Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on explicit-knowledge http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic explicit-knowledge Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Nonaka's knowledge transfer patterns Sun, 13 Oct 2002 20:42:41 +0100 Nonaka and technology. Last week, I ended a <A href="http://kumquat.weblogs.com/2002/08/15">blog entry</A> with the question, "Do current collaboration tools effectively facilitate Nonaka's four patterns of knowledge creation?" [<A href="http://kumquat.weblogs.com/">Kumquat's Musings</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Unfortunately I haven't found a reference to the Nonaka paper on-line.  Nevertheless Andy's summary is interesting.  Nonaka, he say's, identifies four interaction patterns that describe how knowledge is created/transferred in a company. <OL> <LI>Tacit - Tacit (knowledge transfer by socialization) <LI>Explicit - Explicit (formal and systematic, e.g. RTFM) <LI>Tacit - Explicit (someone documenting their knowledge, e.g. a weblog posting) <LI>Explicit - Tacit (as people read formal documentation it becomes, over time, part of their greater understanding)</LI></OL> Since tacit knowledge is, by and large, hardest to come by that makes capturing it the more interesting problem. The question in my mind is: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> How important do most companies think it is to capture tacit knowledge?</BLOCKQUOTE> It seems to me that it is only those organizations that see themselves as learning organizations are interested in this sort of stuff and willing to invest time and money in it.  I need to find people who see the capture & transfer of knowledge as bottom-line activities. I haven't come across too many organisations like that.   Oh well, networking is a major part of my Get Clients Now! program for the coming month.  If there out there I'm going to try and find them. [The <A href="http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/marwick.html">Marwick article</A> referred to in the posting looks very interesting]</BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000717.html Digesting knowledge management technology Tue, 15 Oct 2002 20:43:23 +0100 Over today I've been digesting <A href="http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/journal/sj/404/marwick.html">Knowledge Management Technology</A> 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. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » 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."   </BLOCKQUOTE> Tacit knowledge is actionable knowledge. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » 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.</BLOCKQUOTE> The key to knowledge creation lies in the mobilization and conversion of tacit knowledge. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » A key point from Nonaka.</BLOCKQUOTE> Creation of new knowledge takes place through the processes of combination and internalization. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » An interesting point.  Ref Nonaka, Internalization is defined as: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> explicit -> tacit (e.g. learn from a report)</BLOCKQUOTE> Combation as: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> explicit -> explicit (e.g. e-mail a report)</BLOCKQUOTE> Need to think more on this.  I'm not quite there.</BLOCKQUOTE> 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. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » 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?</BLOCKQUOTE> 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. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » 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,...</BLOCKQUOTE> For example, knowledge creation results from interaction of persons and tacit and explicit knowledge. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Seems to contradict the earlier point slightly.  This one makes more sense to me.</BLOCKQUOTE> Through interaction with other, tacit knowledge is externalized and shared. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » 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.</BLOCKQUOTE> 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. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » 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 "!garyhamel" mindset: Coming up with discontinuities that create new markets.</BLOCKQUOTE> In any case, automatic extraction of deep knowledge from documents is an elusive goal. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » True.  Although it will be interesting to see what tools like "!cyc" will be able to do as they mature.</BLOCKQUOTE> 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. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Yep</BLOCKQUOTE> 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." <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Key point. There is little technology can do about culture.  This maybe shouldn't worry us since because, as Seb pointed out in a <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/2002/10/08.html#a413">recent post</A> (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: <UL dir=ltr> <LI> <DIV>software that encourages & supports behavioural change</DIV></LI> <LI> <DIV>software that requires less behavioural change</DIV></LI></UL> as appropriate.</BLOCKQUOTE> Ackerman refers to this situation as a "social technical gap." <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » 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."</BLOCKQUOTE>  Shared experiences are in important basis for the formation and sharing of tacit knowledge. <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » 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)</BLOCKQUOTE> A richer kind of shared experience can be provided by applications that support real-time on-line meetings (i.e. groupware) <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Yep.  I've <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107808/2002/10/15.html#a483">just been musing</A> 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 <A href="http://blogs.it/0100198/2002/09/20.html#a184">multimedia conversations</A> for some time. For myself I would like to try experimenting with VideoBlogging.</BLOCKQUOTE>   More later...   http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000732.html Can knowledge be captured? Fri, 02 May 2003 09:36:31 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <A href="http://matt.blogs.it/2003/05/01.html#a896">Thinking about capturing knowledge</A>. <IMG src="http://matt.blogs.it/images/maps/knowledge_capture.jpg"> [<A href="http://matt.blogs.it/">Curiouser and curiouser!</A>] Matt - Does your well thought through and elegant  diagram suggest that knowledge can be "captured" by some system? If so I prefer the BP approach where they reject some form of "capture" and see instead that knowledge is most deep and useful in tacit form embedded in a person. So instead of capturing knowledge, BP make it easy to find the person who has the know how. For instance in my case as a novice blogger, Critt Jarvis has kindly given me the code to set up a category section and a blogroll. Now Richard Gayle is helping me automate the blogroll. This quite different fro  say a FAQ which would be the knowledge in "capture" form. For me the novice, being mentored by a person is 10 times better than reading about the technique. [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0107127/">Robert Paterson's Radio Weblog</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> Interest points Robert.  I would have to say that my opinion is not well-formed right now.  I guess I do believe that knowledge (at least some knowledge) can be captured. Let me turn it around a second and ask this:  For BP to be able to "find" the person who knows something don't you have to know: <UL> <LI>what it is they know</LI> <LI>who they are</LI></UL> aren't these kinds of knowledge?  And doesn't making them available in a system mean capturing them first? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001448.html