Tuesday, October 15, 2002

Digesting knowledge management technology. Over today I've been digesting Knowledge Management Technology by A. D. Marwick It was an interesting although in some ways unsatisfying read.  I found the earlier more general sections more interesting and useful than the later sections which actually analysed the technology.  That may be because I had more to learn from those earlier sections. Some preliminary thoughts: "Knowledge" in this context includes both the experience and understanding of the people in the organisation and the information artifacts, such as documents and reports available within the organisation and in the world outside. » We value experience and tend to reward it commensurately.  In a down economy headcount reduction is often used to pair down expenditure but at the same time it tends to pair down experience.  Investment in knowledge management (particularly tacit->tacit and tacit->explicit) is a defensive tactic for dealing with this.  For the same reason it could be viewed as a hostile technology by staff who might see themselves as being "in the firing line."   Tacit knowledge is actionable knowledge. » Not sure I understand this point.  Is explicit knowledge not actionable?  I guess I'm going to have to understand the term 'actionable knowledge' a little better. The key to knowledge creation lies in the mobilization and conversion of tacit knowledge. » A key point from Nonaka. Creation of new knowledge takes place through the processes of combination and internalization. » An interesting point.  Ref Nonaka, Internalization is defined as: explicit -> tacit (e.g. learn from a report) Combation as: explicit -> explicit (e.g. e-mail a report) Need to think more on this.  I'm not quite there. Knowledge sharing is often done without ever producing explicit knowledge and, to be most effective, should take place between people who have a common culture and can work together effectively. » Follow up the Davenport & Prusak reference. It would be interesting to study the cultural differences and similarities of groups of webloggers who are sharing knowledge successfully.  What are the interesting cultural segments in blogland? Externalization (tacit->explicit): By it's nature, tacit knowledge is difficult to convert into explicit knowledge.  Through conceptualization, elicitation, and ultimately articulation, typically in collaboration with others, some proportion of a person's tacit knowledge may be captured in explicit form.  Typical activities in which the conversion takes place are dialog among team members, in responding to questions, or through the elicitation of stories. » Key section. We're in the meat of klogging here.  Attempting to convert our mental models into text the better to share and collaborate with others. Note: elicitation of stories in this sense could just as well be capturing best practice,... For example, knowledge creation results from interaction of persons and tacit and explicit knowledge. » Seems to contradict the earlier point slightly.  This one makes more sense to me. Through interaction with other, tacit knowledge is externalized and shared. » A key goal must therefore to be to make sure that we are able to interact with the right people and that our information is in a form that is suitable for sharing. Free text is obviously the most flexible but as many others have observed it may be useful to have templates that provide some form.  This might also be useful for introducing those who aren't comfortable with the idea of writing what they think. Rick Klau made an interesting observation when we met up.  To get people into klogging provide them with the Radio aggregator and simply tell them to re-post any item they think is interesting. This is sharing at it's simplest.  In my view once someone gets the hang of this they will make the next step - adding a simple commentary - themself.  Even if it is just one word here and there. What will be required to get full engagement will be an issue that they feel the need to speak out on.  A weblog is not just a bunch of text, it is a voice. the greatest value occurs from their (the 4 processes) combination since, as already noted, new knowledge is thereby created, disseminated, and internalized by other employees who can therefore act on it, and thus form new experiences and tacit knowledge that can in turn be shared with others and so on. » I think in reading this I was again reminded of the question: What is the value of new knowledge, of a new idea.  This idea of creating new knowledge doesn't seem as if it will play well in the downturn "evolution not revolution" "fix the leaky pipes" mindset. It's far more in tune with the Gary Hamel mindset: Coming up with discontinuities that create new markets. In any case, automatic extraction of deep knowledge from documents is an elusive goal. » True.  Although it will be interesting to see what tools like Cyc will be able to do as they mature. However, the candidate pieces of extracted knowledge must still be presented to a human for review and final decision, so that the value of the system is in increasing the productivity of the human analysts. » Yep The greatest difficulty in knowledge management identified by the respondents in a survey was "changing peoples behaviour" and the current biggest impedement to knowledge transfer was "culture." » Key point. There is little technology can do about culture.  This maybe shouldn't worry us since because, as Seb pointed out in a recent post (regarding a Darwin article), "Natural selection will take care of those companies (and individuals) who can't or won't do it". Technology can come to bear on behaviour though.  Two enablers will be: software that encourages & supports behavioural change software that requires less behavioural change as appropriate. Ackerman refers to this situation as a "social technical gap." » This is the gap that good software must attempt to bridge.  Current paradigm weblog software is I think a step forwards and a step backwards. Forwards in that it supports the right behaviour, but backwards in that the key to weblogging is writing and hence it smacks straight into the barriers discussed recently about "why won't people write."  Shared experiences are in important basis for the formation and sharing of tacit knowledge. » Again this relates back to the point about culture.  A shared culture implies a set of common experiences that form the culture.  Hence why storytelling is important.  So we need tools that support shared experience and, hence, the capturing of context.  (Again this relates to my recent reading on best practices) A richer kind of shared experience can be provided by applications that support real-time on-line meetings (i.e. groupware) » Yep.  I've just been musing on an IM client I would like to have to support richer online collaboration than "just text".  Also Marc Canter & co. have been working on the idea of multimedia conversations for some time. For myself I would like to try experimenting with VideoBlogging.   More later...   [Curiouser and curiouser!] 7:09:57 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Jack Welch's Six Rules. I deleted the post from my aggregator by accident, but I found this via Rick Klau's weblog. Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be. Be candid with everyone. Don't manage, lead. Change before you have to. If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete. Control your own destiny, or someone else will.   [Curiouser and curiouser!] 6:45:23 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

3D Kite Aerial Photography. "Stunning QuickTime VR photos taken with cameras attached to kites." [Boing Boing Blog] I wanted to make sure my Dad saw this one. [The Shifted Librarian] 11:33:29 AM    trackback []     Articulate []

Yes To School Blogs. David Carter-Tod found a very interesting blog called School Blog or Not. Its author, Bill, is trying to answer the question "should Bryant Elementary implement its new web presence using Web log tools?" by examining school web sites, reviewing them, and exploring the issues that surround such a decision. Reading through Bill's thoughts, it's obvious how blogging can help schools and school librarians. #1 - "I've created a school site review blog for deconstructing other school web sites. Purely my own opinionated views but I wanted to keep track of them. I think I'm now seeing some patterns and uncovering some best practices. Overall the best sites also are the sites with most prominent news - at least, I don't think I'm imagining this correlation." #2 - "I admire the accomplishment of the obviously hard-working folks who contribute to the ETHS web site. But I'd love to find a way to get there faster, cheaper, and better. I'm more and more convinced that a Weblog-centric implementation architecture with an RSS news feed information distribution mentality is the way to go." #3 - "My preliminary take is that, while each parent, student, and teacher definitely will want to access Bryant Web information in different ways this does not need to be implemented by a personalization system withint the Bryant Web site itself, given that "deep" personalization isn't required. The primary need appears to be "I want to see the info that's relevant to me" choices which the news feed features built-in to the Web log model already deal with. For example, I want to stay on top of Mrs. Paulson's Kindergarten class, the Chess Club, as well as school info - but I will be able to simply subscribe to the appropriate Web logs, aggregating them in my news reader of choice, or getting email updates. And, even more simply, bookmarking as favorites the relevant three "nav entry" spots for my needs." #4 - "I find it interesting that - if one presumes that Web log authoring will say be built-in to Office 2004 and Web log server technology will ship bundled with Windows Server that the question of "should Bryant use Web log tools in creating its web presence?" could almost be a non-sequiter like saying 'should Bryant use word processing tools in creating its printed documents?' " There are lots of other great links at this site, so this is a great "weblogs in education" blog to track. And if you're at a SLS school library, please give me a call or drop me an email and we can talk about this further. I can even set up a test instance of a blog so that you can get a feel for this yourself. [The Shifted Librarian] 11:33:01 AM    trackback []     Articulate []

Ya ask a qestion!!!. See what I got to put up with. I express my disbelief to my workmates that no one knows the name of our star and our moon, and this is what happens. Yes, my workmate STILL has too much time on his hands, and emailed out this master peice. Very funny. Actually. It is pretty funny. :) [Nathan's Weblog.] 10:51:55 AM    trackback []     Articulate []

An Effort to Undo an Old Reservoir in Yosemite. "It is a fascinating idea," Mr. Jensen said. "I would like to think I have an open mind and never turn my back on a fascinating idea." [Archipelago] 10:48:33 AM    trackback []     Articulate []

Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons. Douglas Adams     --The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 10:44:39 AM    trackback []     Articulate []