Technology as Partner (not Product) in Knowledge Work

I have a confession.

In my more than 25 years doing knowledge work, I have often experienced technology platforms through a love/frustration lens. I truly believe that I can do more and do it better if I have the “right” tech solution. However, more often, I find myself struggling with a product that is misaligned for my desires and idealism. I have been brought to tears trying to figure out what was wrong with me and why I couldn’t “get it”—a software program, an app, a data platform—or couldn’t get it to do what I needed it to do.

Or at least that is how it used to be until I realized that technology is not just a product. It is really about partnership.

Just as we consider alignment of values, philosophy, and ways of doing things in a human partnership, so too must we address technology with all these in mind. Most importantly, focusing on technology alignment takes knowing what you need AND how and why you need it in a certain way.

Where to Start

First, I need to confirm that I am going beyond basic tracking and reporting and shifting to knowledge work. There are so many names and titles today that relate to knowledge work. The list is long and includes roles like information technology, evaluation, grants analysis, learning and change, systems management, and more.

Across these titles, those who are doing knowledge work are increasingly embracing the belief that knowledge work is all about shared meaning making. This is what makes our knowledge activities more than basic tracking of inputs and outputs.

How can grants professionals who are doing knowledge work focus on tech alignment in this vast arena of titles, approaches, and methodologies?

Focusing on Tech Alignment

If you are a grants professional with knowledge responsibilities, it is important to be able to articulate the purpose or framing of your knowledge approach or activity. This means stating your intentions, which might be to document or show the many different strategies used by teachers to engage teenagers in health stress management. You might want to illuminate the various public perspectives around homelessness in a specific region. You might seek to explore the various factors that are causing a reduction in the bird population near a reservoir. You may be tasked with demonstrating the value of policy initiatives targeting underage vaping.    

Once you have established your overall purpose for a knowledge approach or activity, chances are that you are also working with a combination of the following components:

• Crafting and asking questions
• Collecting and managing information that has become data
• Analyzing data in ways that connect to foundation programs, grant strategy, and funding relationships
• Engaging people—inside or outside your foundation—with questions, data and/or analysis

When we are in the space of knowledge work, we need to attend to questions, data, analysis and engagement, not as linear but as linked and interconnected. It is crucial to identify the ways in which a tech solution not only supports each of these but allows us to connect them together.

Tech Structure

Tech solutions each have a structure along with formats and tools to address each of our activities:

• Types of questions that can be incorporated
• How data points are collected, stored, and managed
• Possibilities of analysis and how multiple data points can be viewed in connection
• How various users can together work with the data and analysis

When we are exploring a tech solution, it is important to decipher if it aligns—or can be tweaked to align—with our intentions around questions, data, analysis, and engagement. A platform may have an amazing selection of question types—open ended, multiple choice, short answer, long answer, etc. However, it may be difficult to code the responses. Software may enable you to capture a vast array of single data points but the process for pulling together data points might be cumbersome. 

The most useful tip for addressing alignment is to actually enter the tech conversation with a discussion of the desired analysis.

Technology Is a Knowledge Design Issue

Alignment with your technology solution is about building a relationship with your vendor. This starts not with the tool but with shared knowledge perspectives, which means it’s all about analysis. Once you have shared your knowledge purpose the conversation must quickly move to analysis even before questions and data.

This may seem counterintuitive because the assumed research sequence at the core of knowledge activities proceeds from asking questions to collecting data to analyzing data points and to analysis. It also might feel strange to vendors who tend to focus on demonstrating the newest platform features and the best ways to tackle tasks and activities. 

However, this point is crucial: analysis is at the heart of developing a strong partnership because tech alignment is overwhelmingly a knowledge design issue, not a knowledge activity issue.

Beginning the Tech Conversation

When starting or revisiting your relationship with a specific technology vendor, ask these six questions of your analysis first and then of the tech solution itself: 

1. What is your intention for making meaning that is embedded in your framing purpose? For example, is it an example to document, illuminate, explore or demonstrate value? Does the technology vendor resonate with this intention? Are there examples of vendor partners who have utilized the technology in this way?

2. What are your beliefs about the best analysis approach that supports shared making meaning? Can numbers stand alone? Is lived experience relevant? Does geographic location and context matter and in what ways? Does the tech solution enable bringing multiple data points together? How easy is it to bring different types of data points together or explore data points from across time or across grantees and programs? 

3. What types of questions do you need to elicit the right data for your analysis? Are numbers or short answers enough? Do you need ways to ask for longer descriptions and perspectives? Is it important to ask questions that allow participants to self-identify? Does the platform provide space for long text and how much? How easy is it to work with video? Does the tech solution allow for multiple choice questions with an option to add a category? 

4. How do you maximize textual responses beyond counting words? Are you seeking to explore the language that people use and how their perspectives change over time? Does the platform enable content searching, coding of text, and text displays? Is it easy to query data for analysis across grantees and programs?

5. How will you be engaging various participants in the question development, data collection, and data analysis? Are there confidentiality issues that need addressing and privacy protections required? Is the vendor versed in the needed safeguards around confidentiality, anonymity, and knowledge ethics in its collaborative tools? Can the platform’s settings allow for the necessary permissions across data input, data sharing, data analysis?   

6. What graphic representations will best support your analysis process—not just graphics for reporting? Can you visualize single and multiple data points in the ways that matter, such as participant counts that can be plotted on a map and connected to themes from open-ended responses linked to specific locations. 

I recently reached out to a number of grantmaking software vendors and was pleasantly surprised at how receptive they were to having a conversation about analysis. Some were a bit surprised at first but once I explained why I thought analysis was the most important first step, most seemed genuinely excited to be engaged in this conversation and to be deepening the conversation of how their software could contribute to the essence of knowledge work.

Being in Partnership

The knowledge work of grants professionals and the relationships with technology vendors is key to, together, building more effective systems to meet the challenges and opportunities of grantmaking. Grants professionals are in a key role to encourage discussions about both the importance of knowledge work within the sector and the relevance of technology alignment. Building relationships grounded in shared meaning-making can strengthen the sector. Focusing on analysis first is the key to unlocking this potential.

Understanding the true needs of your organization is a crucial part of building strong relationships with technology vendors. Check out our guide, “Determining What Your Organization Needs from Your Grant Management System” to help you start that conversation.