Using a wireless presentation system to engage subject matter experts.

Those organisation’s looking to prosper in the information age recognise the importance of collecting, assessing and utilising all available expertise. Each person brings to the table his or her own skill set which can be used to contribute to the overall success of a given body of work.

At smaller companies, tapping into this skillset is relatively easy; indeed it might be a case of walking across the room to speak to a colleague. However, as organisations grow, many struggle with how best to replace personal knowledge of ‘who knows what’ with an effective organisational system of finding and utilising subject matter experts.

In this post, we’ll look at why organisations need subject matter experts; how to identify experts and how you can use technology, like wireless presentation systems, to involve them.

Why You Need Subject Matter Experts

There are many reasons why you might need to find a subject matter expert.

• Finding people to work on new markets/products.
• Help on a strategic level, say members of planning team that can help in identifying gaps in knowledge which should be core to your company.
• A sales person that lacks technical expertise and in-depth knowledge to address a specific client requirement.
• Succession Planning. Help to identify the impact of losing an employee in a given area would have – are there others with similar knowledge that can assist?
• Research expertise, for example working with people who have interacted with a certain product/project.
• For legal assistance, for example help from someone in the legal team that have expertise in patent law.

The Traits of an Expert

While many in an organisation could feasibly claim to be an “expert”, there is some guidance that can help you identify what an expert might look like.

• Trustworthiness: How trusted is the expert? Look out for responses, like comments, retweets and likes, to articles they have written.
• Extent of Knowledge: examine too the number of blogs/whitepapers the person has created.
• Communications Skills: what is the quality of those articles? Well written or shoddy? Does the person speak frequently on particular subject matter?
• Experience: How long has the person been doing it for?
• How current is the Knowledge: Look at the most recent postings on a given topic.

Involving & Utilising Experts

Before involving experts, a key part of the process is documenting some form of profile of individuals in order to later compare it against expertise. An example here might be an internal social media page that profiles each expert detailing subject areas and level of expertise.

It’s after this profiling that technology plays a crucial part in the utilising these experts. Below are just ways organisations can do this.

Learning Management Systems

Typically social, learning management systems are applications for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of courses or training programs.

In many of today’s LMSs you find areas specifically for experts. Usually these will be messaging threads with specific subject areas with pre-assigned experts for each thread.

Company Intranet

One of the other ways organisations can use technology to identify, encourage and promote subject experts from across their organisation is via a company intranet. Using video or written blogs individuals are encouraged to share their insights into what they do and how this contributes to the objectives of the business. Sharing this information not only enables departments to gain a greater understanding of what others are doing it also helps retain knowledge within the business. Innovations or best practices are encouraged and new starters benefit from the experiences of others – getting them up to speed quickly.

Wireless Presentation Systems

There are many times when you need an expert right there with you, if not physically then definitely virtually. Take the example of contract negotiations in a meeting room that needed the in-room team to reach out to an expert in, say, contract law. It’s pretty easy nowadays to bring that person in using standard video conferencing tools. What’s not so easy is when you need that person to also present live content to those in the room and to get that content up on the main screen for everyone to see and follow along with.

It’s here that you’ll need a wireless presentation system that combines communication tools like video and voice call with that ability to join and present live content to the room.

Training Days

Utilising the subject matter expert is not just a one way street. Often the experts will lead the line by organising events, compiling support materials and running training sessions. Take this resume entry as an example of that proactive approach

“Supported the sales process by conducting presentations to brokers and clients on the subject of absence management which led to the successful sale of the offering to 15 employer groups and more than 100,000 employees between June, 2015 and October, 2015.”

Source: http://www.jobhero.com/resume-samples/subject-matter-expert

To see how Montage can help you use a wireless presentation system to connect with and utilise subject area experts, you can organise a demo below.

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