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 Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Collaboration is in the KM toolbox. Collaboration is the new KM
Why collaboration? I think it appeals because its less fluffy than 'KM' - people intuitively think its good (few CEO's are crying out for their people to collaborate less) - and it taps a current need: in trying to cut costs by e.g. reducing travel, people are feeling the pain of projects failing and mis-communication. 'Virtual teams' as a term has been around long enough, but few companies are getting it right.
[from Intellectual Capital Punishment]
This snippet from the middle of Sam Marshall's comments hints at why collaboration has gained new attention: collaboration = faster throughput with the same resources. He also reminds us that for this to be done well, we have to prepare for it.
As part of his discussion on expert databases last week, John Chu shared a report on the topic from Outsell, Trend Alert: Connecting People to People - Expert Databases (abstract only). Outsell surveyed a number of companies with expert databases and said some things about knowledge management and setting up expert databases. It was the conclusion that was most telling:
In our opinion, the pain won't be worth the gain if collaborative work practices aren't already inherent within the organization.
It is relatively easy to set up the technology to run video conferences and webinars. But to create a culture that takes advantage of these technologies is much more difficult, and much more interesting in the long term. Beyond saving money on travel, what does the organization expect to gain from having NetMeeting or WebEx or iSight?
[Knowledge Jolt with Jack]
Not only is collaboration important and allows more productivity with the same number of people, but the final aspect, culture, is critical. Companies that do not already have collaborative cultures will not be able to utilize these technologies efficiently and will thus be at a tremendous disadvantage to companies that already are collaborative. Simply providing collaboration tools to a company that believes that knowledge is power, where restricting the flow of information is the way to advance, will result in unused tools. In companies that already value transparency and open communication, that want as many eyes on the problem as possible in order to find solutions, these tools will only enhance productivity.
So, in my mind, it is worthless to try and provide the tools to a company whose culture will not allow them to be utilized. You might make a buck but your customer will not be satisfied. If their industry requires novelty, creativity and innovation to succeed, then they will eventually fail. In such an industry, not having a culture that fosters collaboration is a business model of failure. 11:30:03 PM 
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Managing unconscious knowledge?. destinationKM.com: The ''Other'' Knowledge
C.G. Jung proved that our unconscious is not just a bunch of instincts and repressions, but contains "intelligence" that comes to us seemingly out of nowhere. What's more, technologies for managing the unconscious have been in existence for thousands of years. So how can IT benefit?
[from elearnspace]
John David Balla goes from here to discuss the conscious vs. unconscious mind and then into the abilities of many non-Western cultures to integrate these parts of the mind, where Westerners have essentially forgotten any important connection.
There is a lot of knowledge buried in our unconscious - either that we have explicitly learned and turned into "unconscious competence" or that stuff we just know -- intuition. Balla then draws us back to KM and how difficult it is to encode intuition and the unconscious. I wonder if the focus on collaboration and innovation isn't an attempt to bring the rest of the mind into the picture, without explicit attempts to encode it?
[Knowledge Jolt with Jack]
Systems that foster intuition and serendipity are ones that will lead in the coming years. As a biologist I tend to put intuition into biological terms. The non-verbal right hemisphere has only a small number of connections to the left hemisphere. So getting information from one to the other in inefficient and happens in ways that are under the radar of conscious thought. Intuition comes from the non-verbal, not-I part of our consciousness, our less dominant hemisphere, as it tries to get the attention of the dominant side. So, I listen to intuition because, for me, it works a lot.
A book that I enjoyed reading, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. (One of the great titles. I mean, you have to read the book just so you can figure out just what in heck the title means!) His thesis is thought-provoking and, even if not true, requires one to examine many basic assumptions of conscious thought. He postulates that consciousness as we know it did not really evolve until after language did. Language was controlled by one hemisphere of the brain. The other hemisphere had little or no communication with the verbal half. So it spoke to people in non-verbal ways, such as visions, dreams and visits from gods.
Yes, he postulates that what we call consciousness is a recent development, one that occurred AFTER human civilization began. The Ancients really did hear voices that talked to them because that was the only way for them to 'verbalize' the ideas that the right hemisphere was sending to the left. Real consciousness evolved when we developed ways to more accurately integrate our right brain (our sub-conscious?) with the left brain. Jaynes even postulated that you could see approximately when this occurred by examining the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad would have been handed down from pre-conscious times, since the Gods speak directly to the humans and control what happens to them. In the Odyssey, the Gods are much more secondary characters, with the story of the individual being paramount.
Now, it is hard to believe that Jaynes' hypothesis could ever be proved but it is interesting to consider. Both our hemispheres work in parallel on many problems. I do not know how we integrate all the information they provide. But I do know that I have two modes of thinking - linear and non-linear. Many times I can just bull my way through a problem and follow a process. Other times, I 'know' the answer and just have to work backwards to the start to prove it. I have learned to trust the information this non-linear approach provides. It has been right way too many times. 11:11:19 PM
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Contributing and enabling technologies for knowledge management. This article talks about the balance between knowledge management and the information technologies that support KM.
Information management will only provide competitve advantage when a company can "balance between clear understanding of the nature of information, well-defined information architecture, management processes and the judicious use of appropriate technological support." Technology must enable people in the company to find and analyze information and make business decisions.
Rather than describing "the" knowledge management system, the authors describe important factors of any KM system. The technology should fit the needs of the company for KM, rather than the KM needs fitting to what is available from the technology. The technology needs to deliver up-to-date information of the appropriate type to those who need it, when and where they need it. This acknowledges the need for accuracy and integrity. And, finally, any technology needs to play well with the people who use it -- the usability issue.
The authors divide technologies to support KM into three primary buckets: collaboration, content management, and business intelligence. Note that these aren't KM tools, rather these are tools that can be used in support of a KM strategy.
While the article doesn't emphasize the cultural aspects of KM, they wrap up by saying
Current literature suggests that organisations must embrace and marry two complimentary avenues for Knowledge Management success, namely, cultural aspects of the organisation and technological developments employed within the organisation. To achieve successful organisation-wide connectivity it is crucial to develop culturally shared values that facilitate the adoption of technologies and electronic communications. It is also important to combine technology mediated interactions with face-to-face interactions, thus marrying social behaviour and work practices.
"Contributing and enabling technologies for knowledge management," by Sandra Moffett and Rodney McAdam, in International Journal of Information Technology and Management, Vol 2, Nos 1/2, 2003 (print only).
[Thanks to my friendly librarian who has done regular print searches for KM-related articles.]
[Knowledge Jolt with Jack]
More and more people are getting it. KM systems only work if people use them. They have to allow people the ability to take information and create knowledge that allows decisions to be made. They must include tools that can be adapted to a wide randge of personlity types and diverse viewpoints. Otherwise they will only help a subset of people while actually hampering all others. 10:45:50 PM
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