2008-03-20 Effective Support Knowledge -- KM <- -> User Communities

Effective Support Communities
Knowledge Management <--> User Communities

Attendees
8-10 attendees representing:
Apple Computer
Google
VMWare
Hewlett-Packard
Lithium
others

Agenda Topics
1) How do you define a community?
2) Are support communities viable?
3) Technology to implement?
4) Plug into existing communities?
5) How to build communities for support?
Success stories?
Failures?
Best practices?
Vendors?
6) How to balance authoritative reference material versus user-created content.
7) Social computing. levels of informality.
8) Video?

Discussion
1) How do you define a community?
a. Discussions in earlier sessions today have been mostly around communities of friends, users with similar interests, mobile, etc.
b. What about communities for support? Are support communities viable?
c. Which technologies can be used to implement a support community?
i. web: wiki, forums,
d. Comments:
"Support is not just technical support. Also, consider health and educational support".
Support may consist of:
1) trying to solve a problem
2) choosing a vendor
3) making a decision
Inquiring of others "I am having a problem with X, what is your suggestion to resolve?"

Apple Computer use-case
Apple has a community manager, and user-support communities are part of a KM organization.
Utilizing KCS (Knowledge Centered Support).
This relationship works well.

Knowledge is generated:
a) on the phone (KCS agent supported call).
b) in a community (forum threads).
Both of these cases generate useful knowledge which can be multipurposed and reused.

It has been seen that experts on a forum, tailor their answer to an audience's quesiton.
That is; forums give users a tailored answer.

Next, push to search.
the community was generating the fact.
provide a better search, for the cases we were doing.

What about wikis for support?
Wikis can be intimidating for novice users.
If you gave the ability for users to create documents. at least to get documents started.

wikis are good for generalized knowledge. more simple.
in our forums, we see more specific answers. For example, authors referring users to "go see this answer I wrote previously". Or, referring to specific KM articles. Then adding a note in the forum saying, "in your particular case, you need to go do these extra things".

Tribal Knowledge
VMWare is doing this. SAP has done it.
second life, has a scripting language for their virtual world.
let the user base write the doucmentation for you.

for example, php.net uses this model.
allow users to draft documentation, publish function references, and provide visible comments/examples.
Tribal knowledge allows users to rollup the better knowledge into finished documents.

Use forums to keep pulse on user community
Support forums may be used as a mechanism to see how your user-base is behaving, what their interests and key concerns are.

What about limiting the wiki data-entry to domain experts?
most important thing to do with a community, is to define who the most important people are.
create 10 of 11 variables to define who that person is.
how much time they spend on line.
how much replies they make.
they will be responsible for seeding the community.
e. Mobile communities?
f. Plugging into existing communities?
i. Is there value in exporting knowledge to seed existing support communities? e.g. ask.com, getsatisfaction.com, fixya.com? A so-called "supportapedia".

ii. Comments:
as long as google is able to troll message boards, yes, it is useful.
would need to direct you to the place where the knowledge exists.
not just a technical issue. lots of people face that.
in communities. webmd.

domain knowledge.
apple official support.

there is support out there, which happens outside of vendor websites.
and, good for them.

creating your support knowledge.
domain experts. less likely to buck your control.
what about cutting that loose. we don't care if you publish that somewhere else.
do you want to force people to go to yoru place to get that informaton.
do we let user community to support their content into their own language?

should we allow people to take information and allow us to take it and expand upon it?
answer was resounding no. liability. also brand knowledge. license agreement.

g. Thoughts on Opensocial? - making social network content available for everyone.
i. standarizaation of data format (not committee driven standard, google's suggestion).
ii. it is vaporware at this point, no one has done anything big using opensocial yet.
2) How to build communities for support?
are there success stories?
failure.
what are best practices.
vendors?
3) Video?
a. Thoughts on publishing video on google?
you are making a bet, that the external provided will stay in business, and not shift out from under you.
this may have been an issue when youtube was not owned by google. cause there are now a bajillion. video sites out there. but with google's funding, youtube should be entrenched for some time.

also, on an external site, how do you know the support advise is office/sanctioned?
one option: create an hp channel on youtube, for example.

Comments from a google employee:
was on gmail. they had videos. etc.
my big goal, was to get that integrated into the help center.
it is also different which direciton you are going.
if you see info, and say you are willing to own. that is ok.
and is different, than saying you have content, and are willing to let others vet it.
then, obvioiusly we would need to

feedthebot.com.
An external party who created excellent documentation.
he took the google guidelines, and explained it in a better way.
we were sometimes referring people to his website.
he established a reputation.
spectrum on who is creating the knowledge.
and what their relationship is with the organizaiton.
lawyers are always thinking what the lawyer is willing to defend.

4) Social computing. levels of informality. twittering.
a. Wuick support
a way of quickly getting support from a large number of people.
only people who have support, and not in the support business.

they could be connected to the community already.
in the educational community,
often, would have a message, I am having a meeting in an hour, help me with this.
only persons with long term relationships would respond.
if they were in a bind, they may not get an exact answer, but at least they would get something back.

onsite workforce.
how do you create an interface to create a question, get an answer. really cleanly.

example.
wife called me frantic one day because her flight was cancelled.
she was to be a part of her friends wedding that night, and feared she would miss the wedding.
she needed support.
I was able to call the airlines on her behalf, and arrange for a followup flight so she could make the reception.
these are the kind of quick support requests that can be important to fulfill. technology can help.

google 411.
google 411 search based answers. location. local business searches.
do something like that. but for support.
speak the question, and do it for support. IVR.

companies are doing search.
you call up, and it will search their predefined knowledge search.
is that text-to-speech?

e.g. call up and ask your question, and it will turn your speech into text.

flip it back out to the user.

5) Ask the experts
useful solution. but, expensive.
the usefulness in a support environment can be argued.
typically, user's will not want to ask the expert a simple question.
they want detailed help with their specific problem.

original idea. looking at many
or experts who are taking from a range of knowledge documents.

Ask the experts is best for advice, not product support.

although, it can be a motivator for people who are rising experts within a company.
"here, we will give you an hour consultation with so and so."
if they are valued member of comminity, then you have just given them more fuel.
and rewarded them.

6) acccess to message boards.
a. chat session with that expert.
b. or maybe, that person. is a
c. or have rising experts have access to that company.
d. other information. is

7) Authoritative reference material versus user-created content--how to balance?
a. It's all about trust.

ebay, for example, has lost conrol of its advocates. who used to be evangelists.
at some point. if customers are not happy with what it happening. they can turn on you.
that is the risk you run.
that if what they are saying to you, is not being listened to.
you will lose that trust.
and they can very quickly switch either way.

wrap back to what said earlier.
from a support community.
sort of pawned off the mobile thing.
if my laptop goes down. phone is the only way I can get support.
maybe it does not have to be immediately.
but, make it fairly easily to post a question on a forum. via mobile.
and get a response.
get a response. a reponse within 1 hour.

twitter.
has an ability to ask a question.
on the mobile.
a FAQ.
not in the faq.
was just an interface problem.
their regular problem had it.
their first thing ask the twitter community.
want to ask people who are interested in the support community.