All Life Is Problem Solving

This post completes my analysis of Ray Sims’s presentation to the Boston KM Forum on April 9, 2008. Ray envisions three scenarios to relate Web 2.0 and KM. The first of these states that “Web 2.0 is ideally situated to support Personal Knowledge Management / Personal Learning Environment (PKM/ PLE).” Ray argues for that by presenting a “View Your Mind” map of his own personal learning environment. He distinguishes the following categories in his “mind map”: text, audio, writing and drawing, formal training, people, data and information hacks, physical space, and reflection. Within the text category, blog-related 2.0 applications, web-related 2.0 applications, intranet-related 2.0 applications, and reference 2.0 applications are mentioned. In the audio category, feedreader, ipod, and podcast web 2.0 applications are mentioned. In the writing and drawing applications, blogging is mentioned. In the people area, web 2.0 social networking applications are mentioned. In the data and information hacks category, a personal wiki is mentioned. The majority of listed items in the mind map are not Web 2.0 applications.

Ray then claims the following benefits of Web 2.0 tools for individuals.

– Increase knowledge within chosen field

– Maintain long-term employability

– Build external network

– Bridge generational barriers

– Increase competency for thriving in information abundance

– Opportunity to become an enterprise 2.0 evangelist

Most of these benefits, even if one grants that Web 2.0 produces them, don’t speak directly to KM goals. “Increase knowledge within chosen field” does. But, the connection between the tools and this outcome is vague in the slides, and I don’t know whether a more precise connection was made by Ray in the oral presentation. “Building an external network” may be viewed as an outcome that enhances the activity of building external relationships with other KM professionals.

In short, the case made that Web 2.0 tools strongly support either a Personal Learning Environment or Personal Knowledge Management is not made in this list of benefits, though I think a stronger case for this can be made, if one were to get into the detail of how Web 2.0 can support various knowledge sub-processes that are aspects of personal learning. Ray goes on to present a Twitter illustration. But I think the illustration is one of people communicating and exchanging bits of information. The connection between twitter exchanges and learning or improved knowledge processing is implied but not made explicitly here.

Ray next moves to claimed company benefits and he offers these:

– Smarter employees

– Reduced Training & Development expense

– Access to external networks

– Bridge generational barriers

– Create an enterprise 2.0 on-ramp

I think the “smarter employees” benefit may be there but it needs testing and demonstration. Reduced training and development expense sounds like a reasonable benefit claim, but again, it has to be shown that the impact of Web 2.0 tools really does reduce the need for formal training and development. “Access to external networks” seems like a straightforward benefit, but “bridge generational barriers” may or may not occur from increased use of Web 2.0 tools. Finally, creating an E 2.0 “on-ramp,” may or may not be viewed as a benefit. It depends on whether E 2,0 has been successfully sold first.

Ray then goes on to prescribe that companies get involved in Web 2.0 and presents a list of necessary 2.0 competencies, and Dave Pollard’s 2.0 vision. I’ve commented on Dave Pollard’s vision in an earlier post in this series. Ray’s 2.0 competencies are to the point, but the tools themselves will not produce these, they have to be created by people before they adopt the tools.

Ray’s second scenario he calls “the easy entry,” and expresses it this way: “Enterprise (KM) 2.0 is easily adopted & instantly valuable for small to medium sized teams and projects.” There’s an immediate problem with this, since, his treatment of KM doesn’t show that E 2.0 is KM. Ray presents a few additional slides arguing that introduction of blogs and wikis is very valuable for Team Project-level practice, and also suggesting abandoning using e-mail. But any specific argument relating these changes to enhanced knowledge processing is absent.

Ray’s third scenario is enterprise adoption of 2.0, which he suggests, is already happening in some enterprises and shows some promise. He suggests that the four greatest opportunities, from a KM point of view, in case of adoption of E 2.0 are:

– Increased social capital

– Increased innovation

– Improved decision making

– Improved efficiency

While these opportunities may exist, Ray isn’t clear about why E 2.0 creates the first three opportunities, and thus far the empirical record is unclear on whether E 2.0 does create such opportunities. Ray covers the fourth opportunity, “improved efficiency,” in more detail. He mentions the following five effects of E 2.0 in relation to increasing efficiency.

– Increased transparency (openness)

– Network effect

– Raw speed, e.g. wiki edits versus documents

– Less overhead

– Opportunity to reduce email

Other slides amplify his reasoning. One slide shows that wiki collaboration involves fewer exchanges and steps than e-mail collaboration. Another slide quoting Matt Moore, makes it clear that blogs and Twitter are more open than e-mails and instant messages. He also points out that reducing e-mail involves a move to “pulling” as opposed to “pushing” information, and is also a move to collaboration on a work product, rather than talking about such collaboration. He also points out that these work products are “more open,” and “more easily tagged and searched” than e-mail.

But then, Ray considers “concerns and challenges” about introducing E 2.0. These include: 1) linking intellectual property, 2) running counter to the need for compliance, 3) loss of control by management, 4) wasting employee’s time, 5) doesn’t fit with the company culture, 6) technology immaturity and proliferation, and 7) additional information silos and digital landfills. Items 4), 6), and 7) suggest an increase in inefficiency and conflict with the claim that E 2.0 increases efficiency. I think this is a matter of balance between effects that increase efficiency and those that decrease it, and that the claim that efficiency will be increased, like the other claims for E 2.0 benefits, is, at best, a hypothesis.

Ray ends his very interesting presentation with some advice including: “decide if the utility metaphor is viable.” If so, then consider an “intranet 2.0” approach, or one “leading with core work processes.” Also, “find and nurture the early adopters and innovators,” start with an “individual, team or company function strategy versus the entire enterprise,” integrate/coordinate technology, workflow/process, and people “on enterprise 2.0 path.” Ray also points to three critical success factors: “a champion or champions,” a “comprehensive training and assimilation plan,” and “comfort with user-driven innovation and emergence.”

This is all good advice. But it highlights some real difficulties of implementation. Champions may be hard to come by without more proof that E 2.0 will be beneficial, whether or not it enhances knowledge processing, and we really don’t know what a “comprehensive” training plan for E 2.0 might involve. And finally, if “comfort” with innovation and emergence is a key success factor, then we may have a “chicken-egg” problem, since such comfort tends to be correlated with previous success relating to innovation and emergence. So, the companies that may need E 2.0 the most, may be in no position to adopt it.

Ray ends his presentation by urging people to “just do it” with respect to E 2.0, and also to “engage in the knowledge management debate.” I have tried to do that in this extensive review of his thinking, because I think it is among the most valiant attempts made to relate Web 2.0 to Knowledge Management. But I think I’ve shown above that, in the end, his conceptualizations of both KM and Web 2.0 are not really precise enough to support his analysis of the relationship between the two. He asserts a number of things about the relationship. But his detailed arguments really don’t make the case that Web 2.0 tools have a special significance for KM beyond the notion that in the proper circumstances and context and, perhaps along with other tools, Web 2.0 tools can help Knowledge Managers to enhance knowledge processing. But the same can be said of many other software tools including Web 1.0 tools, so the task of showing a special relationship between Web 2.0 and KM and hence some basis for saying that there is a KM 2.0, still remains.

To Be Continued

Richard Vines and I have just released a paper entitled “Interoperability and the Exchange of Humanly Usable Digital Content Across a Global Economy.” The paper has been published at both an Australian and a US web site. It discusses how to achieve interoperability in XML dialects, i.e. how to transform or translate XML-based digital content from one XML language to another, within one overarching transformation architecture. Some approaches to this problem reflect the theory that such translations can be completely automated, but Richard and I think, and argue in this paper, that this aspiration could well prove to be very problematic. In contrast, any transformation system – we think - must build within it a provision to apply Human Interpretative Intelligence (HII) to continuously reformulate the transformation rules and models used in such systems.

We also think, and argue, that it will be necessary to make a technical design choice about the means by which the translation process between different XML languages is achieved. By way of making our case, we examine three transformation systems that have three entirely different ontological approaches to address the same translation problem: the Common Ground Markup Language, (the CGML system), Contextual Ontology_X Architecture (the COAX system) and OntoMerge system.

Based on work by Kuhn, and Popper’s answer to his claims about incommensurability, we suggest that the primary criterion for comparing alternative translation/transformation systems for XML standards and schemas is the ease of formulating expanded frameworks/revised theories of translation that create commensurability between source and destination XML content and the merged ontologies. We break this criterion down into two sub-criteria: 1) the relative commensurability creation load in using each system, and (2) relative system provisions for and constraints on the use of human interpretative intelligence. On both of these sub-criteria, a detailed critical evaluation indicates that the CGML system is better than the other two, OntoMerge is next, and COAX ranks as the system with the highest commensurability creation load and the least relative provision for incorporating human interpretative intelligence.

The need for human intervention, and the need to make a technical design choice about the way in which content is translated - have important implications for the development of any global interoperability architecture, in the context of the current push for the semantic web initiative. We conclude by suggesting that premature standardization should be avoided, and that there is a need for further thought and careful additional comparison and evaluation before any system, including those reflecting the semantic web initiative, is adopted as the basis for any global XML interoperability architecture.

This post continues my analysis of Ray Sims’s presentation to the Boston KM Forum on April 9, 2008. In approaching “Knowledge Management,” Ray again asks what the term “means to me.” He begins by describing his own research on definitions of KM. His initial effort produced 43 separate definitions which he reported on in his blog. Aided by comments from others, his list soon grew to 60 definitions. Ray’s research provides a comprehensive picture of the diversity of conceptualizations of KM and their relationships, while explicitly rejecting the idea of arriving at a single synthetic definition.

In his presentation, Ray transitions from the diversity of KM definitions to three key definitional questions that are important to answer to understand the kind of KM one is doing. The questions are: what is the scale of KM? What is the domain of KM? And what are the metaphors we can use to understand or define KM?

Beginning with “scale,” I very much agree with the idea that focusing on scale is important. Ray distinguishes the individual level of analysis with its personal learning environments and personal KM, from the team, community, and project levels with their knowledge management and learning processes, and the organizational level with its learning and KM processes and activities. In my own work, I’ve made similar distinctions, specifically referring to levels of nesting of knowledge processes in organizations, and to KM targeting based on both knowledge sub-processes and agents (individuals, teams and projects, friendship and other self-organizing groups, organizational sub-divisions, committees of “experts,” communities of practice, and the organizational level). I think distinctions among agent levels are rather fundamental to KM since the complexity and expense of interventions tends to be correlated with the level of targeted “agents.”

Ray’s next definitional question relates to the “domain” of KM. Here Ray begins by asking the question, “where does KM start or stop?” His slide on this presents a number of categories in white, gray and blue ellipses. The slide is effective in displaying the broad range and diversity of categories associated with KM in one way or another, and therefore in highlighting the boundary or scope problem, and the fuzziness of its boundaries. In fact, it may be the best slide I’ve seen yet on this problem. Ray’s treatment continues with some of the results of Stephen Bounds’s evaluation of Ray’s survey of definitions of KM. Stephen performed his evaluation when Ray’s list had grown to 53 definitions. Here is Stephen’s analysis (also quoted by Ray) of the attributes identified by the definitions.

KM Activities

– Knowledge Distribution (26)?

– Knowledge Creation (21)?

– Learning (14)?

– Knowledge Classification (9)?

– Collaboration (7)?

– Knowledge Harvesting (6)

– Knowledge Discovery (2)

KM Outcomes

– Improved Execution (28)?

– Value from Knowledge Assets (12)?

– Knowledge Codification (11)?

– Knowledge Retention (3)?

– Continuous Improvement (2)?

– Cultural Change (2)?

– Improved Knowledge Processing (1)?

– Improved Resource Assignment (1)?

In this analysis the numbers in the parens indicate the number of definitions out of the 53 that include the named attribute. Ray highlights “improved knowledge processing” in this slide, and in the next one discusses this definition as an “outlier,” though not pejoratively. Before I move on to that slide however, I’d like to point out a couple of things. First, while all of the “KM activities” are performed by knowledge managers in the course of their work, they are also performed by “knowledge workers” in general. That is, none of these activities are exclusively or primarily knowledge managerial in nature. Rather, it is more accurate to call them “knowledge processing activities.” Second, note that if we take all the “KM activities” in Stephen’s categorization and place the word “enhanced” in front of them, then they look just as much like KM Outcomes as the listed items under this last category.

These comments bring us to the point made by both Ray and Stephen that the definition of KM as activities and processes intended to enhance knowledge processing is unique in making a distinction between KM and knowledge processing activity. Of course, that definition, as indicated by both Ray and Stephen, is the one developed by Mark McElroy and I, over the years, since 1999. Ray proceeds to amplify the distinction by presenting our three-tier model which distinguishes among KM and its outcomes, knowledge processing and its outcomes, and business processing and its outcomes.

I think Ray and Stephen are right to recognize the difference between our definition and others, but I’m not sure they draw out the full implications of our definition. Specifically, if one acknowledges that all the “KM activities” identified in other definitions by Stephen, are really all knowledge processing activities, then it follows that our definition recognizes all of these activities as targets of Knowledge Management, or, if enhanced, as KM outcomes, rather than as KM activities. Further, only four of the KM outcomes listed under that category would be viewed as direct KM outcomes namely: enhanced “knowledge codification,” enhanced “knowledge retention,” “improved knowledge processing,” and “cultural change.” The other “KM Outcomes” are only indirect impacts of KM from the viewpoint of the three-tier model.

Why accept our definition of KM and the three-tier model, rather than some of the other definitions? I think the answer to that question is that the scope and boundary problems Ray highlights in his presentation are greatly alleviated by this definition, because KM starts and stops with a much narrower class of activities which are clearly management activities targeted at enhancing knowledge processing activities. With such a definition, KM efforts are much less likely to overlap with general management efforts, or with content management or customer relationship management.

The orderly development of KM as a discipline is much more likely if the field is defined in such a way that its activities minimize overlap and turf battles with other management disciplines. KM already has the difficulty that the distinction between it and information management is very hard to make. To define KM in such a way that the term means the broad range of activities we do when we are making and integrating knowledge (and in some definitions, even when we use knowledge, which is all of the time), is disciplinary suicide because it is a continuous source of conceptual confusion for the field.

Next, I’m not sure Ray’s use of the term “domain” in the above context is a good choice. Certainly discussion of KM activities and outcomes is important, but I think that his “scale” and “domain” categories are really about how to cut up the world in such a way as to distinguish the targets, or foci, of KM. I do think the term “domain” can be usefully applied to the description of targets. Specifically, I think the issue of business domains is an important one. KM needs to be focused on specific levels of interaction (agents), and on specific activities or processes, but, also, I think it needs to be focused in specific business domain areas since the quality of knowledge processing in organizations may often vary greatly across different business domains in the same organization.

Moving on, Ray’s next definitional question focuses on “metaphors.” He mentions “stocks” and “flows” as important metaphors in defining KM. “Stocks” are static and are associated with codifying, capturing, harvesting, and storing knowledge, while “flows” are “fluid” and “dynamic” and are associated with “conversations,” “fragments,” and “connections.” The idea that the “metaphors” one uses to talk about, describe, or analyze “knowledge” may have important effects in how one defines KM is an idea I agree with. In KM it is an idea that has been advanced by Daniel Andriessen who is referenced by Ray in his presentation.

However, though I agree with the general idea of the impact of metaphors about knowledge on our ideas about KM, I don’t see it as very different from the idea that the conceptual frameworks or “paradigms” we use to talk about, describe, or analyze “knowledge” will affect how we define KM, or how we view it for that matter. So, I’m afraid I don’t see what is novel or particularly important about the idea. After all, why shouldn’t our epistemology, i.e. our theory of knowledge, affect how we define KM?

In any event, Ray’s highlighting that many view “knowledge” as a stock, is surely correct. And a stock at any point in time is certainly static. However, I don’t see what’s static about activities such as “codifying,” “capturing,” “harvesting,” and “storing.” That is, it seems to me that such activities are always changing from moment to moment, and therefore are dynamic in character.

Next, is the metaphor of viewing knowledge as a flow, as dynamic and as associated with connections, conversations, and fragments. I must confess that I think the idea that “knowledge is a flow” and therefore is not a “thing,” is a misuse of ordinary language. It’s not that I doubt that knowledge claims can be expressed in messages and sent from person to person, or store to store, through connections, so that such claims can be said to “flow” through a network in the form of communications. Certainly this is a valid and sensible way to look at the exchanges between and among human beings, and the exchanges of bits and bytes that occur in organizations. However, I think that such flows of knowledge claims don’t in any way contradict the idea that what the knowledge claims assert is linguistic content with its logical and semantic content and that this content is comprised of abstract objects. On the contrary, the idea that “knowledge flows” from node-to-node in social networks, presupposes the prior existence of static knowledge claims that can be communicated through flows of various kinds.

Of course, the fact that knowledge claims occur in conversations, and may be expressed in fragments, and that both are exchanged through connections, doesn’t mean that the knowledge claims themselves are dynamic. In fact, the fragments expressing knowledge claims and connections through which they are communicated, are static at any point in time, while the conversations are dynamic and continuous even while the knowledge claims made in the course of such conversations express static content objects.

Ray does ask the question “why flows?” and lists the following points:

– Speed of change versus speed of codifying

– Continuous versus something that happens at the end of the project

– Small pieces loosely joined, context preserving

– Broader participation, with more connections

– Weak signals perception

– Results: innovation and better decision-making

He also quotes Dave Snowden to the effect that:

“If you ask someone, or a body for specific knowledge in the context of a real need it will never be refused. If you ask them to give you your knowledge on the basis that you may need it in the future, then you will never receive it.”

I’m afraid I don’t see the connection between these points and whether knowledge ought to be viewed as a flow. Again, my basic problem is as above. Just because we can make knowledge flow, doesn’t mean that “knowledge” is a flow. And, if we define it that way, it will lead to a definition of KM which is quite misguided, because that definition will overlook the idea that it is our knowledge processes that produce change in the things we call knowledge.

Ray takes the idea of “flow” further by using two of the metaphors analyzed by Daniel Andriessen, “knowledge as water,” and “knowledge as love.” He points out that in Andriessen’s panel study, “knowledge as water” was favored most as a metaphor for diagnosing the KM problems in a situation, while “knowledge as love” was favored most as a metaphor for developing KM solutions. And to illustrate this he quotes some diagnoses of problems and some solutions developed by Andriessen’s panelists. Without quoting the detail here, I’ll simply say that most of the diagnoses are not very relevant to common sense KM concerns, and even though the solutions are a little more relevant, one of them, namely “Don’t try to manage and systematise knowledge,” is in direct contradiction with the others since they are all clearly prescriptions for KM activity.

In general, while I liked Ray’s emphasis on scale, and domain, I thought his emphasis on “metaphor” in defining knowledge should have been replaced with a more formal consideration of alternative theories of knowledge and their implications for how KM is defined. In my view, these too, involve metaphor, but given their more explicit and elaborated nature, they are more subject to illuminating critical analysis and fair comparison in arriving at the theory of knowledge that will best complement one’s own view of KM.

Reviewing Ray’s presentation up to this point, we see that his treatment of Web 2.0 is vague in specifying actual Web 2.0 configurations and that his treatment of Knowledge Management emphasizes the diversity of conceptualization in the area, but lacks an assessment of the various definitions and a decision about which definition he will use in relating Web 2.0 and KM. Let’s keep this in mind as we review his treatment of how they are related.

To Be Continued

Back to blogging. The Presidential campaign is now over, a few other commitments are completed, and I’m now free to end my unexpected vacation and continue my KM 2.0 and Knowledge Management series.

This entry will continue my discussion of presentations given at The Boston KM Forum on April 9, 2008. Ray Sims offered a very interesting and imaginative presentation entitled: “KM and Web 2.0 – A User’s Perspective,” covering four topics: 1) Web 2.0, 2) Knowledge Management, 3) three scenarios for bringing the two together, and 4) some closing thoughts. I’ll break my discussion of Ray’s presentation into a few posts because I think it reflects many of the existing problems people have in thinking about KM 2.0, Web 2.0, and Knowledge Management.

Ray’s approach to Web 2.0 is to explain “What “2.0” means to me . . . “ That’s done with a graphic; a “mind map” with the “2.0 meme” at the center and with links from the meme to six associated nodes or dimensions of the idea: a) My Networks, b) Emergent, c) Fast, d) It’s All About Me, e) Open, and f) Always On. These dimensions are then further broken down by associating them with other nodes or sub-dimensions. The resulting conceptual hierarchy is a clean one (perhaps too clean) since each sub-dimension is associated with only a single dimension.

Even though this mind map is supposed to illuminate what Ray means by Web 2.0, all of the sub-dimensions under a), b) c) and e) refer to social characteristics rather than to Web 2.0 software with the exception that the “perpetual beta” is one of the sub-dimensions of Emergent. However even this reference to software is not exclusive to Web 2.0. Further, while category f) includes the sub-dimensions Global, 24×7x365.25, Mobile Devices, Software As A Service (SAAS), and “virtual,” I don’t think any of these categories are associated closely enough with Web 2.0 to even begin to give one a clear idea of what it is.

The one category where Web 2.0 software associations are named is d) “It’s All About Me.” That category is associated with the following sub-categories: User Generated Content, Diversity, The Long Tail, Software Application Choice, Tags, Folksonomy, Personal Brand, Mass Career Customization, and Informal Self-directed Life-long Learning. Of these characteristics, only “tagging” and “folksonomy” seem to refer directly to Web 2.0 software tool capabilities. “User Generated Content” is associated with Web 2.0 software, but certainly not exclusively, since content management portals can also support user-generated content, and Web 3.0 tools will certainly also provide this sort of capability. Web 2.0 does involve “software application choice”; so this, too may be added to the very few characteristics actually associated with Web 2.0 software.

Ray’s next slide expands on the thinking presented in his mind map slide by offering a two column table contrasting “traditional” and “new world” profiles, the implication being that the “new world” characteristics are associated with a Web 2.0 profile.

Apart from Ray’s attempt to use only two profiles to describe organizations, a clear over-simplification, I also think that his profile characterizations associate social and IT characteristics in a way that is questionable from an empirical point of view. I recognize that these profiles are Ideal types; but nevertheless, to be useful, the “traditional” profile has to at least approximate the pre-Web 2.0 enterprise and the “new world” profile has to be one that it is at least possible to approximate in reality.

Whether highly differentiated 21^st century organizations where “right-brain” functioning and “uncontrol” are dominant can exist is still arguable, depending, of course, on what one means by “control” and “uncontrol.” But given ownership structures of, and legal requirements for, formal organizations of all kinds, it seems highly doubtful that they can. In saying this, I don’t mean to deprecate the present trends toward networked organizations and trans-networked organizations, but I think real organizations can at most be mixes of Ray’s two profiles.

Apart from this problem, when we look at both slides together, we see that they seem to focus more on conceptualizing “2.0” as an idea, than they do on specifying what a Web 2.0 software configuration is. That is, it seems that Ray is more focused on conceptualizing an expansive view of Enterprise 2.0, even though he doesn’t use that term, than he is on putting forward a specification for Web 2.0 as a set of social computing tools. Having said that, the right hand-side of the table is better than the mind map at listing Web 2.0 software, including micro-blogging, blogging, wiki, tagging and folksonomy, and personal learning environments. But its specification is far from a representative list, and ignores mash-ups, a category that may yet prove to be the most important in the Web 2.0 lexicon, since it provides the ability to create and make use of composite applications that may support knowledge processing more broadly than the products of software vendors.

In sum, in considering Ray’s attempt to characterize Web 2.0, I think we see an over-reach, and one that is not uncommon. In previous reviews of writing on Web 2.0 we have also seen a tendency to define it by going beyond the tools themselves to social attributes that are “necessary” requirements of Web 2.0. There’s nothing wrong with doing that, of course, but it is necessary to keep the distinction between Web 2.0 tools and the associated characteristics of successful Web 2.0 separate, so that we do not define-in success, but make “success” the result of an empirical assessment of what happens when we introduce the software, rather than a mere logical consequence of our definition of Web 2.0.

To Be Continued

The topic of the Boston KM Forum on April 9, 2008 was “KM 2.0 – Real or Hype?” Let’s review presentations given at the meeting. Mark Frydenberg offered an excellent slide show called “Web 2.0 Tools for Knowledge Management.” Its strength was its coverage of Web 2.0. It included a slide with a number of embedded YouTube videos from Michael Wesch a professor of cultural anthropology teaching Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University. These videos have a great deal of impact in conveying the message that Web 2.0 is really a game changer in increasing the capacity of the web to help us to create a new level of self-organization of our ideas and views of the world. In addition, Mark provides a very useful slide identifying some 170 Web 2.0 product vendors. Other slides provide comparisons of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 using a very useful tag cloud from Luca Cremonini to characterize Web 2.0. He also provides good material on social bookmarking and tagging, and a nice section on mash-ups, which however, is a little too narrow in scope to cover the full range of mash-up applications. A good site for that is Kapow Technologies.

Where Mark Frydenberg sheds a lot less light, is in the area of the presentation dealing with KM and its relationship to Web 2.0. First, Mark doesn’t provide a definition of KM but does provide a slide entitled “Web 2.0 and Knowledge Management” that appears intended to relate the two. Its content is:

”– Share what you have learned, created, proved

 

– Innovate to be more creative, inventive, imaginative

 

– Reuse what others have already done

 

– Collaborate to take advantage of what others already know

 

– Learn by doing from others and from existing information”

While “share,” “Innovate,” and “learn” can certainly be viewed as “knowledge processing,” “reuse” and “collaborate” are as much about routine business processing, as they are about knowledge processing, and I don’t see anything in this list that’s directly focused on KM. I also don’t see anything that relates specific Web 2.0 applications to the five bullet points. I suspect Mark thinks that Web 2.0 applications are clearly related to these things. But I don’t think the relationship to anything except collaboration, and I’m afraid that collaboration is not, in itself, knowledge processing.

In a slide “entitled “2. - Social Media and Collaboration,” Mark says: “Managing Knowledge – take advantage of what other people know!” This is also part of the Collaborate tag line in the list above. Does this mean that, for Mark Frydenberg, KM means taking “advantage of what people know”? If so, Mark Frydenberg has a vastly mistaken impression, perhaps gleaned from a presentation of Stan Garfield’s which he cites in his KM slide. In sum, Mark’s presentation is excellent in the area of Web 2.0, but really falls short in relating Web 2.0 to KM.

A second presentation by Dan Keldsen entitled “Enterprise 2.0 = Knowledge Management 2.0”. Dan provides two definitions for E 2.0. The first is Andrew McAfee’s:

“Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.”

The second is AIIM’s:

“A system of web-based technologies that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise.”

I, myself, prefer McAfee’s definition because it is cleaner and leads to easier assessment of the impact of tools alone. But the import of AIIM’s definition is clear. Apart from the 2.0 tools, it’s about rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence, and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise. All of these are important, but nowhere in this definition is there an a plain implication of the relationship of E 2.0 to KM or “KM 2.0.” Let’s see how Dan develops the relationship. The first thing he does is to offer Carl Frappaolo’s definition of KM as:

“Leveraging collective wisdom and experience to accelerate innovation and responsiveness”

I’m afraid I have no idea what “leveraging collective wisdom and experience . . . “ means. That phrase seems to replace one problem of definition with another. I also am not sure what’s meant by “responsiveness,” but insofar as it refers to decision making and action, rather than knowledge processing, I don’t think it’s directly related to KM. I do think that KM is about enhancing innovation in the very broad sense of problem solving, plus integration of new solutions into an enterprise. But, more precisely, I think it’s about enhancing sustainable innovation, and that anything else it is about is related to that governing idea in a supportive fashion.

Dan next goes on to talk about “KM 1.0,” and states the following about it: a) automatic analysis of e-mail patterns too much carried away with technology (“20 algorithms for extracting “knowledge” from the information flows”), b) Too little “painful knowledgebase interfaces for inputs (and outputs)” and individual short-term incentives, c) “lack of attention to culture (you get what you reward), and to teaming, teaming, long-term incentives, teaming, teaming,” d) systems where “big brother is watching you,” and e) “academic theory collides with reality.” Now, I think that, by-and-large, and if we agree that KM 1.0 is everything preceding “KM 2.0,” if, in fact, this is a coherent idea, then I think that this account of “KM 1.0” is seriously misleading. KM before the introduction of E 2.0 tools, has been a complex mosaic of diverse and often conflicting approaches.

One can get some of the flavor of this from an essay of mine and Mark McElroy called “Generations of KM.” But, since 2002, when that paper was written, KM has become even more diverse, and I can tell you it has not been mostly about automatic analysis of e-mail, and “lack of attention to culture.” It has not ignored teaming and has had very strong commitment to communities. It has not been about “big brother is watching you,” and as far as academic theory colliding with reality is concerned, it’s problem is that it has not relied enough on academic theory in such disciplines as philosophy, cognitive science, sociology, and organization theory. So rather than academic theory colliding with reality it has been a case of “practical people” running from fad-to-fad in an effort to master a stubborn reality that needs much more careful theory to solve its problems.

But then Dan goes on to point out that “KM 1.0” has frequently failed and that “knowledge remains blocked,” a point I largely agree with. KM has not had a great deal of success in general.

Dan then makes the point that Web 2.0 might enable us to unlock the knowledge that is in people’s heads, and he proceeds to point out that the primary issues of KM still remain. According to Dan, these issues are: a) brains, b) tools (Is e-mail the devil? Is it an abused tool?) and c) slowly changing culture. He then asks about “the solution.” And answers, 1) “capture knowledge work as daily work” (don’t capture knowledge separately), 2) recognize that knowledge is information applied and re-used, not just collected, 3) create a feedback enriching and simplifying knowledge, and 4) recognizing that good KM is about “loops and emergence.” Dan then went on to illustrate loops with John Boyd’s Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA Loop), and the Wiki Adoption Loop (Agenda, Minutes, Projects, Tasks). He then moves on to a discussion of AIIM’s survey of E 2.0 and begins to report on some results.

The AIIM study measured the “KM inclination” of an enterprise by “using 12 weighted profiling questions taken from KM2 Methodology.” Generally it found that the “KM inclined” were more involved with E 2.0 efforts on a number of dimensions of involvement. After examining this “overlap” between “KM-inclination” and E 2.0, Dan concludes by asking again whether E2.0 and KM 2.0 are the same thing.

Frankly, while I think the empirical results of the AIIM study are interesting, I think the overlaps found don’t really illuminate the relationship between KM and E 2.0 as a conceptual matter, since the fact that the “KM-inclined” are disproportionately concerned with E 2.0 says nothing about either whether use of E 2.0 in KM leads to good results, or about the conceptual relationship between KM 2.0 and E2.0, and these points don’t even consider a third, namely that the measurement of “KM-inclined” is likely to be very problematic if one assumes that the profile questions reflects some of the theoretical ideas about KM expressed above. In brief, I would have been happier if Dan had taken his conceptual analysis further and ended with a conjectured answer to the question he posed, that, at least, would have focused more attention on the notion of KM that AIIM is working with, and its relation to E 2.0. In my next installment, I’ll continue with a discussion of two other presentations from the Boston KM Forum.

To Be Continued

Over the past week, I’ve taken a break from this series, but I think that now is a good time to get back to it, since there’s still much to do. In April of 2008, the debate over KM 2.0 received a number of interesting contributions. The first I’ll consider here is Mike Gotta’s blog entry of April 6, called “AIIM Completes Enterprise 2.0 Study.” Gotta takes the completion of the report as an occasion for considering what Enterprise 2.0 means and whether the collection of Enterprise 2.0 tools “amounts to anything.” Mike speaks favorably of Andrew McAfee’s original definition and quotes it as: “Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.”

He then adds:

The only caveat that I have added to McAfee’s phrasing when I discuss E2.0 with clients or people in general is to phrase E2.0 as “the emergent use of social software platforms” vs. “use of emergent software platforms” which I believe preserves Mr. McAfee’s original intent.

 

I can’t say whether Professor McAfee meant what he said or meant what Mike said, but either way Mike’s construction makes clear that he thinks E 2.0 requires that the use of social software involve “emergence” in the social interaction resulting from using the software. Mike also proposes using Clay Shirky’s definition of social software as: “software designed for group interaction” to further clarify the definition of E 2.0. He then points out that:

We (as an industry) are still remiss in associating Enterprise 2.0 as a specific set of tools. That clouds the role of culture and other organizational dynamics which are so influential on “emergence”. What we also need is to a better job at is defining the use case scenarios and usage models around information sharing, communication and collaboration tools that make something “E2.0″ (basically, adding legs under McAfee’s and Shirky’s definitions).

 

Here Mike Gotta is suggesting that use of E 2.0 tools is not enough to justify calling an organization E 2.0. To do that one also has to show that an appropriate cultural configuration and organizational dynamics giving rise to emergence are also present. And he drives home this point in the remainder of his post. While I can see the point of extending E 2.0 beyond the tools to include such social and cultural system requirements before the concept is applicable, I think the attempt to make these conditions a requirement for characterizing an organization as E 2.0 goes too far, because it makes the connection between E 2.0 and emergence as well as certain cultural and organizational characteristics a matter of definition rather than a matter of theory.

That is, in some sense isn’t the point of talking about E 2.0 to say that if one introduces an E 2.0 program then one will get certain beneficial social and cultural changes including increased collaboration, communication, and information sharing as a consequence of this introduction? But if E 2.0 is made to include these things then their connection to E 2.0 is made true by definition and where is the funor the gain in that? But still further, if we define E 2.0 in a way that goes beyond McAfee’s definition above, then what’s to prevent us from saying that certain KM and knowledge processing characteristics are also included and therefore to begin to approach Tom Davenport’s claim that E 2.0 and KM are one and the same? Mike’s blog entry is an indication of the continuing difficulties in 2008 of clarifying relationships among KM, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, and collaboration. Tomorrow, I’ll take up this theme again in a discussion of presentations given at the Boston KM Forum.

To Be Continued

This discussion of John Tropea’s two blog entries of March 17th and 18th 2008, has turned into a series within a series. I guess that’s a measure of what happens in this blog medium. That is, if you feel like saying more about something, there’s always another blog tomorrow. No one can tell you that you’ve got too many pages! This one will cover John’s treatment of KM 2.0 in his presentation on KM 2.0.

John does this in four slides. In those slides KM 2.0 is characterized as “social computing.” The tools identified are wikis, blogs, social networking software, and tag clouds. Wikis are seen as collaborations, shared spaces, with a sense of place. They’re seen as a gateway to the best in the Document Management System, and as relieving the over-use of e-mail.

Blogs are viewed as providing a sense of place, easy to create unstructured free-form content, a place to make comments, to editorialize in an informal way, to develop a work in progress in fragments rather than as a finished product, as working with a subscribe model, providing a trusted social filter, providing news for one another, and as providing a centralized searchable archive.

Social networking software includes: profile pages, subscription capability, private/public messages, a home for blogs, support for communities, expertise locator, support for querying the network, public bookmarks and link blogging, and presence awareness and micro-blogging.

As I mentioned in my first post on John’s blogs, he distinguishes his notion of “the New KM,” from KM 2.0, which he characterizes as “social computing.” I think this distinction is good because it distinguishes the tools from KM itself, at least to some degree. Thus, social computing, or KM 2.0, is only one aspect of his “new KM,” which is conceptualized as an ecological system, rather than as an activity, a class of activities, or a discipline. On the other hand, the view of KM as an ecological system clearly conflates one of the outcomes of successful KM and knowledge processing with KM as something we do, an activity or class of activities. So, let’s now distinguish a) KM, b) the ecological system which we might view as the longer term systemic goal of KM, and c) the software tools of social computing. Now, let’s address the question of the impact of the introduction of social computing tools into organizations.

After presenting the KM 2.0 tools, John talks about anticipated impacts, including:

– increased chance of “bumping into somebody in the coffee room by infinity,”

– enabling tuning “into a knowledge flow,”

– increasing the number of people you trust,

– providing high abstraction communication at “similar wavelengths,”

– increasing distribution of contributions to content and increasing transparency,

– increasing the number of weak social ties cutting across the hierarchy that can tie one into relevant information relatively quickly,

– creating greater frequency of communications cutting across the organizational hierarchy,

– increases in networking effects due to aggregation of widely distributed information, and

– increases in emergent patterns of content and self-organization.

He also points out that apart from the need for facilitators to support communities, there is no KM here, because people are just working by themselves in a social way.

Let’s consider the last point first, doesn’t the view that KM 2.0 can be done “without KM” assume that the network of blogs, wikis, and social networking tools that is KM 2.0 can function in enterprises without any regulation or maintenance? Doesn’t it assume that a kind of unregulated free marketplace of ideas will function smoothly without the need for management intervention? Is that reasonable? What about software updates? What about cultural norms to prevent the social exchanges from tending toward extreme conflict? What about cultural norms and interaction rules to prevent the development of communitarian conformity in informal social interactions? What about development of rules for knowledge claim evaluation? What happens if the rules that develop in the emergent patterns are authoritarian? Is there anything in “KM 2.0” to prevent that from occurring? What about encouraging the development of new ideas in the new exchange networks? Can laissez-faire ensure originality, or should knowledge managers introduce other processes to supplement KM 2.0 tools and to encourage people to “think outside the box.”

Granted, that KM 2.0 tools are useful in helping people to get more involved in exchanging knowledge claims and even in collaborating in this task, and more generally. But once having helped the enterprise by helping to introduce these tools, is the work of Knowledge Managers really done, or is this just an appeal to return KM to the good old days when it was all done so very well informally, without benefit of even a name? Forgive me, but I think that doesn’t work. However good our kno