This is the first in a new AOK series featuring the known practices of knowledge champions who are not consultants or gurus, but quiet, unassuming knowledge professionals who are "just doing it" for their organizations. The first Leading Lights are being selected from among the 45 breakout speakers who presented at the March 13-15 AOK/Delphi Group Enterprise Learning and Knowledge Exchange Summit in Palm Springs, California, U.S.

An interview with John Gregory
Information Architect
United States Postal Service

At USPS, Walking the KM Talk Requires
Courage, Persistence and Perseverance

By Fred Schoeps
AOK Leading Lights Reporter

Those going to the Enterprise Learning and Knowledge Exchange Summit in March will hear about "Portal Delivery of Market and Competitive Intelligence" from John Gregory who is our premier Leading Lights guest.

Passionate about the power of portals to empower communities of professionals, John is at the forefront in making the Intranet real for marketing and sales professionals at the US Postal Service.

John specializes in online information retrieval. He has set up systems for government agencies, universities, foundations and corporations. John typifies emerging knowledge workers who by blending disciplines create new opportunity. He brings together marketing, information architecture and project management along with a masters in library and information science.

At the conference John will share the specifics of the "USPS MarketTalks" serving the marketing and sales community of thousands within the US Postal Service. For our interview, John shares with us how he is making a difference.

AOK: If you were to provide a thumbnail sketch of yourself -- who is John Gregory -- how would you describe yourself?

JG: The trite phase is "information architect" as it was invented by Richard Saul Wurman. That is what I have been doing while at the Postal Service along with competitive intelligence and market research . . . classical research such as surveys, focus groups, etc. My primary responsibility has been to capture the knowledge the postal service has about what it does and what the needs of its customers are. We've gone from a roomful of words all in hardcopy to an entire electronic utility that is an essential part of the workflow -- written into the process steps in the process documents.

AOK: Give me an example of how the folks at the USPS benefit from the work you've done.

JG: Every time you change postal rates it has to go through the Board of Governors and the Postal Commission and ties up tons of people -- legal and otherwise -- and consumes tons of information. MarketTracks, our marketing and sales portal, has revolutionized our ability to support rate type of decision-making.

AOK: so you have at your fingertips information in context as never before?

JG: Absolutely . . . we have information in context -- we can pull it out and support our decisions through information . . . it makes everyone's life easier.

AOK: Who has access to MarketTracks?

JG: There are over three thousand people who do marketing and sales across the country -- in the field, in regions, at headquarters -- in smaller locations this may be the postmaster himself. Some of our people manage large accounts, e.g., major catalog companies -- each needs information about their customer and the industry. It's about how do we do things better for our customers. These three thousand form the core users. Others who use it are, e.g., senior managers who examine what the competition is up to.

We are sharing across six time zones -- right at the desktop. The cash register is a PC and is connected to the Intranet.

AOK: So the person serving me at the post office where I bought some Santa Claus stamps has access?

JG: Yes . . . they do need to register and some sensitive information is not available to everyone. If you are in a tiny post office and the postmaster is asking himself how many Christmas stamps do I want to get here -- you can at least get a feel for what is popular. This is always an issue -- we know for example that the lunar New Year stamp was a big seller -- something we would never have guessed.

AOK: What would happen if the portal were turned off tomorrow?

JG: My phone would ring off the hook. It's part of how marketing and sales folks work. There is a woman who had two of our major clients -- she wanted to know about direct mail as it relates to them . . . all of which is available on MarketTalks. Others want to know about their competitors. In areas such as small business -- we answer questions such as where are they located . . . the local folks need to know that. Without the portal those kinds of things would grind to a halt . . . and 'let's just hold our own' thinking takes over -- and of course if you are doing that you are dead.

AOK: It sounds like there has been a shift in how people spend their time and how you use your time in working with the community?

JG: Yes . . . it goes downstream.

AOK: How do you work with your folks who are out there?

JG: That is developing. We did focus groups. We also get feedback from folks in the field telling us they need this kind of information. We are currently allowing for more personalization of the portal. We are using a portal product that allows the user to select what they want to see. We are in eight different businesses. That is how postal people see themselves. They want to see just what they want to see. Today they pick just what they want. The next step will be e-mail notification because people said that is what they wanted.

AOK: John, I understand you also manage resources as they relate to the marketing and sales community -- among your various roles you are MarketTalks project manager. Talk to us about that role.

JG: Yes. There are limited resources and we sort through what folks need regarding news and information feeds. Daily feeds are just not needed most of the time. It's hard to avoid that because that is what the providers are pushing. We built profiles for limited feeds to address our real needs. We find that many things are infinitely less expensive using such services as Dialog. We pick and choose what we can afford.

AOK: What are real issues that you are wrestling with today regarding knowledge management?

JG: Money; today my system supports knowledge management. Others are in the works, however, on hold particularly as it relates to IS supported activities. Need to keep hardware capabilities in mind; how do we keep up without spending a lot of money. How do we off-load services; load-sharing?

Near term we are going to have to do with what we have -- when the business is experiencing hard times everyone does without.

AOK: Realizing you are under severe financial constraints at the moment -- what else could you do?

JG: We certainly could do communities of practice. To set these up with our users is certainly the next thing and it will require time. And at this time we are constrained.

AOK: Is there a network of folks that share your perspective on knowledge management?

JG: There is a group of 12 people who are part of competitive intelligence who recognize the issues, and we talk. They are not in IS; that's ok. At the same time IS needs to be there as well. We are in the business where information is as important as the physical object that we are moving around.

AOK: One of the points you will be making in your presentation is the importance of taxonomy in context of the business -- the language of how a business does work.

What was one of your biggest challenges over the years in making the portal real?

JG: Postal language. The portal has to reflect our people's language. The real challenge was that our people are in stovepipes -- in their own businesses. The key question was: How do we make it real for them? The portal reflects the language of their businesses. How to get a grip on what we knew in terms of their business concepts -- those concepts are what is real for them. You had to know, e.g., that standard B is parcel post. The portal needed to reflect their world and the way they saw it -- and many of these people physically are apart with vast distances between them. Now it's on their desktop. Their desktop could be focused literally on 'packages' and all the knowledge related to that concept.

It's also important to continuously follow these concepts and take into account that things come up and disappear -- our 'money order' business has changed tremendously. A temporary workforce exists now which we didn't have before. These are not traditional immigrants. This requires new knowledge about how to serve folks with money orders. There is knowledge to be shared about who and how immigrants and transitory workers send back money to their families.

AOK: You worked four years to make the portal real. What was the biggest obstacle that you had to overcome?

JG: Explaining to people how (the portal) could work. Explaining to people who don't do the jobs out in the field the value of information. Explaining the value to people decision makers who don't use the information.

AOK: What did you find that worked for you in this regard?

JG: The ability to show it one on one. They usually get it pretty quickly -- even if they don't use it -- they do understand then that the people who have the real needs will be able to fulfill them.

AOK: Did you do a mockup?

JG: Actually we were able to roll it out pretty quick; decision makers actually saw a live version; we also did Betas and could show them a Beta -- to show them (the power of what we were doing) before we plucked down the cash with our vendors. Beta testing gave us a real advantage in terms of pricing with those whom we did Beta tests. The experience you gain is invaluable.

AOK: What kind of advice would you give the folks who don't know what they don't know?

JG: It's getting hard; everybody's travel budget is being cut; I learned a ton from others at conferences where we shared very quickly what everyone was doing. Now those who took part in the first wave of conferences don't need to go and therefore the next group doesn't gain the benefits from their experiences.

(AOK: At this point John transitioned into overemphasis of ROI)

JG: Mantra now is ROI . . . this is kind of bogus. Trying to say how red is red. There are certain things you do and you don't worry about justifying. What's the ROI on e-mail? Oh please!

AOK: John, in your case, could you turn back the clock?

JG: It would be impossible; it would be a train wreck because right away we would have to do things the hard way. The day we stop this will be the day we stop knowing what we know.

This is an area very hard to communicate -- the power of the portal. Folks are just not getting this stuff via business conferences -- because of the lack of conferences, two user groups -- those already deployed and those who didn't have a clue -- aren't sharing vital knowledge. Four conferences in a row have been cancelled . . . training and travel have been cut -- and that pretty much cuts you off from the rest of the world. Because of the Miami conference at which I spoke, I met a guy who was working on one of the largest Intranets in the world which was invaluable to me.

AOK: Thanks for sharing with us, John.

John Gregory labels himself 'information architect'. John is much more. John is about transforming how US Postal Service marketing and sales people work in context of information and knowledge available to them electronically. By blending disciplines -- project management, information and library science, marketing research -- John is one of the growing ranks of knowledge workers who are profoundly changing how communities of professionals do work.

John reaffirms that walking the KM talk requires courage, persistence and perseverance.

John Gregory is making a difference.

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