Library clips

With all this km 2.0 talk about fostering information sharing with a bottom-up approach, how do we go about implementation and processes. At the same time there is another movement that hits at the fundamentals in eliciting, sharing and transfering knowledge based on a more humanistic approach, as well as viewing the big picture of km as an ecology rather than a machine.

From the onset I will refer Organic km as a new framework or approach to km in general, and km 2.0 in relation to web 2.0 sharing and networking tools.

Organic km

The problem I hear about km in the past is that it has been too technology focused, “…you have the tools, why aren’t you using it”.
One of the lessons learned has been that technology alone won’t work, people need to know how to use it, and need to want to use it…knowledge culture is the main driver here. I guess this neglect coupled with the km identity crisis of the past (km is part IT, part upper management, part HR, part e-learning, part Library) has led to many failed attempts at using km to foster a knowledge culture.

NOTE: I like the knowledge champion idea.

David Snowden basically attributes this to the management style, he sees Knowledge Management (managing Intellectual Capital) as more of an ecology than a machine, his ideas of Organic Knowledge Management and sensemaking are humanistic in contrast the the mechanistic and scientific approach of the business process re-engineering management style used in the past.
I won’t delve too much into Organic Knowledge Management as you can read the approach, style and process in his 3 part series…but I’ll try to encapsulate the style.
Just briefly the elicitation of knowledge in this more humanistic approach is of an experiential nature (based on anthropological techniques); collecting anecdotes, extracting evidence of aspects of knowledge (KDP’s) from the anecdotes via the ASHEN model…further techniques are storytelling (regains context of the experience and triggers further discovery).

Also from the same article are some key heuristics:

Knowledge is only ever volunteered: it cannot be conscripted
- people will reluctantly share a quality of experience to a criteria, but volunteers will be more passionate and qualitative

When codiying we will always lose context and content
- more knowledge will be gained from observance and experience rather than just reading some documentation

Knowledge is only known at the point it is needed
- this is why oral sharing like storytelling is more holistic (knowledge is more accurate or moreso holistic when in context and at the time of action)
- this is also why the KDP and ASHEN techniques are there to make sure every angle is covered, short of re-living actions and context through storytelling

Knowledge is both a noun and a verb (ie. is an object and a capability)

Here is a great quote from part 3 that paints the big picture in relation to the organic approach (reminds me of landscape architecture):

“An organic solution does not reject large-scale systems, but it does reject their design in isolation from practice. A simple metaphor will illustrate this. I plant grass in the courtyard and observe paths that people naturally wear across the grass then, when I build paths, I will build them where they are needed with consequential lower cost and higher utilisation. Which is not to say that I might not also plant the odd hedge or use landscape features to guide the flow of feet!”

The main framework where we can observe or encapsulate the enterprise ecology or organic nature in relation to knowledge management or sensemaking is the Cynefin framework…Anecdote has more, here’s an excerpt:
“The beauty of the Cynefin framework is that it accepts the validity of rational, linear, and mechanistic explanations, but it does not regard these as universally apllicable for all problems.”.
Here’s a post on intervention, which highlights or accepts that behaviour cannot be predicated (cause and effect) when in a complex ecology.

For more on Organic km and techniques such as sensemaking, story telling, narratives (and also CoPs, and SNA) see the Anecdote blog, these guys talk from practice…also look out for their new Most Significant Change service, Zahmoo.

The Real Tacit

Sharing and transfer alone will not solve the tacit knowledge puzzle, some things can’t be learnt off a piece of paper so why bother documenting the process other than to know it exists. Above I have briefly mentioned that the organic km techniques identify this issue and choose elicitation and oral sharing methods as best fit. Mainly due to re-creating the context of knowledge in action, which induces more content, and the fact the people are voluntarily involved in the process, willing to share all they can remember (and as just mentioned these techniques do exactly that, create an environment that triggers memories associated with certain actions and incidents).

More towards the theoretical philosophy of tacit knowledge is an article by Haridimos Tsoukas, who illustrates that tacit knowledge can never be made entirely explicit. Internal knowledge imparting is part transfer and part practice…you can’t learn to be a car mechanic by just going to technical school, you need to learn by doing. By observing, language and practice is the best way to become equipped and empowered with new knowledge. Reason being is there are many aspects that make up a knowledge destination, and these peripheral aspects are not at the forefront, they are absorbed in the process. Only by doing and practice can we master the fluid and holistic nature of knowledge destinations.

Here are some outstanding articles based on a modern perspective on km.
These articles aren’t about social network/sharing web 2.0 tools, there are more about really understanding what km is from the the inside out (looking at human nature), from observance, learning and culture…rather than a top-down and non-contextual view.

Building the knowledge-based organization : how culture drives knowledge behaviours
Do we really understand tacit knowledge?
Guidelines for Identifying, Motivating and Supporting Knowledge Champions
km sustainability framework
The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world
Complex Acts of Knowing - Paradox and Descriptive Self Awareness
Turning knowledge workers into innovation creators
Leadership and the power of chaos
Sharing Knowledge manual
The nonsense of ‘knowledge management’
I = 0 (Information has no intrinsic meaning) (no longer exists…here’s my cache copy via furl)
Organic Knowledge Management (ASHEN) - Parts 1, 2 and 3
Various storytelling articles, such as Story-Telling1: Old skill new context, and Tools for Chief Knowledge and Learning Officers.

Some of the articles above are by David Snowden at the Cognitive Edge…take a look at his select bibliography. These articles are very mature and insightful; they cover anthropological techniques, brief history on management history…and the new way of km based on understanding human nature. A lot of the theory and models are based on the ways people cognitively and socially operate, achieving a collective cultural picture. The observation gained from understanding people has been the basis for developing a model from the people for the people.

km 2.0

Some articles I’ve read recently really hone in on the most fundamental aspect of km, and that is knowledge attitude, culture, learning, empowerment, innovation, championing and sensemaking. Sure we can attempt to get people to transfer and share knowledge, use collaborative techniques, and codify information, but for this to be sustainable there needs to be a knowledge culture, just look at all the people using social network web 2.0 services on the open web, they’re all doing this in droves because it’s about connecting, participation, passion, discovery and sharing…this amounts to personal knowledge growth, and an aggregate knowledge pool.

At the moment the km movement has been learning from all this and realising education and culture and attitude are the essential ingredients, not that some haven’t known this all along.
This does not mean we are teasing out tacit knowledge and codifying it (well we are documenting it, but is tacit really the opposite of explicit), all it means is that we are sharing information at a socially local level. I guess this stage of the movement has the hip label km 2.0…which I think is more focused on the knowledge sharing aspect of km.
NOTE: As explained above, there is another phase in the km movement in respect to the heart of km fundamentals based on sensemaking and the organic km framework or approach.

Work staff need to want to share knowledge, and I think the new wave of decentralised knowledge tools with a social connectivity aspect will emerge just what’s asked for…knowing who’s who, knowing who know’s what, know where to find what, etc…

There’s lots of social software in the new Read/Write web, but are all these tools required by the enterprise, or in certain industries…is it the right time at the moment?
Whatever the questions are people need to use these tools, they need to want to use these tools, so as always the adoption strategy is paramount.

There have been posts of late on how collaboration sits in the culture, attitudes, and capabilities of the enterprise…Dennis McDonald as a great post on this with links to some of his past posts (this is a great blog for use cases and the reality of web 2.0 in the enterprise).
Whilst I’m here for all things social in the enterprise there are 2 essential blogs by Luis Suarez, Elusa : the knowledge management blog and elusa ~ a km blog.

It seems the main aspect is the “tipping point”, there has to be an advantage for using these new tools…if they are just alternatives to send an email people won’t budge, they need to have their own unique benefits.

And of course like anything else, all levels of management must support and use these tools, as role models.
I think a trial project or business unit focus group is a great idea to start, if all goes well others will be envious they don’t have these tools and demand them.
I guess a trial with a CoPs group would be ideal as these people have a passion for this group, and will be more open to sharing and innovating in new ways.

I agree with what Anecdote alludes to in that web 2.0 in the enterprise coming full circle when the younger generation who have grown up with these tools are the main numbers in the workplace. Firstly they are tech savvy already, and secondly they will pick up new tools easier.

Actually I see blogging, wiki’s and bookmarking as ways to not only discover communities but to share topic based information in a loose and informal way…and now that Microsoft is getting into the game maybe the masses will take notice.

More

Check out the Socialtext post on, An adoption strategy for social software in the enterprise, it’s a real winner…also see Andrew McAfee’s post on adoption.

Also see the Socialtext customer stories, it’s great to see more use cases with social software.

Here is a paper on Babble, this is IBM supporting knowledge communities using an online environment.

Also I like the idea of expert locators as a knowledge tool, sure you can find information in a repository, but what about locating and talking to the person who created the document…sharing beyond the document. The other point to this productivity issue is time spent looking around.

My Related:
Internal communication blogs and km2.0
Research librarian and web 2.0
Enterprise social sharing structure
social enterprise tools at scale|free
km2.0 newmastering
The different ways of finding experts
Microsoft Knowledge Network : expertise locator

Other related:
KM is the Forest, Enterprise Blogs are the Path
KM: the forest for all the trees
How Can You Communicate the Corporate Benefits of Enterprise 2.0 Network Effects?
Barriers to knowledge sharing

My 10 essential km blogs:
Green chameleon
Anecdote
Knowledge Jolt with Jack
Collaboration Loop
The Workplace
Elusa : the knowledge management blog
elusa ~ a km blog
Portals & km
Column Two
Innovation Creators

Some extra’s:
Knowledge-at-Work
All kind food
Cognitive Edge
Networks, Complexity, and Relatedness
BABSONKNOWLEDGE.ORG
Diary of a Knowledge Broker
Full Circle Online Interaction Blog
How to Save the World
Collaborative Thinking

I also found some blogs on SNA (Social Network Analysis) and Social Capital that I haven’t checked out yet:
Connectedness
Network Weaving
Social Capital
social-space.com
Centrality
Microsoft Knowledge Network Team Blog

Check out KnowledgeBoard’s Knowledge Bank Library for lots and lots of great articles (quick registeration).

[ADDED:An anecdote post lead me to a journal called E:CO (Emergence: Complexity and Organization).]

[ADDED 4/10/06: Is there a Generation Gap in Collaboration?]

[ADDED 4/10/06: Adoption of Web 2.0 and eLearning 2.0 Revisited]

Technorati Blog Directory is only just that, a blog directory, with an OPML for good measure.

Where has the exploring part gone, where you can view the latest posts from a topic in the blog directory,

eg. folksonomy, I can’t see the latest posts, or grab the feed.

You can search within “blogs about folksonomy” eg. furl…this gives me the latest posts that contain the term “furl” from the “blogs about folksonomy”.

What I want to do is a blank search so I just see the latest posts in general.

Where has this feature gone, it seems they only have house made ones in the Discover section.

I reviewed the IT Toolbox a while back and was blown away…perfect web 2.0 knowledge sharing portal for the enterprise.

According to Luis Suarez they have now added a social networking feature, here is Luis’s profile.

As you can see it is like a profile page, I like that it creates a river of news streams for profiles you have marked as friends (what about an OPML or spliced feed?), and a comments section…I wonder what’s coming next, people tags perhaps…

ID’s or profiles are in vogue at the moment…claimID, naymz, simplifID, ziki (this allows you to re-syndicate your content from all over the web), peoplefeeds, SuprGlu (this is more limited than ziki), etc…

TechCrunch has a post on Pluggd, this is a searchable speech recognition service for audio.

What happens is that you can search an audio file for keywords, it then highlights where those keywords appear on a timeline (also highlights related terms)…this is great if you have a 1 hour audio file and you just want to hear a section you are interested in.

This is granular sections of an audio file, kind of like paragraphs in a story, and I believe you can even tag these sections.

Wow, social search for parts of audio files, search full-text of an audio files, and search not only the file by tag, but parts of the file by tag…this is as granular as it gets.

Hmmm…I mentioned something like this in my post, Granular tagging or index tagging (see “More” section).

go2web2.0 is a flashy web2.0 directory…view A-Z or by type.

Added to my web 2.0 list of lists.

Want to keep up with RSS services and tools, well the ever clever Marjolein Hoekstra has done some awesome newsmastering and presents a feed grazing window into the RSS world.

Basically she has collected a feedset for RSS services, which can be grazed in Grazr.

For non-straight forward feeds, she has done some Feed Digest filtering/splicing, and even used Blogdigger (this is a clever search engine as you can create a search feed for a category from a blog).

This has all been collected in BlogBridge and packaged in an OPML, the beauty of it is when she adds a new feed, it will appear in the Grazr feed set.

Here is a list I sometimes update, this list is very dumb and static.
Compare it to Marjolein’s web2.0 style list…very dynamic indeed, read stuff without leaving the list.

Also I’d like to see this list by type eg. RSS readers, RSS filter/splice, RSS alerts, RSS re-syndicate, etc….maybe using folders.

I guess you’d have to choose between the A-Z list or by type, I wonder if you could do both?

Grazr has come a long way, I hope they plan to allow people to create the actual OPML using Grazr…at the moment I use OPML Workstation, (I haven’t tried iJot yet) this allows me to create any kind of OPML, not just feeds.

Grazr could also host a place to present your OPML, instead of Marjolein’s having to use a blog post, but a blog post does allow you to post announcements about your OPML Grazing List, and also use the sidebar portal like features. Grazr do have a permanent link at their website for your Grazing List, but I’m talking a proper user space like BlogBridge library.

BlogBridge Library
- create and host an OPML Reading List only
- at the moment it is just a feed directory, with an inbuilt blog…you can’t read content…coming soon I hope
- also I’d like to see some code to add a BlogBridge feed grazer to your blog sidebar
…this way your enterprise could make a feed directory, where you can take the feeds away to read in your RSS Reader or read them in the directory itself, and also be able to get code to re-syndicate a spliced feed for your OPML topic or even better an OPML Grazer.

This way the Intranet page for your business unit can host a little public RSS/OPML Reader/Grazer instead of having to go to the directory.
Staff members could bookmark this page and read the latest, without requiring their own RSS Reader…wow, you could have a whole heap of bookmarks for various topic Grazers.

Or make your own Grazr and use OPML includes for each topic OPML, this Grazr could be like your Favourites for OPML topics…I guess we will see OPML directories get out of hand in the future.

Wink just released its Beta 2, and its main focus is a search engine for the human indexed web.

Wink is also a social bookmarks service, and a social list (collections) service, it also allows you to tag yourself.

When you create a collection you can add bookmarks from your “My bookmarks” or enter outside URL’s, if you do enter an outside URL into a collection, this won’t also be added to your bookmarks, it will just live in the collection.
I’d like to browse the whole of Wink to add a URL to my collection, actually you can do this when browsing any URL in Wink, but you can’t do it when you are in the Collections section.

You can describe the collection with tags, but if someone clicks on a tag from the tag set in your collection, all it does is do a general search in Wink.

This is the same with profiles, if someone clicks on a tag from your profile (tags you choose to describe yourself, essentially people tags), again it just does a general search.

Bookmarks are different, if you click from your “My Bookmarks” tag set you will see only your bookmarks with this tag

…but if you browse your stream of bookmarks, and click on a tag next to the bookmark title, it will show everyone’s bookmarks with that tag. Actually it just does a search for the tag name, and brings up results that may not even have that tag, but the term may appear in the title.

So as you can see the focus is not tags, but search, tags in this system are a general search query.
Wink also is a meta-search service for the human indexed web, as it includes several other social bookmark services.

Winks power is in “searching” the social web, and even further refine the results in a social way by ratings…it also shows results from Google for the same search (for comparison).

Feedback

Ideally when I click on a tag in a Collection, I’d like to see other Collections with this tag.

When I click on a bookmark tag, I’d like to see other bookmarks with this tag only, I don’t want to see bookmarks with the tag term in the title or description or URL…I want tag browsing to be different than searching.

When I click on a people tag, I’d like to see other people with this tag.

See some related points at my post, All about social lists.

More

Here is a brief list on services that cover more than one area:

Human-indexed web (full-text meta-search)
- wink
…even rate hits in search results (this is social from start to end)

Bookmarks
- wink

Lists
- wink
- otavo

People Tags
- wink
- yedda
- ziki

Q&A
- yedda
- otavo

Personal Re-syndicated Content
- ziki

Built in blog
- otavo

Reading List
- ziki

And of course Squidoo, fanpop, hubpages, and Zimbio are part of this crowd.

Dennis McDonald has posted about a DIY opml feed grazer called Wizz RSS, not sure if it takes just normal links as well, ie. all the items in your OPML are not feeds, but links.

It’s not as powerful as Grazr, especially that you have to host the file yourself…by the way Grazr is hot at the moment.

Others:
Opod
Grazr
Bitty (this is an actual web browser)
Optimal
FeedMeme

Yedda is my favourite Q&A expert locator service, they have now released widgets for your blog.

There are two kinds, and more to come:

- The FAQ widget collects relevant questions from Yedda on your blog topic and displays them directly in your blog, so that you can always have fresh content for your readers.

- The Yedda Ask widget lets people ask directly from your blog questions related to your blog topics, which are posted to Yedda, with a link back to your blog.

The Ask widget is a clever idea, as it is getting Yedda out there into the blogosphere, besides the functionality of the widget it is a promotion in itself…plus questions asked from blogs will link back to the blog when browsing questions in Yedda (cross promotion I guess).

The only complaint I had about Yedda in the past is that you can’t direct your question at a specific person, eg. ask a specific person and cc: the rest of Yedda as usual…and of course Yedda will invite others to help with an answer (FAQQLY seems the opposite, it can direct a question to an individual or a group, but it can’t ask a question to the whole of FAQQLY).

Just wondering if people asking questions in the widget will think it is directed to the blog owner, perhaps the blog owner could be invited to answer the question by default…not sure if this happens.

The Knowledge Network (KN) seems to be an expertise locator, I’ll briefly mention the similar services so far.

NOTE: Fringe Contacts lets people tag each other…Ziki allows you to do this in your personal network view.

Ziki also does a great job in getting to know a person, ie. once you have found a person, you can read their content (re-syndicated from the various services they belong to).

So with Ziki and Yedda you can find an expert via a people tag cloud…KN goes further than this as it combines SNA (Social Network Analysis) with an expert locator, it helps you find the most relevant person to you.

I’m not sure if KN will allow you to browse a people tag cloud.

NOTE: Yedda is different than Ziki, as it is a Q&A service rather than a personal content service, although both are expert locators.

In KN, a user can manually assign themselves keywords, or let the system mine specific email folders, and email and IM contacts.

It doesn’t just scan your IM and email to assign keywords, but it also uses this as an SNA tool.

eg. if there are 2 experts about “blogs”, and you have corressponded with both, or corresponded more with one of these people, then this person is chosen as the most relevant expert for you.

NOTE: this is not document search, and it’s not a Q&A srrvice, it’s people searching and profiling.

What I like about Yedda (expert locator and Q&A service), is that if you can’t find an expert, then you can just ask a question to the community, and Yedda will also go further and invite Yedda users to answer your question (these users profiles are matched to the text in your question and the tags in your question).

The way KN works is you allow the system to mine your contacts and various email folders, it will then suggest keywords and contacts, and you can choose to accept these, or create your own.
This will happen on a frequent basis, this will keep up with what you know currently, what type of a topic expert you are now compared to 2, 6, 12 months ago. This also applies to your social network, who are your current important contacts.

One of the KN blog posts says that so far it is trying to extract concepts/meaning from emails as this document format seems the most rich with tacit knowledge. To add more document sources would require more time and money and fine tuning.

Benefits

Another of the KN posts, goes through the benefits:

- people are lazy to manually describe themselves (and will they be accurate), mining your emails is an alternative, as it is honest and real…but, the system may not be aware you’re an expert at something unless it is frequently apparent in your email content.

- updates make sure that new contacts you frequently deal with and new topics you have become proficient in are added to your profile.

- bad recall (can you honestly remember all your important contacts or your social network, well you don’t have to as KN does it for you)…this also applies to all the skills, topics you are good at, but have forgotten.

- most expert locators result in certain people reaching burnout due to over demand, KN attempts to hook you up with an expert, but the most relevant expert to you

- personalizing contacts and keywords according to your social relationship with others (SNA), helps you find not only the expert, but perhaps the expert you are most familiar with, but not only that, in a timely fashion.
From their post:
“…when your colleagues use SharePoint Server’s search facility to try to find someone with a particular area of expertise or particular contacts, the KN server responds to the query with personalized results that are displayed according to social distance and inferred relationship strengths, which were calculated by the innovative algorithms that we’ve developed.”

- this post, also mentions a search where you can find people who know someone (this extends the SNA concept, I wonder if from these results it would choose an appropriate person for you).

Here are some screen shots of KN…and a video.

I really think expert locators are going to take off for knowledge management, sharing information in repositories may be a help, but connecting with the author can give me context and insight into how they think…it also helps form relationships, this is much more tacit sharing than previous methods.

Related:
The different ways of finding experts
Microsoft and Enterprise Web 2.0