Knowledge Management Myths

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Retraining of Library Information Scientists
as Knowledge Officers Dr.H.Anil Kumar,
Librarian Nirma Institute of Management Ahmedabad
382481 E-mail nim_at_ad1.vsnl.net.in ITT
2000 Information Today and Tomorrow Media
Convergence and Knowledge Management
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INNOVATION LIFE CYLCE
Bio economy
Knowledge economy
Information economy
Postindustrial or data economy
1945
1970
1995
2020
2045
Innovation Life Cycle Curves Applied to the 100
year Economy 1945-2045
Years Quarters Name 1945-70 Q1 Data
Economy 1970-995 Q2 Inf. Economy 1995-2020 Q3 K
Economy 2020-2045 Q4 Bio-economy And beyond Q1
of Bio-Economy
Botkin Smart Business
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DATA-INFORMATION-KNOWLEDGE

wisdom
knowledge
information
data
The Ladder of Understanding
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DATA-INFORMATION-KNOWLEDGE

• Car Excellent This An Is.
• This is an excellent car.
• What makes it excellent.

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DATA

• A set of discrete, objective facts about events.
• Structured records of transactions
• Finance, accounting, and marketing
• Banks, insurance companies, utilities, govt.
  agencies
• No inherent meaning, describes partly, provides
  no judgement or interpretation
• Raw material for decision making but does not
  tell you what to do
• Measured Quantitatively cost, speed, and
  capacity
• Qualitatively timeliness, relevance and clarity

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INFORMATION

• Data endowed with relevance and purpose
• Data that makes the difference
• Is a message, usually in form of a document, or
  an audible or visible communication
• Data to information
• Contextualised
• Categorised
• Calculated
• Corrected
• Condensed

Measured Quantitatively connectivity and
transactions Qualitatively informativeness and
usefulness
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KNOWLEDGE

• Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experiences,
  values, contextual information, and expert
  insight that provides a framework for evaluating
  and incorporating new experiences and
  information.
• It originates and is applied in the minds of the
  knowers.
• In organisations, it often becomes embedded not
  only in documents or repositories but also in
  organisational routines, processes, practices,
  and norms.

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KNOWLEDGE

• Information to Knowledge
• Comparison
• Consequences
• Connections
• Conversation
• Within and between humans.
• Data in records or transactions, information in
  messages,
• knowledge from individuals or organisational
  routines.
• Knowledge is delivered through structured media
  and
• person-to-person contacts (conversations to
  apprenticeships)

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Knowledge as a business asset

• Changing global economy
• New products/services/practices
• Pricing pressures
• Reduced cycle time for producing new products
• Quality, value, service, innovation, and speed
• Outsourcing manufacturing and focusing on
  knowledge-based activities of developing products
  and processes
• Product and service convergence

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Sustainable Competitive Advantage

• Material and processes
• Economically important skills
• Today one cannot prevent copying or improving on
  new products or production methods
• Technology is no longer a SCA (Ex. ATM)
• Availability
• Short new product life cycles
• Trend to obsolete own products before competition
  does

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Sustainable Competitive Advantage

• Unlike material assets Knowledge assets increase
  with use
• Knowledge generates new knowledge
• Knowledge stays with the giver while it enriches
  the receiver
• Competitors can match the quality and price but
  by that time the knowledge rich and knowledge
  managing company will move to new level of
  quality, creativity or efficiency.

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Knowledge Conversion
Clearly Articulated, Rationality, Sequential
EXPLICIT
COMBINATION
EXTERNALISATION
TACIT
EXPLICIT
SOCIALISATION
INTERNALISATION
TACIT
Clearly Understood, Experience, Simultaneous
Interactions
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The Framework
1. Plan
Culture
Infrastructure
Value Proposition
2. Design
4. Scale-up
3. Implement
Measures
Technology
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Knowledge Management Myths

• Knowledge is a companys only and the most
• important resource
• There is a perfect solution to KM.
• K can be perfectly codified and its sharing
  institutionalized
• KM is all about technology
• All of organizations K grows monotonically
• K is owned by one or two groups in the
  organisation

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LI Professionals
CKO
KM Specialist
LI Professionals

• Organizational Knowledge Worker

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Organizational KW

• Add value directly to the customer
• Contribute to the K generation, that is directly
  relevant to the business/main activity of the
  organization
• Identify, capture, storage, organization, sharing
  and application of organizational K
• Ex Educational Institutions
• Faculty roles
• Administration (academic/general)
• HR/Training
• Publishing
• Public Relations
• IT implementation

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KM Specialist

• Knowledge Manager
• Development of KM systems
• Coordination
• Maintenance
• Monitoring
• Knowledge Management Team member
• Identification
• Selection
• Filtering
• Storage
• Organization
• IT
• Sharing
• Feedback

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CKO in Library

• Design KM system
• Develop infrastructure
• Form KM team
• Design Roles and Functions
• Promote the concept of collective K and learning
• Develop HR systems focused on K sharing
• Initiatives
• Lessons learned
• Best Practices/Standardization
• PKM
• Awards/Rewards for K sharing
• Appraisal with emphasis on K sharing

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KM Literature on Librarians

• The Knowledge Management Fieldbook by W.R.
  Bukowitz and R.L. Williams
• converting librarians as cyberians
• critical link between databases and individuals
  trying to get something out of them
• Powerful search engines are not match for
  detecting nuances and filtering the essential
  from the merely interesting
• Ex Heller Financial

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Librarians as cyberians
Collect information on current activities of
corporate information specialists. Convene a team
of information specialists to perform a gap
analysis identify areas where these
professionals can help members maximize their
information environments. Create a pilot
programme in which information specialists work
more closely with a team or community,
implementing some of the activities identified in
the gap analysis. Bukowitz Williams
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Librarians as K facilitators

• Working Knowledge How organizations manage
  what they know by T.H. Davenport and L. Prusak
• most intriguing new knowledge jobs knowledge
  integrators, librarians, synthesizers, editors
  and reporters
• organizations need people who will extract
  knowledge from those who have it, put it in
  structured form, and maintain or refine it over
  time
• Ernst Youngs Center for Business Knowledge
• Owens-Corning Knowledge Resource Center

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Training Inputs

• Project Management.
• Entrepreneurship/Intrapreneurship for librarians.
• Internet applications and technology.
• Information technology and applications.
• Knowledge Management Sensitization.
• Information Technology for Knowledge Management.
• Personal development, motivation, creativity and
  innovation.
• Presentation (oral and written) skills.
• Leadership and interpersonal skills.