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2, No. 4 |
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Brown and Green: Shades of KnowledgeXenia Stanford, Editor-in-Chief, KnowMap and President, Stanford Solutions Inc.
"I don't much like the term - knowledge management" has been attributed to several gurus. Thus many try to excuse its use. As a linguist, I am not one of them. As anyone who studies the evolution of language discovers - it matters not the terminology as the understanding that is transferred with it. Let's stop bashing the term and spend the time on understanding that KM refers to a process and not the deliverable. It is necessary to have a process for managing knowledge, just as there is a process for crop management. Let's not confuse the process with the product. The point is it does not matter as much what we call it as what we do with it and how we do it. Knowledge management is not static. It does not end where information management ends - as a constructed database of retrievable common knowledge. Rather knowledge begins where information management ends. Even here I know I tread dangerous waters as many now scorn the chaos to wisdom pyramid on which data to information to knowledge are the building blocks between.
Again this pyramid is only a visual tool, like many we use to help us understand there is a difference. Once more it is not so much what terms and what images we show - it is what knowledge we transfer and what concepts we challenge with their use.
The point is not so much that we cannot share, learn and use what others know. It is that we must move beyond the golden harvest into the greening of the new crop. As in nature this cycle must continue as a spiral constantly reaching for improvement - just as we fertilize the soil in which we plant by digging the compost into the ground. It is this harvest cycle that is knowledge management. Just as a farmer or gardener plants, tends, reaps, enriches, sows - so must we. This means there are many colours to knowledge:
Other Shades
I have written before about brown knowledge as the mulch - knowledge that has been learned - thus is now common knowledge to be recycled into compost from which green knowledge may sprout anew with innovation. We usually think of knowledge management in terms of gathering and sharing - just like the Thanksgiving harvest. Yet the end of the process is not the harvest because some of it becomes the seed for new products. Yet these gathering and sharing knowledge activities do not describe the whole no more than just the brown and green shades cover the spectrum. Other shades in the knowledge management cycle include the ripening over the summer into gold before there is anything ready for composting. Then there is the white or silver of winter while the ideas remain dormant before they are ready to burst forth into something beyond what has gone before. For it is the winter while the harvest that is sustaining us where our knowledge must be composting to prepare for the planting and nurturing phase of springtime. Once more there is growing and ripening over the summer to prepare for a new bounty to gather and share. How we tend to the various stages in the cycle to encourage the best results is knowledge management. In other words let's not weigh the farmer's work by his tasks but by his yield. Let's not weigh the value of the knowledge management cycle by what we are doing but by the quality of a bountiful crop (usable and reusable knowledge).
If the crop is ripened to a rich golden brown that we can use for sustainability and re-use as seed to continue the cycle - then we have succeeded. If the crop is brown and withered before its time, then the time has come to examine our process and improve it. In fact we must be constantly vigilant throughout the cycle to ensure we are doing the best to produce a harvest that yields quality and quantity of both the usable crop of harvested ideas and the re-usable seed for the cycle to continue. Both are necessary for continued viability. Best practices must produce new and better practices or we will soon be left behind. So once again the seasons have changed and we have transitioned from summer into fall. It is yet unending - the revolution of the planet earth around the sun and the northern and southern hemispheres find themselves in opposite seasons. However, it is hard to think only locally when so much is happening globally. Gleaning Knowledge from Far and NearJust as the farmers once gathered to help each other harvest their crops, the Global Learn Day crew gathered around the globe to harvest both usable and reusable knowledge for the sixth time around. We have much to report this issue on that - three articles and more to follow in the future as we prepare for the seventh such 24 hour non-stop webcast featuring the key people who are trying their own revolution - paving the way to affordable access to education. I introduce the experience of GLD VI in Special Views and then in Case Studies - Learning there are two stories to share:
This year we rounded the mark - over half way to the ten and spirally upward to our audience of 100 million by the year 2006. Enlarging the Map
It seems not long ago that we reported sixty plus countries in our readership map. Many more countries have joined in to expand our shores and cross over borders since then - our most recent being the Dominican Republic. It is not just in readership we have expanded the map. We also add new contributors from beyond the North American shores. First there is José Ochoa from Spain giving us his wisdom on twelve common assumptions that cause the downfall of a knowledge management strategy. In selecting and pruning contributions it is always a delight to connect with the authors individually and gain insights into their unique talents and interests. The glimpse into the breadth and depth of historical writings Ochoa contributes in several languages, even the obscure fictional cevantine (the style of Cervantes as expressed in Don Quixote), was an interesting eye-opener into the vibrant personality of this writer. Then we have a human resource expert from India, R. Srinivasan, sharing his perspective on ensuring the success of the 360-degree feedback model. The fact that I literally had to chase him around the globe for edits and approvals to his article and bio shows the talents he has to offer beyond the region in which he originally studied. It is to be sure a part of KM to be able to offer value to your own country but those who will survive in the twenty-first century and beyond must be able to seek and offer value internationally if not globally. Forging Strategic Alliances
This time around we also have forged two new strategic alliances - one not for the first time but to a greater degree. This one is with Special Libraries Association (SLA) of which I have been a member for about twenty years. However, our new strategy included a virtual offering from SLA via a web-seminar (webinar for short) featuring Debra M. Amidon, our Global View Director speaking on Knowledge Innovation - the True Competitive Intelligence. For those who missed it, SLA offers a V-Pak, which we tell you more about in KM Markets. We also invite you to participate in the cycle of sharable and new knowledge through a new challenge: Knowledge Innovation: The Role of the Information Professional. The information we gain will be incorporated into the half-day workshop planned for the June 2003 SLA Annual Conference in New York. More information can be found about that in our June 2003 Events. Thus through these means we can continue the innovative learning opportunities offered by Amidon. For no matter how many times we work with her she is always seeding our mind with new ideas or reinforcing the learning. This can only happen though when we are at the right stage in the cycle. The not-always receptive audience shows the work still to be done in preparing the readiness-to-learn the lessons of the knowledge economy. We have moved beyond the concept of knowledge management as technology applied to information management. I had hoped we had also moved beyond the best practice mentality into the innovation frontier. That doesn't mean we should not look back at where we have been and how we made it to where we are. That is part of the process of the KM cycle. We examine what worked and what we learned so we are sure to improve on the crop in future plantings. A stronger more weather resilient seed is needed for sure in this volatile and not always safe world. This comes from weeding out what doesn't work and collecting new seed from those ideas and people that proved their mettle. This is why again I am pleased to have been recognized by Amidon. First it was through being added to the Global Knowledge Leadership Map as one of the E100. Now it is as one of the 21 Global Ken Practitioners by Amidon in her latest book The Innovation SuperHighway: Harnessing Intellectual Capital for Prosperity, which we review and link to a free chapter. More information about this can also be found in the latest News Release. A Quantum LeapThe other new alliance is with Dialog and their Quantum2 program. We have articles from the Quantum2 team:
In a knowledge exchange Dialog is offering our readers a special deal - a two-week free trial of the Dialog NewsRoom! The NewsRoom collection is one of the largest single repositories of global news media, providing reliable sources, consistent, targeted searching and organized results for the most highly respected publications in the industry. This is described more fully in KM Markets. There it will give you the code to use. In addition KnowMap offers a 10% discount to any who sign up for the Dialog offer. Simply write Dialog on the subscription form when you mail or fax it in and take an additional 10% off the fee offer. This does not apply to site licence portions of the subscription but it may be combined with other offers - such as the Trial Subscribers Fortnight Discount where the total discount would then be 20%. This reciprocal offer is valid until April 1, 2003. Worth the Wait
For at least a year now we have been communicating with Craig J. Battrick - even before his presentation to the Region 7 conference for the Society for Technical Communicators in November 2001. He again presented a paper in November 2002 in Vancouver, British Columbia. For both presentations he received high ratings for interest and content. Finally we have been able to carry his contribution, which starts in this issue, on Why Knowledge Solutions Don't Work. It was worth the wait as he challenges us with looking with fresh eyes at old myths and mistakes in the knowledge management process. He challenges us to look at the yield and the process as a means to that end. Gold Friends - Green IdeasI remember the passage a fellow classmate wrote in my autograph book when I was in elementary school:
How fitting for our premise of the colours of knowledge. So while Ochoa, Battrick, Srinivasan and the Dialog Quantum2 team may be new friends and sources of knowledge to our readers, golden friends collaborate with us as well. Amidon contributed in the first issue of KnowMap and so did Edward W. Rogers In this issue Rogers rejoins us with an article on how knowledge crafting must lead "Organizations … to build on changing paradigms and turn the need for continuous learning into an innovation advantage instead of grim reality". He also introduces us to his new knowledge map showing how mapping organizational knowledge improves innovation. Green and enriching knowledge from golden sources… Young Minds - Fresh ViewsWe have two Masters candidates contributing this issue with new research they used for their final projects. Under Toolkit - Mapping we are pleased to introduce you to Alison Tsao, an Australian university graduate student, who will be contributing a three part series on how knowledge mapping contributes to the power and capacity of an organization and how that can be linked to strategy. She has done a sweep of the common knowledge in this area but brings us the fresh view of a person studying this field. In her first of the three parts she offers her perspective on the mulch from known practitioners and experts in the field. Alycia Tulloch, who recently completed her Masters requirements from Emporia State University in the United States, contributes the harvest from her recent knowledge gathering by way of a survey, which we helped her conduct. She now shares the views on what practitioners in the field regard as the knowledge, skills and aptitudes (KSA) required for a competent knowledge manager and how it is proposed these be attained. Although Tulloch's use has been completed, we are still challenging you to contribute your views on Knowledge Competencies: What Are the Necessary KSA and How Can We Acquire Them? Again your sharing will add to the harvest of ideas and result in an Emerald subscription for you. Challenges to Common Views
The so-called common or working knowledge is the brown and gold but we are always looking for the new shoots to spring up green among them - the innovative knowledge, the fresh views that can bring us to an ever new and better harvest. Therefore, we offer you two new challenges with rewards to encourage you to contribute. So share your view - it may bring us new knowledge or further fertilize with the mulch. It will return you the same in three complimentary Emerald issues of KnowMap! Never let the fear of your identifying information being used stop you. We will only publish name, title and organization upon approval. We do not rent, sell or trade contact information with others. So let us bring in the green and brown and any shades between so we may continue to carry in the golden harvest for the enjoyment and edification of our readers. Works CitedFor further details on the articles this issue, see the Vol. 2, No. 4 Cover Page with title, author and abstracts or check Back Issues for a listing of titles and authors for articles found in this issue and others. Amidon, Debra A. The Innovation SuperHighway: Harnessing Intellectual Capital for Prosperity. Review Bly, David. "Mind's Eye" in Calgary Herald, Thursday, October 12, 2000. Used with permission. Review of his two available books. Global Knowledge Leadership Map www.entovation.com/kleadmap/index.htm KnowMap - News Release International Knowledge Expert featured in the newly released book - The Innovation SuperHighway www.knowmap.com/news_releases/2002_1101.html Events www.knowmap.com/events/index.html
Read more about Xenia Stanford and members of the KnowMap Board. See also the biographies of our Contributors.
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Such
as the concept that common knowledge is the be-all and end-all
of knowledge management. 
