This interview is with Lydia Valentine, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Cohort XIII LLC.

Lydia Valentine, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Cohort XIII LLC

Lydia, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you became an expert in knowledge management tools, particularly within the context of employee benefits?

My path to becoming an expert in knowledge-management tools started pretty organically. I was always fascinated by how information is organized and accessed, especially in critical fields like military operations, where timely access to accurate information can be a game-changer. Over the years, I kind of carved out a niche for myself by focusing on how to streamline these processes and improve decision-making through better data management. The turning point came when I realized that many of the existing tools were too cumbersome or generic to meet the specific needs of Army leaders. That's when I founded Cohort XIII.

What were some of the key moments in your career that solidified your passion for optimizing knowledge sharing in this field?

A turning point was a RAND report that showed senior executives were working close to 12.5 hours a day due to a lack of technical capacity. That resonated. It was sad to see committed executives getting stuck with unnecessary inefficiencies that could have been eliminated. This is the very initial vision for Cohort XIII—to create systems that save time and improve the performance of these leaders. Then, as we moved on further with this project, another defining moment was when we began getting feedback from junior managers who implemented our tools. It brought the impact of our work to my ears when they said they were able to get more time to work with their teams instead of having to work through the cumbersome systems. The experience of seeing our tools working, if not helping the daily life of these leaders, has been extraordinarily satisfying. That has been a constant motivation at Cohort XIII to continue refining and scaling our products to help them better support their business and support their key stakeholders, their people.

Many benefits professionals struggle with organizing and accessing the vast amount of information they handle daily. What are some common mistakes you've observed when it comes to knowledge management in this area?

One common oversight I’ve seen is using outdated methods or equipment for information storage and retrieval. It's surprising how many people are still relying on spreadsheets, or even file folders, with data being hard to find and even harder to update. That doesn’t just slow it down, but it increases the probability of errors, which is not good when you’re transferring critical benefits data. Their other glaring error is not implementing categorization and search capabilities on their knowledge-management systems. Information that doesn’t make sense or is slow to find can be time-consuming and frustrating. Cohort XIII supports and develops products with easy-to-categorize and advanced search. It’s making sure information not only gets stored, but is quickly accessible to help get a decision right. It’s about getting the information that needs to be reached at the right time to the right people without undue drama.

Based on your experience, what's the single most impactful step a benefits professional can take to improve their knowledge management practices?

If there is one action that can be the most effective way a benefits professional can increase their knowledge management, it’s digital transformation. I mean, it really does change when you go from manual systems to an integrated digital platform. It’s not just digitizing the record but using technology to make it more active. It is now faster to get real-time updates, more accurate information, and, importantly, data is much more readily available and accessible across the teams.

A little insider tip too: always start with a good data architecture. If you digitize all your data, that’s one thing, but if you don’t format it properly, you’ll end up with an electronic shitstorm rather than a file-cabinet disaster. At Cohort XIII, we work to develop platforms that not only keep data but render it usable with intuitive interfaces and powerful search capabilities.

How can these tools, or similar ones, be specifically tailored to manage benefits information effectively?

They’re super versatile, and you can customize them to handle benefits data quite well. Okay, so you have this Trello thing. You can create boards for benefits categories, such as medical, retirement, and paid time off. Each card on these boards might indicate a policy or a regular question, with information and updates recorded as notes. This setup also ensures that things remain organized while making it super-simple to update data in real time (important when it comes to managing fluctuating benefits).

Security is paramount when handling sensitive employee data. What knowledge management practices can help benefits professionals maintain confidentiality and compliance?

One best practice is making sure that all knowledge systems have strong access control. This involves creating strict user roles to limit who is able to see/edit data. You may, for instance, have HR managers who are the only ones that have access to salary records, and general HR staff that can only see more non-sensitive information, such as training documents. It’s a matter of compartmentalizing so that information can be distributed only to those who really need it. A second is periodic audits and security inspections of your systems. And that isn’t just about checking boxes, it’s about looking for anything you can exploit. Performing security audits often will uncover issues before they develop into a headache, and being compliant with industry data standards will not only keep you up to speed but also offer a stronghold over the data you have at stake.

Looking towards the future, what emerging trends in knowledge management technology excite you most, especially regarding their potential impact on the benefits landscape?

Blockchain technology! It is revolutionary how blockchain can bring security and transparency to knowledge-based platforms. We are talking about decentralized, auditable archives to handle confidential data. Blockchain might allow the defense industry, where safety is a requirement, to not only secure data but also trace it in order to reduce any possibility of breaches or illegal modification. There’s also the possible integration of cognitive computing. The technology is not a mere version of AI; it tries to recreate the human mental model. Learning from cognitive computing could revolutionize the way we make challenging decisions and provide insight using both structured data and unstructured data, such as text and images. It would make for highly intuitive systems that are able to see and anticipate Army leaders' needs so that they get it right away.

Any final words of wisdom or inspiration you'd like to share with our readers about the power of effective knowledge management in their roles?

If there is one thing I can emphasize about the power of knowledge management, it is that knowledge management isn’t just storing information; it’s also putting information to work for you. Effective knowledge management can turn raw data into insights that support strategic decisions and new innovations. For Army leaders—especially in situations where all is at stake and everything matters—information at the right moment can literally spell the difference. More than efficiency; more capability and availability. Do not ever think that putting two and two together is less than worth doing. The magic of knowledge management occurs when multiple disparate information pieces are put together into an overall picture.