Euan Semple

Euan has left the BBC.  This news came in the same week that the Financial Times published a nice feature highlighting his good work there.  That article ends with the tag line,

“I’m solving problems most companies don’t even know they have.”

There’s a story behind this separation and I hope Euan can bring himself to share the gory details.  What must it have been like to head up knowledge management for the Beeb, eschewing the seven figure solutions for low cost blog and wiki alternatives?  What must the big guns in IT have thought, the people who measure their success by how much their budget increases annually?  What will happen to the 3,500 or so people who are served by the KM solutions Euan has shepherded during his tenure?

Update:  Euan corrects the material I referenced from the Financial Times.  He says,

… ironically given it was the FT, the figures were
incorrect! There are actually 13,000 staff using our forums, 1800 using
our wikis and 200 or so blogging. The 3,500 refers to a mailing list
and not to the Adobe interest group as the article suggests.

Here at Sandhill, a somewhat smaller operation than the Beeb, we were prepared to be wickedly impressed by a program with an impact on as many as three thousand users.  To draw over 13,000 people directly into internal corporate conversation is monumental.  Congratulations Euan!