Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)

The following are question and answers about KnowledgeKeeper and OpCon Technologies, Inc. (www.opcontech.com). OpCon is located in San Francisco, California and maintains a sales office in Houston Texas. The company has developed an innovative approach, known as KnowledgeKeeper®, for rapidly and seamlessly capturing and transferring knowledge within corporations. The KnowledgeKeeper® approach combines easy to use Flip hand-held and Looxcie hands-free video cameras, a fully hosted service for sharing the user generated content and as needed knowledge facilitator services for the client.

Q: Why would a company want to use KnowledgeKeeper instead of traditional methods?

KnowledgeKeeper's user generated model for video documentation enables corporations and their employees not only to be able to rapidly transfer operational knowledge but also to be able to answer these questions:

• Is everyone following the procedure?
• Is the procedure correct or are there gaps?
• Was I effective? (did not forget, or technically drift)
• Was I distracted?
• How can the procedure and process be improved?

KnowledgeKeeper also provides insight into the problem solving process that was used.

Q: What is the relationship between OpCon Technologies and KnowledgeKeeper?

KnowledgeKeeper is a software product that was developed by OpCon Technologies Inc. OpCon markets KnowledgeKeeper to power, water and energy companies. OpCon also provides services to help these companies get the maximum value out of the KnowledgeKeeper product.

Q: After We Purchase a KnoweldgeKeeper Subscription How do We Get Started?

After receipt of payment OpCon will initiate a 90 day pilot process that begins with the new client coordinator. The new client coordinator will layout the first 90 days from pilot setup, through KnowledgeKeeper training, KnowledgeCAM training as well as the first template videos.

Q: Using an asset-based field example, explain the entire KnowledgeKeeper process from information capture, through editing, storage and sharing?

A typical field example would be a grouping of valves that are 50 miles away from the nearest operation center. The operations center monitors the status and flow through the valves but because of local risks a Field Operator must always go out to the location to make sequential changes to the valve grouping including even things as simple as opening and closing the valves. The field operator has over 30 years of operational knowledge at this location which needs to be preserved and also passed on to a group of field operators who are going to share the task going forward.

In this case the customer used as-needed Knowledge Facilitator services from OpCon to work with the Field Operator and one of the customer’s Field Engineers to establish a few “video templates”. OpCon’s Knowledge Facilitator also taught the Field Operator how to make and upload “knowledge quality videos” using the shirt pocket sized camcorders that are distributed to KnowledgeKeeper persons. The Field Operator and one of the customer’s Field Engineer’s captured and made simple edits to the videos.

The videos were then uploaded to the customer’s KnowledgeKeeper site for Supervisor approval. After the supervisor approved the content of the videos they were released for companywide viewing. The next month KnowledgeKeeper started to feature each of the videos in an automatic monthly e-mail newsletter to all of the customer’s employees who are registered KnowledgeKeeper persons.

The first of these “template videos” were successful and now the Field Operator is making more videos when he sees opportunities to capture and share things that he knows are important to his successors. The Field Operator is also “video documenting” some tasks so that if these tasks were to be later audited he would have a video trail in his KnowledgeKeeper profile. Finally, along with these videos he is also attaching Key Documents to his KnowledgeKeeper profile that list the materials and the steps of the procedures that he is video documenting.

Q: Does the stored information reside on the client’s server or on the KnowledgeKeeper server?

All content is owned by the customer and this all resides in the KnowledgeKeeper servers. The KnowledgeKeeper application and servers are similar to a bank. The idea is to get the customer to “bank their operational knowledge”. OpCon then uses KnowledgeKeeper to preserve the value of that knowledge for the customer and even grow the value of that knowledge for the customer.

Q: Who owns this knowledge (content)?

Each customer retains sole ownership of all of its respective knowledge (content). The customer can remove their knowledge (videos, transcriptions, faq's and other knoweldge points) from thier respective KnowledgeKeeper bank at any time.

Q: If the content is proprietary, how does OpCon maintain the security of this information?

OpCon considers all content proprietary and treats the customer’s banked Knowledge the same way that a bank manages a customer’s bank account. OpCon maintains complete control over the content in its servers. The only persons in OpCon who can “handle” the customer’s knowledge are OpCon employees. All OpCon employees have strict employee agreements that clearly spell out that any single customer’s knowledge is never to be shared without written approval from the customer.

At the automated level each KnowledgeKeeper account includes a tracking system which manages all of the changes to the customer’s knowledge. The customer can log into the tracking system and see all changes made to all of the content in their KnowledgeKeeper account.

At the hardware level OpCon uses certified data centers that are manned 24/7 with secured access to the servers. The data centers are mirrored between the East and West coast of the United States. This redundancy not only ensures a 99.9% availability but protects against data loss. OpCon has never lost any customer data.

Finally, at the network level OpCon uses a separate monitoring system to manage server uptime, employs an intrusion system to watch for network threats and encrypts all transactions from the server to the customer's device on which they are watching the videos.

Q: Are the KnowledgeCAM's Intrinsically Safe?

None of the KnoweldgeCams are "certified" as intrinsically safe. Normally OpCon considers these to operate the same as cell phones in a hazardous enviromment.

• It takes a couple of years to certify and get the rating. Meanwhile product life cycle of the video cameras is 9-12 months.
• For true Class 1, Div 1, EX rated zones and hazardous environments OpCon offers a special KnowledgeCAM that is certified as intrinsically safe, the PIXAVI EX4000. However, relative to our normal Hand Held Flip, PlaySport and our Hands Free LooxcieCAM ($219) the EX4000 is expensive - $5,800.

Q: How do I make sure the files uploaded ok before I delete them from my KnowledgeCAM?

The best practice is not to delete any files until you watch and approve the KnowledgeKeeper video. When you finish sucessfully uploading your files a message will appear on the screen saying "You have sucessfully uploaded [No] files to [your company] KnoledgeKeeper. A short time later you will receive an e-mail informing you that your video has finished processing and is now ready for your review. If you are satisfied with your video you can approve by replying to the the approval e-mail. At that point it is safe to delete your uploaded clips from your camera because you have watched the assembled product. The clips that you uploaded are maintained in KnowledgeKeeper as your masters. Your master clips can be downloaded if you desire to edit and re-upload a new version.

Q: I see the KnowledgeCAM makes .MP4 video files. What are the other .THM files?

Those are thumbnail pictures that the KnowledgeCAM makes and uses for grahically show you each clip when you are playing the clips back on the KnowledgeCAM. The camera uses them but they are not needed for KnowledgeKeeper which creates it's own thumnails when your video is processed.

Q: Does the capture and archiving of the knowledge (video content) anticipate future changes in technology that might allow other methods for sharing the information?

This is an excellent question. Many prospective customers think they should wait a little longer for video technology to mature. Meanwhile operational knowledge is walking right out the door or just plain being forgotton as the company undergoes bouts of “corporate amnesia”. We strongly believe that every company (wheather they use KnoweldgeKeeper or not) must start banking thie operational knowledge today. Do not wait. Get employees to make video deposits into a library of operational knowledge early. The earlier the better. As the world moves toward 2020 it is going to get easier and easier to share the knowledge in that library and even put that knowledge to work in ways that cannot even be imagined today.

Q: Within the upstream petroleum industry there is asset based information as well as information associated with best practices and other processes. For example, there is a difference between capturing the knowledge associated with maintaining a pump or a piece of field equipment versus the knowledge associated with how to interpret a display of seismic information of a prospective oil field. Can KnowledgeKeeper be also used for best practices and other processes?

At OpCon we believe strongly in best practices right down to the old fashioned laminated check list. Check lists can be asset based. For example, airports and pilots use best practices and checklists all the time. But they don’t have to be asset based. For example, checklists are now making an entry into the operating room for surgeons.

The point is use the right tool for the right job. A checklist is a powerful tool for the seasoned field technician but not for the newly trained up rookie. A video with live examples of things going wrong showing why the checklist got changed quickly transfers or “translates” veteran experience to not just one but all of the field technicians. To answer the question, yes video used correctly to “supplement” best practices and processes is one of several uses for which KnowledgeKeeper is intended.

Q: What are some examples of things that KnowledgeKeeper is not intended for?

KnowledgeKeeper is an operations tool for staff to collaborate and exchange or transfer knowledge quickly. Faster than writing it down. So it is not a training tool nor is it a certification tool for certifying persons who will be doing repetitive or dangerous tasks. Training should be done by trainers in the classroom environment and certification should be done by testing or online using a Learning Management System (LMS) to ensure that the person has acquired the fundamental knowledge

Q: If KnowledgeKeeper is not a Learning Management System then what is it?

It is a Field Library. You learn in a classroom environment but you study in the library and grow experience in the field. KnowledgeKeeper is a library of field knowledge generated by persons while they are working or troublshooting in the field. Newly trained persons can go use KnowledgeKeeper to rapidly expand their knowledge. They use the arsenal of live operations stored in KnowledgeKeeper to speed up the development of becoming competent in uncertain situations for which there is no recipe, no procedure and often no right answer that can be written down in a test.

As they get seniority and those “once a month” opportunities to learn something new on the job come up, they capture them and give back by adding to the library of knowledge. They get recognition for all of this because these knowledge items they have captured for the company are in their profile. This is all done informally outside of the classroom or training room environment. The most important thing is that KnowledgeKeeper contains live ops knowledge – war footage so to speak.

Q: KnowledgeKeeper is already successfully deployed in the utility industry. Within these reference customers, who are the early adopters – the younger employees or the older employees or is there any difference between these two age groups?

Certainly the younger employees don’t view the laptop or having to use passwords as a barrier to transferring knowledge. However, the younger employees don’t have the necessity to transfer the operational knowledge that the older employees do.

So the older employees are more open and want to find ways to transfer knowledge but the computer is a bit of a barrier relative to just telling somebody or showing them. The best situation that may be emerging is a younger employee armed with the camcorder and the computer capturing it all from the older employee and banking it into the KnowledgeKeeper to re-learn what they missed or already forgot that day and to show others.

Why would a company use "The Cloud" to video capture and rapidly transfer their knowledge, their DNA?

The "Technology" do to this is more than just intellectual property in a software application. The intellectual property that is used to accomplish this in the cloud could be licensed and run internally on a company's servers. However, from a hardware perspective it is not practical or efficient.

Today you are talking about 10-30 minutes of video per week per employee to knowledge doucment what they do. As companies move toward "total recall while you work" with every employee capturing as much as 40 hours a week of on-the-job video, then in terms of storage, rigorous backup, availability, the massive computing power required for accurate transcription and to run the analytics, the ability to elastically scale and turn on additional servers to be able to handle periods of high usage.....a company simply can not efficiently own that much computing power inside of it's firewall. OpCon itself rely's on the cloud for most of it's scalable server resources.

Companies need to stop spending resources on internal server computing power and instead focus on powerful, scalable cloud software applications that yield continuous improvement. Companies need to invest in high speed network infrastructures that are needed to deliver those applications to every employee's mobile device securely no matter where that device is.

Back on the application side, Companies are finding it harder and harder to keep up with the speed at which technology evolves, especially keeping pace with new video technologies and mobile platforms. Having a cloud provider take care of that means they can take advantage of the latest developments as they become available without having to recruit and nurture these complex technical skills in-house.

Q: When we store videos in KnowledgeKeeper, and people access the video, is a count of “hits” available for each video?

Included with every KnowledgeKeeper subscription is a monthly usage report to the Authorizing Person on the client account. This report shows who is using and watching the videos. OpCon also tracks the hits on every individual video as well as the minutes viewed and engagement (how much or how long). Currently these are internal metrics but OpCon will be making these metrics available to the client in the near future.

Q: Are There any Metrics that Show KnowledgeKeeper Improves Operational Performance?

Every KnowledgeKeeper customer has realized cost savings that far exceed the cost of the KnowledgeKeeper tool. However a more methodical approach that uses client metrics (e.g. CADI numbers in electric ops) is always welcome.

Since a KnowledgeKeeper subscription is theoretically improving operational excellence - do it right the first time, do it right every time, one of the things OpCon clients expect to improve their operational reliability.
Why? - because now co-workers and line managers are using video to communicate previously unwritten, or "trapped" things:

• that the procedure has no gaps.
• that the procedure was followed correctly
• that the person is effective (did not forget, or technically drift)
• that the person was not distracted
• that the process can be improved

If you look closely at the criteria above you can see it is not a training issue, it is an ops issue - communication to-from the field. So performance metrics like CADI should start to show improvements first.

Safety metrics are slower. But obviously if you are more knowledgeable about what you are doing and what the other guys doing then safety should improve. Video also enables line managers to better assess and be more effective at risk analysis for a given procedure. Typically 1 in 30 videos will result in the identification of a significant risk reduction.

Cost metrics are sporadic but they pop up from time to time with significant cost savings as a result of doing things more efficiently. Typically 1 in 100 videos will result in the identification of a significant cost savings.

Fun Stuff

• Video Benchmarking
• Video Auditing
• Video Documenting

• Human Performance
• HSE
• Uer Generated Video Procedures

• Operational Risk Reduction
• Remote Field Operations
• Competitive Advantage