Digital White Papers

35 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Expertise Location and Social Collaboration: Three Case Studies on a Winning Formula can jumpstart a firm's digital culture, opening the door to new business, meeting client expectations beer, reducing cost and improving service. VISHAL AGNIHOTRI Scaling Up a Knowledge-Sharing Culture with Social Collaboration A successful KM program rests on five pillars: Internal and external content management Tools and processes Change management Communications The firm's culture Successful adoption of any new tool within an enterprise depends on the tool's ease of use and the value it brings to the workflow. KM professionals are change agents who create the awareness, understanding and buy-in for new tools and processes that enhance productivity in our firms. Former chief knowledge officer of Akerman LLP, a leading transactions and trial law firm with core strengths in middle market mergers and acquisitions within the financial services and real estate industries and a diverse Latin America practice 1 2 3 4 5 The 2012 McKinsey report called "The Social Economy: Unlocking Value and Productivity Through Social Technologies" notes that, on average, knowledge workers spend nearly 20 percent of their work week looking for internal information or tracking down colleagues for help with tasks. Social collaboration platforms help scale up knowledge-sharing and internal expertise location, providing an advantage that might be difficult for competitors to mimic. As a nimble, collaborative approach, enterprise social collaboration builds trust, camaraderie and a knowledge-sharing culture. Akerman implemented Neudesic's The Firm Directory expertise locator and its social collaboration platform to address business needs emerging from rapid growth, geographical expansion into new markets, lateral hire integration and their interest in selling services across the firm. The combined platform connects employees with each other and with information, allowing practice group communities to engage in multifaceted conversations around common topics of interest –– a virtual water cooler where employees can learn more about the firm and each other's work. These online communities mimic traditional communities of practice, with discussions cuing across silos and geographical and hierarchical barriers to create environments ripe for just-in-time, peer- to-peer learning. The approach also builds out a searchable repository of discussion threads that can be referenced in the future, reducing repetitive question-answer loops while generating a self-curated q-and-a database. This aainable win-win requires implementing the correct tool, planning and executing an ongoing adoption plan, and a receptive leadership team to endorse and support the platform. VISHAL AGNIHOTRI Vishal is the Chief Knowledge Officer at Hinshaw & Culbertson. Previously, as the first chief knowledge officer of Akerman, she introduced knowledge management systems at the firm. Among other programs, Vishal led the rollout of a firmwide expertise location and social collaboration platform, which gained a strong and rapid adoption across the firm. Vishal has also held knowledge management leadership roles at KPMG and EY. Contact her at vagnihotri@hinshawlaw.com. VA

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