Next Generation Knowledge Management Has knowledge management delivered the goods? Can it? Howard Rosenbaum [email protected]

Next Generation Knowledge Management

Has knowledge management delivered the goods? Can it?

Howard Rosenbaum [email protected]

http://www.slis.indiana.edu/hrosenba/www/Pres/london_04/index.html

Rosenbaum: Knowledge ManagementSchool of Library and Information Science@IU


Has KM delivered the goods? Can it?

I. KM as a computerization movement

• What is the promise of KM?

II. What does KM need?

• The context

• Social networks

• Collaborative KM technologies

III. Can next-generation KM deliver?



What is a computerization movement (CM)?

A social process that develops around a core ICT (or ICTs)

KM systems are brought into organizational settings and integrated into social and work practices

It involves organized and collective action and is rooted in a “socially constructed process of societal mobilization” (Iacono and Kling, 1998)

It has an ideology, typically technological utopianism

A strong belief that ICTs (KM systems) can cause positive social and organizational change


Actors in a CM: researchers, vendors, consultants, professional groups, trade press, media, organizations, and sometimes the public

Champions and activists develop and engage in a public discourse about the core ICT

If successful, contested meanings and uses become stabilized

Stability is important to the continued development of the CM

Helps gather resources, recruit new members, convince organizations to try the technology



Central to the public discourse about a CM is the process of framing

Social meaning is constructed, disseminated, and stabilized through writing, debate, and discussion

Within technological frames, socially constructed meanings are ascribed to specific technologies (Bijker 1997)

Linking relevant social actors and the ways in which they understand a technology as having meaning and uses (Iacono and Kling, 1998)




As the frame has developed, KM’s core ICTs have been interpretively flexible

Once the frame has been accepted, for a time it fixes the meaning of the ICT

This includes:

Key problems the ICT addresses, acceptable problem solving strategies, a range of acceptable resolutions

Theories that can be used to develop it, tacit knowledge and practices supporting implementation and uses, exemplary artifacts representing the ICT’s output



KM’s technological frames have influenced people inside and outside of the CM

Internal roles: recruit new members for the CM

Mobilize similarly situated organizations to reject old cultural models and to identify with new ones

External role: persuade a broader audience that KM systems are valuable, useful, and lead to a better social or organizational order

Successful framing has singled out organizational problems that can be improved with KM systems and provided a clearer sense of how to address them


Technological frames offer common sense notions about why ICT are the way they are and why there should be change

Non-technical people gain deeper understandings about how KM systems are used in different situations

Frames play a role in the organizational acceptance of KM’s ideology of transformation

They justify high levels of investment in KM systems and set expectations about how systems can be used

They are a bridge between abstract, macro-level social processes and micro-level social and work practices



CMs have historical trajectories

One can appear and just as quickly disappear

One can appear, gain momentum and become successful in a path of increasing influence and impact

One can appear, gain momentum, falter, become stagnant, and then revive

Dr. Koenig will provide insight into KM’s trajectory

The social impact of a CM can wax and wane over time

What matters: participants’ organizational strength, judgments of near and far-term success, and existing opportunity structures (market forces)



At different points in a CMs’s trajectory, frames open up new possibilities for action (and close others)

The spread of these frames across many layers of public discourse mobilizes large-scale support and suggests specific lines of action within micro-social contexts such as organizations restructuring themselves in order to implement and effectively use internetworking technologies in their routine activities

(Iacono and Kling, 1998; 2)



CMs are often accompanied by computerization counter-movements who also frame the CM’s ICT

These arise out of the collective action of activists who “oppose certain modes of computerization” that are seen as “bringing about an inappropriate social order”

They challenge more localized changes thought to result from some component of a specific CM

This can be seen in the professional and academic discourse about the benefits and costs of KM CCM Information Research Weblog http://www.free-conversant.com/irweblog/channel/knowledgemanagement



Frames allow participants to sharpen support for or critique of the facet of the CM that is their focus

It’s less important to verify truth claims about the relationship between the core ICT and social change

It’s more important to selectively frame an interpretive schema so groups and organizations can understand and interpret the meaning of the ICT for their own contexts and practices

As a consequence, frames and the discourse of which they are a part may misrepresent actual practice for long periods of time (Iacono and Kling, 1998)



What is the promise of knowledge management?

Better decision making and improved organizational performance

Better services and products for customers

Faster generation and application of ideas and innovations

Increased richness and reach in communication

Access to internal and external networks

Access to competitor and market intelligence

Reduced loss of knowledge due to staff turnover








• The context

• Social networks




At this point in its trajectory, KM’s technological frame is again contested

The public and professional discourse is lively

Academic researchers, vendors, practitioners, consultants, professional groups, trade press and media are supporting and attacking KM

Many are calling for changes

Next generation knowledge management!

New practices and technologies

Assessment of methods and metrics for measurement



Having mined insights from other disciplines, KM now seems to be discovering library and information science

This is part of Dr. Koenig’s assertion that KM is in a third stage

Since this is also my discipline, I will draw upon it for three interesting ideas that stand a chance to shape the discourse about next generation KM

Context

Social networks

Collaborative technologies



The context

An older meaning: the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and throw light on its meaning

In general, a context is a set of interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs

An environment that encompasses the circumstances, objects, or conditions within which one is surrounded

A constellation of sociotechnical, institutional, political, economic, cultural, and organizational conditions in which people are enveloped



The context of knowledge creation or discovery, evaluation, and use is not adequately represented in KM systems

What were the original conditions under which knowledge was created or discovered?

What problem was it intended to address?

What are the credentials of the person or group that created or discovered it? Who assessed it?

How can KM systems adequately represent trust?

Kelleher will address contextual issues, linking KM with other organizational functions



Social networks

The concept is receiving attention in many disciplines

It includes a set of people and the relationships and interactions among them

Computer-supported social networks include the ICTs used by the people to maintain their relationships and interactions

Sociotechnical interaction networks expand the concept to include much more of the social and organizational contexts in which people interact

No matter which we choose, social networks are not adequately accounted for in KM systems



People in organizations are involved in social networks through which important knowledge is exchanged

Some is not codified

Legal liability, political sensitivity, thought to be trivial

Social resources are important

Sometimes people need to use contacts people in the networks have with people outside the network

People don’t necessarily need access to experts

Social or contextual expertise instead of factual expertise

How can KM systems help with this?



Social networks of personal relationships are critical to successful knowledge sharing

They grow and develop through a series of reciprocal favors and obligations

Knowing the inventory of social knowledge and resources in the network is important

This builds a pool of mutual knowledge and trusted relationships

These networks are supported though regular interaction and conversation

How can KM systems support this type of social network?



Social networks will receive serious attention throughout the day

Stenmark will discuss the importance of everyday activities in KM

O’Sullivan and Hughes will discuss people networks as a new model for KM

Mowbray will provide insights into developing online communities for KM

Griffiths will explain the role of community coaching as a novel approach to KM

Keeble will discuss the challenge of organizational buy-in



Collaborative technologies

Social software supporting group activities and interactions across national and cultural boundaries

Augmenting socializing, networking, and work

Two major goals of KM collaboration technology

Enable participants to collaborate easily whether remote or co-located

Be able to share their output effectively with the rest of the organization

Morrison will discuss organizational collaboration for personal information management



Social software

Blogs, RSS, Wikis

Instant messaging

Peer to peer network

FOAF (friend of a friend): machine readable finding data

Open Collaboration Services Initiative

Ward will be discussing narrative and story as means to facilitate knowledge exchange

Creighton will what is involved in managing a large-scale collaboration technology


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And of course, there will be a need for anti-social software







• The context

• Social networks




KM is a computerization movement in a stage where the meaning and uses of its core technologies are in flux

You are engaging in the public discourse that will stabilize its meanings and uses, shaping its future

There is a growing recognition that KM is a collaborative activity

Abell will be discussing this shortly

It depends on the creation of shared context between the participants

KM has to align itself with the ways in which people work



Next generation KM may be developed from the bottom-up

A decentralized grass-roots movement making heavy use of social software

People can share knowledge in person-to-person (or small group), just-in-time interactions

They can do this in the context of solving specific business problems

The key may being able to find the right person with the right knowledge at the right time

Know-who over know-how



Next generation KM will rely more heavily on tools for personal content and knowledge management

Tools for the capture, organization, recall and dissemination of documents, messages and other personal knowledge

Done in an intuitive, transparent, automatic, personally customizable and simple manner

Blogs, RSS, knowledge mining tools

People develop self-managing knowledge communitiesPollard, (2003)http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/images/TheFutureofKnowledge Management.doc



Has knowledge management delivered on its promise?

Not yet!

Can next generation KM deliver on its promise?

YES!

Depending on what we all do in the next several years


Social practices: concrete, situated, and often mundane activities in which we are engaged as we enter, work and play in, and exit a variety of social settings during the course of a day

An organization can be seen an example of a setting within which specific sets of social practices are carried out by organizational members as they interact

Social life is generated through social practices in ordinary contexts and is a skilled and ongoing production of knowledgeable actors

III. Context as information environment

Next Generation Knowledge Management


Howard Rosenbaum [email protected]

http://www.slis.indiana.edu/hrosenba/www/Pres/london_04/index.html

Documents

Next Generation Knowledge Management Has knowledge management delivered the goods? Can it? Howard Rosenbaum [email protected]