Some people
may think that knowledge
management is,
again, "the same dog with
another collar". Many skeptics consider (we
might even say "naturally"),
that any new approach is,
really, an old or wrong thing.
As a matter
of fact,
KM is new and is old, as any
other thought system that has a
value, ant that the combination
of ideas that support it (and of
which we are all aware)
should restore faith on the
theme to the interested people.
The idea of KM doesn't come from
consultants, it constitutes the
practical and substantial
response of executives and
specialists to the needs of
economy and society:
globalization, communication
technology and the cognitive
perspective of businesses or
organizations in general.
Globalization takes good part of
the responsibility. World trade
complexity and volume have no
precedents; the number of
competitors, products and
distribution channels grows
constantly. Even under the
influence of ICT development
a frenetic atmosphere is created
in companies that see themselves
compelled/constrained to
accelerate their competitive
roles in markets every time
bigger, competitive and complex.
This acceleration in an
uncertain space forces these
organizations to ask themselves:
-
What do we know?
-
Who knows it?
-
What we should know that we
don't know?
-
Who needs to know what?
-
Does our organization learn
(acquire knowledge) from
outside of itself?
-
Do we measure and assign a a
value to our cognitive
assets?
A
non intentional consequence of
using ICT is the higher value of
knowledge that is not
digitalized, coded or easily
distributed over information and
data. In the same measure with
which access to information is
amplified and and diversified,
the value of cognitive
abilities not yet
represented in a way to have
them managed grows constantly.
As a result, cognitive
components such as
evaluation,
design,
leadership, persuasion,
discernment,
creativity, innovation,
esthetics and sense of
humor acquire a higher value.
It is already recognized that,
though information is one of the
most important assets in an
organization, the meaning of
these cognitive abilities is
accepted with more depth and
width. The price that many
companies pay for the omission
of these perspectives reflects
these consideration. This wave,
though predictable, has become a
tsunami that has found many
software producers specialized
in information and data
processing to redefine KM in a
way very (and dangerously) reductive
as "data and document
transfer".
KM
comes from the understanding of
the critical value of the other
factors, less typical than
document or data,
and the awareness o the need for
finding modes to sustain it and
get from it strategical
benefits. The difference between
organizational knowledge
and information and data
is, aside from effective,
intuitive. For many "of the
trade" knowledge seems to be a
fundamental residual that in
itself explains internal
productivity after you
have evaluated everything.
After a brief analysis,
it's easy to understand that
even a "perfectly managed"
information leaves us far away
from the Nirvana of highly
effective productivity and
innovation. The topic has been
enough developed and mature as
to detach it from its
theoretical field. It's already
possible to organize real
knowledge management projects.
The demonstration of terms of reference: data
information and knowledge
Data
are facts about events. The
quantity of money or goods in a
transaction are "data".
Databases are essential to
gather and store data and to
organize reports. These reports
are made of formatted data, and
because of this added value
these reports can be considered
"information". Data are important to measure costs, speed,
quantities, totals, capacities,
etc. of the organization.
Without an interpretation, more
data are not worth more than
less data. Decisions require
data that are converted in
useful information, "consumable".
Information is made of
gathered, organized and
interpreted data. If data are
letters, organizing letters in
intelligible words, is
information. If data represent
clients, organizing this list in
a usable format, may be the
necessary information.
Information requires a
communication process between the sender and the
receiver. Information may be a "beep" or an audible
message that tells that someone is at the door.
The beep shapes the data and tells that we must act.
Normally, the receiver decides when the message is
really information or just "noise"
or another type pf data. Message
contents can be be accidental or reflecting the
judgment, ability or intelligence of the sender.
"Noise" restricts communication. There's no
noiseless communication.
Information moves across an
organization in the form of
paper, voice or digital document.
Examples are paper mail, HTML
pages, magazines, voice mail and
other computer based
transmissions. Information can
be generated by people or
machines. Information storage
and transmission depend a lot on
technology.
Knowledge is the result of a
learning and change of behavior
process that happens in an
individual after having
internalized information.
Knowledge is an integration of
values, experiences and
information as part of a mental
model (alla pagina del modello mentale).
Organizational knowledge
is the result of an integration
of collective thinking
materialized in best practices,
staff mental models and business
process management, and as much
tacit knowledge control and
management. Also enterprises
have a perception, a dynamic
memory and a long term memory.
"Best
practices" are in constant
evolution and subject to
revolutions.
Knowledge is built in the minds
of people, of experts.
Collective knowledge in an
organization is evidenced in
their business attitude and
behavior. Information
production, organizational
routines, business processes and
business culture, build up the
essence of company behavior.
Organizations (businesses,
government, and others) are very
careful of not not confusing
knowledge with
information or knowledge
management with information
technology.
Cognitive technology:
knowledge bases
-
Data are discreet elements.
-
Text information and lists
are linear, continuous.
-
Knowledge is
structural,
reticular, made of nodes and
relations,
multidimensional. It's
always open. Knowledge bases
are the tools for managing
knowledge, for reasoning for
representing processes and
for processing ideas.
Textual information is not
knowledge,
it contains coded knowledge,
to be decode, to evaluate.
Knowledge bases have
associated functions for
analysis, simulation and
searching: semantic
searching, categories and
searching in database like
structures. A knowledge
base, because of its
graphical interface (semantic
or conceptual network)
is the consistent platform
for exercising creativity
and innovation, for business
intelligence analysis.
In KM, for the analyst,
Knowledge Master or
executives, it's often most
convenient to associate data
structures of his own to the
knowledge base for
calculations, analysis,
searching, project
management and simulations.
This permits working with
several data types without
leaving the cognitive
environment. There some
activities in an
organization (company or any
other type) that are
specially facilitated,
opening the way for many
evaluations and
valorizations:
-
Project management.
-
Process modeling and
management.
-
Tacit knowledge
capture and management.
-
Reduction of
complexity.
-
Brainstorming management.
Many of these productivity
resources are already
embedded among the
fundamental templates for
business analysis of Knowledge Master.
Besides,
Knowledge Master
cognitive technology
contains contents management
solutions and eases
organizational leaning, in a
unique platform.
KM knowledge base contents
can be exported to most used
exchange formats, even en
evolved technological
contexts, This means that a
Knowledge Master
knowledge base contents can
be exported to XML, reusable
in any data base system, to HTML,
having it independently, in
any browser, or its data, to
CSV.
Knowledge and information
technology
Technology is is a
fundamental component of
KM,
but it's human interaction
with information represented
in cognitive format (semantic
networks, conceptual
knowledge bases), what
permits and simplifies
reasoning, innovation, in an
individual or in an
organization.
It is correct to
recognize departments such as MIS (management
information systems) or IT (information technology). MIS
and IT departments deal with how technology can be better used to
serve the aims of the organization. KM deals with enterprise capacities and
business knowledge that affect the way in which an organization is managed.
Every concept of KM is applied
the same way to a company or a
government agency or organization, to a voluntary service or any other
organization. Every organization, from those made of only few people (or
professional office) to huge companies needs methods or tools to gather
represent, store and share knowledge. KM
and IT
have a symbiotic relationship. IT
facilitates fast sharing of cognitive structures, but it is the human being
(wetware) what determines the expert and higher analysis with which to
contribute to (and derive from) the knowledge system.
Even though data and
information are mandatory
tributaries to knowledge
management, rational (and
irrational) analysis that
stimulates creativity and
leads to innovation cannot
be replaced with a deep
search (or data
mining)
in a database (or
datawarehouse). How can
a process be
represented, or complexity
reduced in such other way
different from a structural,
reticular representation.
Business intelligence is
based precisely on these
principles.
Managing a vast quantity of
information is rises
complexity and is expensive.
Analysis abilities and
creativity are not
stimulated by a huge volume
of data.
Knowledge management and
information management
aren't
mutually excluded, but
they benefit
reciprocally. Both
resources are indispensable,
though different things.
"Business", organizational
knowledge.
We know that, as mean, 90%
of workplace knowledge is of
the tacit type: "tacit
knowledge". To present
it in an Euclidean optic,
would it be possible to
replace an efficient
employee with data or
documents?
Intuitively, most people
perceive that the term
knowledge
implies a wider, richer,
more intellectual view of
the world (and also in the
more circumscribed context
of a company or
organization) than
information o data.
Knowledge is created and
shared by human beings.
These are not concepts from
psychology, that deals
little with data or
information processing.
Though the definition has a
very consistent logical
value, its application is
very pragmatic.
This definition clarifies
that knowledge is something
simple and evident. It's not
storable though it can be
represented. It's
"manageable" only
when it is represented.
Knowledge is as fluid as
people that build it
and use it. Knowledge
exists in people as part of
the complexity that makes us
humans. It may seem like a
very concrete or very
abstract thing.
Transformation of information into knowledge happens
when people: 1) compare and integrate new
information with previous knowledge; 2) imagine
consequences of their decisions and actions; 3)
share and compare ideas with others.
Absurd (though
frequent) expressions:
- "the
system is based on knowledge management, that is
evaluated through a specific reading" ... to "certify competences".
- "The
output of a deep and very detailed search helps to
understand the problem and to plan the future".
Understanding of
economists, strategists. faculty
and analysts of the fact that a
a company can be better
considered as an integration of
its capacities in some way
related to its history and
limited in its efficacy by its
cognitive and social capacities.
The principal component of an
organization is specially
knowledge, that is mainly tacit
and specific. These ideas
have had a high impact on
executives through the press,
books, management development
programs, courses and
conferences. Though the new
ideas have displaced the old
concept that companies are
mainly information processors,
productive machines and rigid
almost military
structures, demonstrate powerful
enough instruct themselves and
do something with knowledge.
The company learns
A
company learns by doing.
Employees learn from experience.
If a company is able to better
manage the learning process, it
can overcome the limitations
imposed by the concept of tacit
knowledge itself - it can raise
its efficiency. Learning in
organizations goes far beyond
training and courses, and the
the development of these
strategies is one of the
most important aspects of
knowledge management.
Regarding business learning,
another stimulant of knowledge
management that originates from
economy and more directly from
Knowledge Masters, (or
knowledge engineers) is how to
discover or detect variations of
effectiveness.
Why do organizations that do the
same global operations reach
their results in a substantially
different way, even if workers
have access to the same
information, technology and
company resources?
An example
from history:
A well known multinational
company dedicated to deep well
drilling decided to analyze,
using a cognitive approach, why
some of their plants had
different levels of
effectiveness in their drilling.
They found out that there were
differences between knowledge
and practice, knowledge that is
tacit and not documented. As a
result of their efforts to to
obtain that this knowledge could
be used globally, the company
achieved meaningful levels of
saving and a legendary status in
knowledge management circles.
Sociological studies about this
revolution (and the underlying
principles to "working with
knowledge") crystallized and
valorize the clear sensation
that something different is
happening at a global level at
the work place.
There's a
strong interest
in
research about the complex
structures of working
communities that have an obvious
relevance to knowledge
management. All agree that
knowledge exists and grows
inside these structures, and
have started to study these
networks and communities.
Almost since the beginning,
knowledge management explored
the differences between tacit
knowledge and explicit
knowledge, between "knowing
how"
and "knowing
what". This essential
distinction, known ever since
antiquity, seemed forgotten when
an extraordinary number of
systems for routine work
automation was put in
circulation. It's astounding the
quantity of available data
(not costless). The paradoxical
consequence is the impressing
increment of the value of tacit
"non
formalized"
knowledge, that does not exist
in databases and therefore is
not searchable, findable or even
less, identifiable. These
asset has two sources: one is
scarcity
(the value of expertise, that
can't simply be copied, and even
less made readily accessible);
the other one is the practical
application of this knowledge.
Practice
The activities that mainly
contribute to knowledge
management are information
management, quality culture and
practice (innovation), human
factors (human capital) and the
results of business intelligence
analysis and approaches.
Information management deals
with information aspects, in
terms of valorization, of
operation and control techniques
and access schemes, In this case "information"
means documents, data and
structured messages.
Knowledge Management cleared
that not all information is
created equally, and that
different types of information
have different values and
therefore must be managed in
different ways. This perception (that
applies better to knowledge)
remains in the
DNA of KM.
We can see in practice which
techniques or technologies are
most appropriate for the
different types of knowledge
sharing and consumption, not
only for their availability.
Quality
assessment techniques were
applied to production processes,
while KM has a wider objective,
that includes processes
that do not seem that can be
measured or that are ill
defined. Nevertheless, an
important part of it consists
(among other things) of
rendering knowledge visible (or
make it emerge), and therefore
develop knowledge
processes and control
structures. This approach is
inherited from quality
improvement and analysis
activities and methods developed
for quality systems.
In
practice, our understanding of
human capital (and the
importance of the corresponding
investment),
tends to be distorted or
diluted. The essential message
of human capital researchers is
the financial advantage of
organizations that invest in
people, mainly in education and
training. This type of
investment has a higher return
rate (in the form of higher work
productivity and development of
abilities) than all other
options. Most organizations
still see their employees and
training programs as expenses,
more than as investments.