Week 3: A discussion on Ed Brill's presentation

Today (April 16th) Ed Brill came to visit the class. Ed is a Business Unit Executive at IBM and is in charge of sales for their Lotus suite.

Ed is obviously a very dynamic speaker. I both liked and disliked Ed’s presentation.

What I liked
I was extremely interested in the first quarter of the presentation. I thought Ed did a great job with an overview of knowledge management and IS management in the first quarter of the presentation. I think the best part of his presentation was his slide that showed the history of IS systems adoption and a look into the future (a future that will apparently include 3D Virtual worlds) This was a fascinating look into where companies have been, what challenges they are facing today, and what challenges they will face in the future.

I also liked many of the practical experiences that Ed shared with us. His stories about Aon and other companies he met with helped to drive home the point of the challenge of knowledge management.

What I didn’t like / made me feel very uncomfortable
While I understand Ed’s background is to be a Lotus guy through and through, I thought his devotion to IBM and Lotus was incredibly off-putting and toed the line of inappropriate for the classroom. I was hoping the rest of Ed’s presentation would be like the first quarter: Leveraging his knowledge and experience to bring insight into the challenges of Knowledge Management. Sadly, it didn’t always take that form. His Microsoft bashing was above and beyond the normal complaints that one might have with Redmond, and were highly inappropriate. They were shots at an opposing vendor, smash talk of a competitor. I think there’s a place to note how Microsoft’s death grip on office and home productivity software has stifled and can stifle innovation and knowledge management, but unfortunately his approach to this issue didn't strike the right chord. There was nothing substantive about his Microsoft bashing. Quite frankly, those kind of Ad Hominem attacks do not belong in the classroom. Also, while Ed promised that the presentation wouldn’t be a sales pitch, it really felt that way toward the end. In all fairness, Ed probably didn’t even intend to make this happen, but Ed’s a salesmen through and through and sometimes it’s easy to do what comes naturally.

Overall I think Ed Brill could be a great speaker to bring into a classroom, but I think that he needs to leverage his experience to bring practical knowledge to students, instead of resorting to proprietary chest thumping.

Week 3: Head above water?

I wanted to elaborate more on the image I shared with the class today. The image was that of us as a species. The information and communication revolution that has currently been taking place before our very eyes has basically opened a floodgate, drowning us in an ocean while we paddle our way through wearing nothing but our bright orange floaties.

I’m convinced that the technology in place of which to communicate has far outpaced our ability.

Week 2 Readings

Alavi
“Knowledge is authenticated information” I think this was perhaps the most important thing I read in this document. It touched upon our earlier conversations about truth and knowledge. Here Knoweldge is defined as “authenticated” meaning that the information is authenticated as true and useful.

I thought the Tuomi argument was incredibly interesting – essentially the idea is that there are no such things as information or data without knowledge.

Tumoi argues that knowledge exists which, when articulated, verbalized, and structured, becomes information which, when assigned a fixed repre-sentation and standard interpretation, becomes data. Critical to this argument is the fact that knowledge does not exist outside of an agent (a knower): it is indelibly shaped by oneís needs as well as oneís initial stock of knowledge (Fahey and Prusak 1998; Tuomi 1999). Knowledge is thus the result of cognitive processing triggered by the inflow of new stimuli.

This article focuses heavily on personal knowledge and the relationship between knowledge and a person. To put simply the goal of knowledge management is to take the knowledge of an individual and be able to capture it and leverage it as an asset for an organization.

Bohn
The Bohn article is a very interesting look at how to measure knowledge about a process. The article outlines eight stages. Below is a figure of those stages



Nonaka
The Nonaka article was a long look at how to make an organization a knowelge centric organiation. The goal of the article was to give pratical advice and guidance as to how to create an organizational environment where employees are always looking to improve in the knoeledge management of an organiation.

Studying Risk

I found a very interesting post on risk over at Bruce Schneier's blog. Here's a quick snippet:

I've already written about prospect theory, which explains how people approach risk. People tend to be risk averse when it comes to gains, and risk seeking when it comes to losses...... This behavior has been demonstrated in animals as well: "species of insects, birds and mammals range from risk neutral to risk averse when making decisions about amounts of food, but are risk seeking towards delays in receiving food."

As I continue to evaluate strategies of organizations and how they commit their resources (or don't) it's interesting to see how decision making processes can work on the more primeval of levels.

What I'm (Google) Reading

The following are the feeds I subscribe to on Google Reader:

• All things Digital (http://www.allthingsd.com)
  
• AppleInsider (http://www.appleinsider.com)
  
• Ars Technica (http://www.arstechnica.com)
  
• Chicago Cubs News (via mlb.com)
  
• Chicago White Sox News (via mlb.com)
  
• Ed Brill (http://www.edbrill.com)
  
• Engadget (http://www.engadget.com)
  
• ESPN (http://www.espn.com)
  
• IGN Wii (http://wii.ign.com)
  
• Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com)
  
• Len & Bob's Blog http://blogs.trb.com/sports/custom/weblog/wgnsports/atom.xml )
  
• Macrumors (http://www.macrumors.com)
  
• Macworld (http://www.macworld.com)
  
• Nintendo Wii Fanboy (http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com)
  
• Schneier on Security (http://www.schneier.com/blog)
  
• Woot (http://www.woot.com)
  
• Xbox 360 Fanboy (http://www.xbox360fanboy.com)
  

Week 2 Class: Networks and Nodes I

I thought today’s (April 8th) class was a very interesting and unique take on knowledge. I’ve already blogged about the knowledge and truth debate, so I want to focus more on personal knowledge, networks, and nodes. I really enjoyed the breakdown of the Steve Jobs commencement speech. The way the different major topics/important information was basically broken down into a sequenced chain was interesting. It also got me to thinking about how this could be an effective tool for our KMS project. All too often when I work with a KMS, they’ll give me the information I might need for a specific step in a process, but afterwards I’m always wondering “Ok what next.” I think it would be cool if a KMS could “chain” knowledge base articles so that after you solve problem one you don’t have to go back and reinitiate a new search for the next step. Instead, I should just have a link that can take me to the KB article for the next step.

All in all though, I’m starting to realize that proper KM for an organization is a very very difficult process. I think the key though will always be A) an organization that is always committed to KM through and through and B) a disciplined approach to KM. I think sometimes A) might be true but B) falls to the wayside, especially when a project is facing tight deadlines. Sure, it would be great to document everything for a KB, but that might mean adding extra time into a project plan to ensure that happens.

Veritas? What is Veritas?

The question posed in week 2 was quite interesting. As an organization do you want to work on “knowledge” management or “truth” management? I think the debate that broke out in class basically crystallized the argument and to me begs the essential question: “When and how does knowledge become truth?” During class I brought up the idea that knowledge is not as important as truth. I used the example of the common “knowledge” 500 years ago that the world was flat. However the truth was very different. The history of man is filled with early recordings of knowledge. Some of it has stood the test of time, others have been refined, evolved, and changed. Those recordings that have stood the test of time have come to be known as truth. But truth has a certain subjectivity to it. Truth still needs to be proclaimed as such by some authority. Scientifically a theory becomes law when the authority (usually empirical data) consistently produces a similar result. But who is the authority on proclaiming truth in an organization? We’ve read knowledge management documents that help to describe certain business processes, but whose to say those processes are true? Is the authority in this situation the results produced by certain processes? What if an organization arrives to a goal in a project yet uses the most inefficient processes known to man? Are those processes now gospel, simply because of their results? And therein lies the problem, very few pieces of information inside an organization can ever be empirically tested to carry the weight of truth. And if that’s the case, then information can never be promoted further than knowledge. But ultimately it helps us to realize that the real goal or knowledge management is to turn your KMS from a knowledge base, into a pillar of truth..

My experience with KMS

Through my years as a technologist I’ve come across many different knowledge management systems. Most of them however were simple repositories / knowledge bases. (See Microsoft Support, Host monster help, Apple)

According to the definitions discussed in class these would be considered a “repository” KMS system. What I’ve found in using them is that I really would prefer them to be network modeled KMS’. Basically it seems like the only way to really have a strong KMS is through commonly understood codification and tagging practices. What’s frustrating about the tagging processes of multiple KB’s is that they don’t publish their practices and processes to the general public. If I knew more how they codify and tag their articles I’d be able to perform smarter searches to help me find the information I need.

Week 1: Readings

Week 1’s readings troubled me deeply. I have a very contagious, albeit treatable, condition known as senioritis. The sheer volume of reading however has done nothing to help this condition.

There were some overarching themes found throughout all the readings that we’ll discuss in this blog post.

I think the most important piece of information from all the readings came out of the Harris “One More Time What is KM?” reading. It has a definition for Knowledge Management:

“A simple definition for KM is formalizing the management of an enterprise's intellectual assets.
Enterprises look to manage their intellectual assets because of the capital embedded in them. This embedded capital is not financial; rather, it is human, organizational and relationship capital. These forms of capital are often hidden, are not highly leveraged and are difficult to value. Yet, they are clearly available to invest.”

Structured vs. unstructured

The Bowman article discussed the difference between structured and unstructured information. Structured information is that information which is found in traditional storage methods such as databases. Unstructured information is information found in documents, spreadsheets, media files, etc.

Network model vs. Repository

The Bowman article also outlined two ways to structure a KMS. The Network Model, which basically helps the user “connect the dots” between different pieces of knowledge as well as structure the knowledge in different directories and categories. Rich user collaboration is also an important feature of the network model. The repository model basically uses IT to capture all the knowledge and just put it in.. well.. a repository.

Tacit knowledge vs. explicit knowledge

A few of the articles also outlined the different types of knowledge. Simply defined, tacit knowledge is knowledge that is collected through experience, precetion, behavior, etc. Whereas explicit knowledge can be captured and disseminated explicitly.

Week 1 Class: "The beginning of the end"

Week 1: Class

Week 1’s class started off just like any other first day at DePaul, except this time it was actually like a real “syllabus day.” Professor Burns let us out early, which was fantastic regardless of how much it fanned the flames of my inflamed senior.

Professor Burns laid out a roadmap for our class, including the importance of this very blog (to me 50% says it’s important). He also gave us an introduction to Knowledge Management. We went through the basic IS exercise of examining data, information, knowledge and wisdom. However Professor Burns really through the gauntlet down by making the statement that “most of the problems you’ll encounter in life are knowledge problems.” I want to speak more of that here.

That thought really intrigued me, and I think it really touched a chord. I’ve been working with technology my whole life and I think I’ve somewhat developed this point of view, but never gamed it out and put it as elegantly. But often times my friends and family always would ask me (of course after fixing something of theirs) “How do you know all of this stuff?” Of course I would always talk about how my passion is technology, and how I just love working with technology, but I think what it all boils down to is a problem of knowledge. From an early age I started to recognize the overwhelming power and possibility that computers and technology gave us as a species. I knew that my life would always be intertwined with technology, and as a result I tried to learn all that I can about it. The reason I know how to fix someone’s PC, or how to install a program, or setup a home theater system is simply because they’re problems I’ve experienced in my life, and have acquired the knowledge to solve them. There are vast amounts of technologically related issues that I have little to no knowledge of, but what I’ve learned in my experience thus far is that these are simply frontiers of technology that have yet to intersect with my life. When they do, my understanding of them will simply be a problem of knowledge….