The Action selected controls single or multiple selection of personnel who qualify. The screenshot shows Speak Action selected. On OK, the ‘Speak’ expectation is captured for interface classification (Figure-2) and opinion recorded both in the target interface and linked dialogue repository shown in Figure-4. Events are updated to the events repository (not shown), similar to the dialogue repository, on end of circulation.

FIGURE – 4: Dialogue Repository For Each Event

Linked to the workspace shown in Figure-3. Opinions are updated to the repository duly categorized. Administrators with the requisite security clearance may also update opinions directly to the repository. The string reflects evolution of opinion within and across communities. It is like a blog entry on an event with feedback that is fully categorized and available in the User’s secure workspace. It converts communication into 24x7 accessible sustained dialogue in context, i.e., perpetual collaboration, that can be searched.

◄ Comparison Of The Waykm Business Communication Paradigm

The following table, developed from actual results of department scale prototypes, verifies that the new Business Communication paradigm of Waykm overcomes the internal barriers for enterprise growth to induce a culture for excellence.

Feature	Old Business Communication Paradigm	The Waykm Business Communication Paradigm
Collaboration	Administrators responsible. Any knowledge sharing is acceptable as collaboration. No standards defined.	System conducts collaboration to deliver focused free flow of knowledge across boundaries anywhere/anytime/offline. Each event monitored and followed up.
Work entry point, Training, Adoption and Culture	An IT Culture is pre-requisite for success. No entry point defined. Requires advanced IT training. Incentives needed for adoption and knowledge sharing. Culture that breeds mistakes likely.	Only Dialogue skills needed. The smart interface is a natural work entry point. The marvelous work experience for the daily communication assures adoption* and induces a culture for shared meaning and intellectual enquiry. It fosters success.
Work assistance	Users must face spam, self-organize coding, security, check-in/out, the interface etc., synchronize Knowledge Maps and manage consensus.	No spam. Agents transfer select emails to the interface. It manages all knowledge work and maps to release administrator’s time and energy. It helps evolve thinking, direct purpose and shape values.