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