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1, No. 4 > Open Articles |
Apr 2001 | |
Who's Mapping?by Xenia Stanford, Editor-in-Chief, KnowMap and President, Stanford Solutions Inc. Before launching KnowMap Stanford Solutions conducted a Knowledge Management and Mapping Survey. We have reported on the findings in three previous articles and will continue the report in this article. ReviewTo review what we have already covered, the title of the articles (KnowMap volume, issue number in which the article appeared), the topics covered and the supporting figures are indicated below: The Many Faces of Knowledge Management (Vol. 1, No. 1)
The last two are rhetorical questions though we would welcome any responses, either as letters to the editor or case studies. In Issue 2 we continued as follows: Why and How Organizations Are Mapping? (Vol. 1, No. 2) (Figures correspond to topics as listed)
At the end of the article As We Map and Manage we promised to bring you further results from the Survey on Knowledge Management and Mapping, such as the following:
The last item was covered in Vol. 1, No. 2 as indicated above. However, our exploration of who is mapping, such as by size, industry and profession, will be covered in this article. By reading these four reports on various aspects of the findings, our Mission, Vision and Guiding Principles on our HomePages and the first Editorial, you will learn the rationale behind the creation of KnowMap: The Knowledge Management, Auditing and Mapping Magazine. In addition we hope that learning what colleagues in knowledge management (KM) are using knowledge mapping and how they are using it will be of assistance in your own knowledge management efforts and strategy. Who's Mapping?First to review how many are using knowledge mapping techniques, we reported as follows: Out of 164 respondents:
Hopefully, reading the articles in KnowMap will change this percentage distribution among those expressing interest in knowledge management. Size of Organizations MappingWe allowed a choice of the following categories by number of employees in the organization of the respondent:
This totals 160 respondents who chose one of the above categories but 4 respondents failed to report an organizational size. In the tables and results given below, these are recorded as UNRP for Unreported Size. Also two not reporting relevant data are included in the unreported section.
First, examining the size of organizations mapping, we find that 101 respondents said they did not know if anyone (including themselves) in their organization were mapping. This means the majority (close to 62%) were not themselves using mapping and did not know of others in the organization doing so. (See Figure 1.) As expected the majority of these (36%) were in organizations of 2000+ employees, the largest category represented on the questionnaire. This means mapping could be a tool used by the organization but due to its size, the people responding to the questionnaire may not know about any occurrences and are not themselves mapping. The smallest unit available on the questionnaire was from 1-99 employees and this is where the second most frequently unknown category was found with 27%. The third most frequently unknown category with 21% was the next level up representing those in organizations of 100-499 employees. With the smaller organizational size the likelihood of the person not knowing whether others are mapping would be less, thus these organizations are most probably not using mapping techniques as a knowledge management tool.
On the positive size the 63 respondents who reported they or their organizations were using mapping, the 2000+ was again the largest represented with 42% of the total reporting the use of mapping. This was followed by the smallest size of organization with 33% and again the third largest percentage came from the 100-499 employee organizational size. (See Figure 2)
Comparing the size of the organization with the frequency knowledge mapping was used as a tool is shown in Figure 3. Here we can see that the 2000+ size of organization had both the most unreported or unknown incidents of mapping and the most reports in the top category of mapping frequency. 25 of the 62 organizations in the 2000+ category reported mapping with 5 of these reporting incidents in the highest frequency category (50+ times) of mapping. This was followed with a reporting of 4 out of 20 of the smallest sized organizations (1-99 employees) and 4 out of the 11 of the 100-499 employee sized organizations. 11 out of both the 1-99 and 2000+ size organizations reported mapping in the 1-9 times frequency category. The second highest number was 7 out of the 25 large organizations reported they knew mapping was used at least 25-49 times. Type Of Industry Using MappingThe types of industry from which the respondents could choose were as follows:
The 101 organizations that did not know of mapping being used as a tool came largely from those who reported their industry as other. This was followed with 12 from each of Energy and Manufacturing industries followed by 10 each of the Education and Medical industries reporting that they did not know if their organizations were mapping.
Those reporting the most incidents of mapping in the 50+ category came from Educational institutions with 6 out of the 19 reporting in this category. 7 government agencies reported using mapping at least 1-9 times followed by Consulting with 5 out of their 19 respondents in this same frequency. Four each of Manufacturing and the miscellaneous or Other type of industries reported using maps in the 1-9 frequency category. These trends can be seen in Figure 4. Profession Most Involved In MappingThe respondents were given the following types of professions as choices on the questionnaires:
Parentheses indicate coding used to identify the profession on the figures and then the number who responded in each category.
As you can see the vast majority of the 164 respondents said they were librarians by profession. Of these 72 did not use or know of any one in their organizations using mapping as a tool. However, 41 reported they and/or their organizations used mapping with 9 in the 50+ frequency, 7 at 25-49, 6 at 10-24 and 19 at 1-9 times. (See Figure 5.) Of course this does not mean that librarians are more likely to be involved in mapping than other professions. If we look at percentages of respondents we find 38% in total report mapping at some frequency versus 62% not reporting or not knowing if their organizations are mapping. Librarians reported in at 39% mapping versus 61% not, just slightly higher than the total respondents claimed.
Assuming that those reporting mapping in their organizations are themselves mapping, the highest percentage reporting mapping at some frequency are those who classified themselves as Executive, followed by Business Development at 60% and Human Resources at 50%. These are the three professions reporting their organizations conducted mapping more often than not. (See Figure 6.) Of those professions where less than 50% of the respondents reported mapping, the two that reported a greater percentage than Librarians were the Other category at 45%, Information Technology at 44%. Only Competitive Intelligence professionals at 33% mapping reported in at a lower figure than the Librarians. Thus although they were the highest number of professionals to respond to the survey, they were the second lowest to report the use of knowledge mapping in their organization. Finding and Fulfilling Mapping NeedsDifferentially large response from librarians was in part due to the fact that they were the focus of some of the advance information provided about KnowMap's survey, but also because this occupation may be more interested in completing surveys on knowledge management topics. Since many in this profession, judging by the coverage of this topic in such literature as the Special Libraries Association monthly magazine Information Outlook, are interested in the knowledge management area, this should be taken as a sign they need to become more familiar with this tool. The methods by which they can learn to use this tool include the Stanford Solutions Knowledge Mapping Toolkit and other courses or subscribing to and reading KnowMap with its many articles on how to map and case studies showing different mapping examples. Subscribers at the Ruby and Diamond level also gain access to the Stanford Solutions Resource Library where several different types of knowledge maps are described and illustrated. Mapping Techniques UsedAlthough we reported on the percentage of map types used in the article: Why and How Organizations Are Mapping? (Vol. 1, No. 2), it may be interesting in future reports to see if there is any trend in what type of map is being used by profession, industry or size of organization. Raw Data Available for PurchaseIn the meantime we have decided to release the raw data, excluding any identifying or contact information - as we will ensure confidentiality of all respondents - to those who would like to purchase this information. Please contact Xenia Stanford at Stanford Solutions Inc. to discuss which data sets and pricing. Read more about Xenia Stanford.
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