Look Who's Coming to Dinner! The Changing Faces of KM:  New Competencies, New Contributions & New Strategies

 Knowledge Management is emerging as a significant answer to a critical organizational problem.  Numerous enterprise-wide strategies are being touted as the path to capture and transfer vital organizational knowledge.  This approach, while conceptually valid, will find significant resistance from organizations due to the size of the required effort.  In contrast, Project Based Knowledge Management allows organizations to leverage naturally occurring projects and related disciplines to discover, refine, capture and transfer organizational knowledge.  This approach utilizes the strengths of established disciplines such as Project Management and Requirements Engineering to deliver high-quality intellectual by-products that comprise the very heart of organizational knowledge. While the established practitioners of these disciplines are only now realizing their role in the Knowledge Management world, they are not new to knowledge efforts.  Their role, perspectives, deliverables and strategies are based on decades of refinement.  They will provide great strength to corporate KM efforts. As any form of Knowledge Management initiative is a project, it must be managed as such.  Project Management has many insights for controlling these corporate initiatives as well as contributing to the growing pool of intellectual assets. In addition to exploring the influence of these new players in the KM field, noted seminar leader and corporate consultant, Chuck Tryon, will also describe the purpose for and content of a Knowledge Retention Policy.  The KRP provides the needed structure to organize knowledge elements contributed by projects.  Additional information on Mr. Tryon and this approach to Knowledge Management may be found on the home page of www.TryonAssoc.com.  For additional reading, download “Bridging the Knowledge Gap” and “Project-Based Knowledge Management” from the Tryon and Associates website.

Chuck Tryon is a nationally respected educator and popular symposium speaker.  He founded Tryon and Associates in 1986 to provide training and consulting services that helps organizations and individuals develop predictable and repeatable approaches to modern project management, knowledge management  and business requirements.  The strategies presented in Mr. Tryon’s seminars are used by thousands of professionals in hundreds of organizations across the United States, Europe and Canada.  His client list includes many top 100 companies. Chuck has authored 10 multi-day seminars and is completing a book titled Great Ideas.  He is currently working on a second book titled What’s YOUR Charter? Chuck is a frequent keynote speaker at Project Management Institute meetings and symposiums across the country.  Mr. Tryon has also presented at the Knowledge and Project Management Symposium, Structured Development Forum (SDF) conference, Association for Systems Management (ASM) and Data Administration Management Association (DAMA) meetings.

Knowledge Management Education: A Knowledge Management Challenge

Knowledge Management education itself is a Knowledge Management process that entails many challenges. 

 o    Challenges on the creation and delivery of intellectual capital. What kind of intellectual capital does one try to ingrain in learners?  How does one know what knowledge, tacit and explicit, to communicate to learners and what training to engage?   What kind of experience does one create to cultivate tacit knowledge and sensitivity to tacit knowledge?  How does one balance theory and practice?    

o    Challenges to best practices in education and training in Knowledge Management.   Given the recent emergence of education and training in Knowledge Management, have “best practices” been established?  One can appeal to case studies in Knowledge Management applications, but perhaps not yet to Knowledge Management education.  These challenges have been two-fold: online and onsite.  What best practices exist for an online or on-site curriculum and deployment?  How does one manage the whole (an Master’s degree or a Knowledge Management certificate) and marshal the parts (i.e., courses and other learning experiences) to facilitate the whole?

o    Challenges in detailing and documenting lessons learned. Key also are the lessons learned or not learned.  What successes and failures can be articulated?  For example, what have been some of the successes and failures in course and curriculum development or in collaboration with competitive programs and certificates?  How does the program optimize the successes and minimize the failures?

o    Challenges for organizational learning and organizational culture.  How does one implement best practices and lessons learned into instructional design?  How does one establish this procedure as a continual knowledge management process?  In the case of Kent State, we have engaged instructor/facilitators from all over the world.  How can achieve a sense of cohesion and knowledge sharing to make program offerings effective and efficient and with minimal redundant content?

o    Challenges for competitive advantage.  There are more and more Knowledge Management degrees and online courses and programs available.  How does one establish one’s distinctive edge?  Professional associations, such as AIIM and SLA, have launched their own online courses or certificates.  Does one collaborate with or challenge these diverse avenues for knowledge management education and training?

o    Challenges for resources and staff.  A program operates in an organizational setting that has been cautious about deployment of resources and staff, particularly tenure-track faculty.  How does one manage to get the resources, faculty and supporting staff, to maintain and invigorate the program and its offerings?

o    Challenges for marketing.  How does one create an awareness of Knowledge Management education, such that one can attract the clientele to sustain and develop the program?  While one can disseminate information on mailing lists to members of professional associations, it has proven to be more difficult to get into companies and organizational settings to build awareness of the program.  What kinds of approaches work for marketing a Knowledge Management program?  Many businesses hunger for Knowledge Management solutions, but they do not seem to know it.  With some exceptions as companies like Ernst and Young, many American corporations and their executives have a poor if non-existent understanding of Knowledge Management, particularly because it has not been part of the standard repertoire of courses in MBA programs.  If they know the phrase at all, it is often attached to some software “solution.”  We all know that Knowledge Management is not software, although some software applications may facilitate knowledge management.  Knowledge Management is about people management with bona fide knowledge management technology as an enabler.

o    Organizational challenges.  When a program becomes successful, organizational structures may seek changes that may not be advantageous to the ongoing success of the program.  How does one manage local politics that promotes a culture of knowledge and power sharing and that continues to advocate for additional resources?

The presentation will focus on how the Information Architecture and Knowledge Management (IAKM) program at Kent State University program strives to meet these challenges.  While having opened the program in 2001, it has already undergone a major curriculum revision, given that education and training in this area is a work in progress. This presentation will discuss the evolution of the program, the development and offering of online certificates and its new venture, starting in Fall, 2008: a fully online Master of Science degree with a concentration in Knowledge Management or a concentration in Information Architecture and certificate programs in Knowledge Management and Information Architecture. 

Thomas J.  Froehlich is a Professor at Kent State University and serves as chief architect and Program Director of the interdisciplinary Master of Science in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management program (IAKM).  His education includes a Ph.D. in Philosophy (Duquesne University), an M.S. in Information Science (University of Pittsburgh),  M.A. in Philosophy (Pennsylvania State University), and B.A. in English Literature (St. Vincent College). He teaches in the areas of information architecture, knowledge management, ethical concerns of information professionals, information science, online information systems, network and software resources, and user interface design.  In addition to national venues, he has taught workshops, seminars or classes, or made presentations in 23 countries from South through Europe to the Far East.  He has worked with UNESCO and the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), producing a publication for IFLA’s professional series, Survey and Analysis of Ethical and Legal Issues Facing Library and Information Services and has given presentations at meetings of the Content Enterprise Association (AIIM), the European and American Information Architecture Summits,  the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), the International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE), the Special Library Association (SLA) and other various national and international venues.  Original articles and some of his English publications, primarily on ethical issues, have been translated into German, Portuguese, Polish, Spanish, Catalan, and Hungarian.

 

KM in Higher Education: Current and Future Developments

"The forest is not going away, and KM is coming to be the name of that forest. We have always had trouble defining KM, and now we have another definition, or more exactly a new metaphor: KM is the name for the forest of information, content, knowledge and IT management."  KM World.com

KM has grown and become an apparently permanent phenomenon, quite unlike any of the other late 20^th century business enthusiasms.

Despite this, Information Schools and Business Schools have on the whole been very slow to establish concentrations, or majors, or degrees in KM.

This presentation examines this paradox, and speculates on future developments

Michael Koenig is Professor and former  founding dean of the College of Information and Computer Science at Long Island University.  His career has included senior management positions in the information industry: Manager of Research Information Services at Pfizer Inc., Director of Development at the Institute for Scientific Information, Vice President – North America at Swets & Zeitlinger, and Vice President Data Management at Tradenet; as well as academic positions: Associate Professor at Columbia University, and Dean and Professor at Dominican University.  His Ph.D. in information science is from Drexel University, his MBA in mathematical methods and computers, and his MA in library and information science are from the University of Chicago, and his undergraduate degree is from Yale University.  A Fulbright Scholar in Argentina, he is the author of over one hundred professional and scholarly publications, and is the co-editor of Knowledge Management for the Information Professional (2000) and Knowledge Management – Lessons Learned, What Works and What Doesn’t (2003), both published by Information Today for the American Society for Information Science and Technology.  A member of the editorial board of more than a dozen journals, he is also the past president of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics. In 2005 he was awarded the Jason Farradane Award “in recognition of outstanding work in the information field”

 

Information Ethics and Knowledge Professionals

Information Ethics has become a field within information science and knowledge management to address problems which arise with the development and application of digital technology and the internet in organizations and society.

 Unlike doctors, lawyers, and other established professionals, information and knowledge professionals have not yet developed an ethical code as basis for carrying out their work. Existing information ethics programs are designed for IT professionals and librarians, and less relevant for knowledge managers.

What is information ethics for knowledge management? Are there ethical and philosophical foundations of knowledge management concepts, frameworks, and principles? How do knowledge management professionals reflect on ethical issues in knowledge creation, distribution, access, as well as in the design and interventions in knowledge-intensive, social environments? Are knowledge management professionals contributing to the discourse on knowledge and power in organisations and society?

Ethical implications of mediated relationships, gossip and social cohesion in virtual collaboration and communities, understanding online and offline identities of people in organisations and networks, privacy, fraud and secrecy issues in online networks, blurred borders between blogs and conversational marketing - all these issues have ethical dimensions that affect the work of knowledge managers.

 According to the International Center for Information Ethics, information professionals should be able to recognize and articulate ethical conflicts in the information field and activate a sense of responsibility with regard to the consequences of individual and collective interactions in the information field. Information ethics could also improve the qualification for intercultural dialogue on the basis of the recognition of different kinds of information cultures and values, and provide basic knowledge about ethical theories and concepts and about their relevance in everyday information work. http://icie.zkm.de/

Waltraut Ritter is research director of Knowledge Enterprises, which she founded in Hong Kong in 1997, specializing in research and advisory services relating to innovation, knowledge, and intellectual capital. Ritter has worked in information and knowledge management since 1989, when she served as information management consultant for the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) in Geneva and New York. In the past years, she has been focusing on knowledge management initiatives supporting the development of R&D and innovation clusters and the assessment of emerging center of excellence in India and China.

 She also lectures knowledge management and economy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Singapore Management University, and was professor for Knowledge Management at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Since 2007, she is visiting faculty at the International School of Information Management at the University of Mysore, India.

 Ritter is the founder of the Hong Kong Knowledge Management Forum and Society, as well as an active member in the international professional KM community. She is member of the Academy of International Business, the Euro-Asia Management Studies Association, a fellow of the 21^st Century Trust, and a founding member of the New Club of Paris.

 She holds an M.A. in information science and sociology from the Free University of Berlin (Germany), and an M.B.A. from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK.  

Ethics and Professionalism: The Importance of Ethics in KM

Koenig and Srikantaiah recognize three stages in knowledge management in terms of its evolution.  The first stage of KM is “by the Internet out of intellectual capital” is driven by IT. Organizations, particularly the large international organizations, realized their stock is information and knowledge; that often the left hand, as it were, had no idea what the right hand knew; and if they could share that knowledge, they would avoid reinventing the wheel and increase profits.  This resulted in applying IT to the full extent and concentrating on the intellectual capital and the Internet (including intranets, extranets, and so on). The key phrase here is “best practices” later replaced by “lessons learned.” What role ethics had at this stage?

 The second stage of KM, described simply, added recognition of the human and cultural dimensions.  This stage could be described as “If  you build it they will come is a fallacy” stage; that is, the recognition “If you build it they will come” is a recipe that can easily lead to quick and embarrassing failure if human factors are not sufficiently taken into account.  With this, two major themes from the business literature were brought into the KM fold.  The first work was by Senge on the learning organization.  The second was the work by Nonaka and Takeuchi on tacit knowledge and how to discover and cultivate it. They were also concerned with knowledge creation and sharing and communication. The hallmark of this stage is “communities of practice.”  Was ethics practiced at this stage?

 The third stage is the awareness of the importance of content, and in particular, awareness of the importance of the retrievability and therefore of the importance of arrangement, description and structure of the content.  A good alternate description is “It’s no good if they can’t find it” stage.  The hallmark of this stage are “content management” and “taxonomy”. Was ethics gaining importance at this stage?

 As KM is in the domain of stable mature growth, expanding and changing, a fourth stage of KM seem to be emerging expanding the KM application in areas  such as Competitive Intelligence, Project Management, Environmental Scanning , and Knowledge Audit.  In these areas knowledge management is having an impact by integrating and encompassing those fields, under knowledge management.  Ethics is already in practice in areas such as Competitive  Intelligence and Project Management. This is similar as practiced in the field of Law, Medicine, and Business Ethics. Therefore, it has become necessary to include the study of Ethics as a course in the curriculum of KM Programs exposing KM practioners to understand the role of ethics in the profession and put into practice. Ethics is incorporated in KM studies and applications.

 

                                                     Taverekere (Kanti) Srikantaiah, Director and Professor, Center for Knowledge Management at Dominican University joined the Dominican faculty in 1997. He teaches graduate courses in Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) and also cross-disciplined courses with the School of Business (GSB) at Dominican University. Before joining Dominican, Kanti had a distinguished career at the World Bank where he headed varied and important assignments, in the areas of information management, at headquarters in Washington D.C. (and also at the World Bank's field offices in Africa and Asia).  Prior to joining the World Bank, Kanti worked on building a strong and advanced academic background in sciences as well as in social sciences. Kanti received his B.S.(Chemistry) from University of Mysore; M.S.(Geology) from the Karnatak University; M.S.I.S. from the University of Southern California; M.P.A. from the University of Southern California; and his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. He also worked at the Library of Congress as an area specialist and taught at the California State University, Fullerton, California, as an Associate Professor. He has also taught as an adjunct faculty at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C, Syracuse University, University of Wisconsin at Madison, University of Maryland at College Park, and at the University of Maryland University College. His area of specialization includes Systems Analysis, Taxonomies, Content Management, Organization of Knowledge, Management of Information Repositories, Environmental Scanning, Information Audit, Project Management and Knowledge Management.  Among others, his research output covers: several research studies and project reports at the World Bank; articles and presentations at IFLA and similar international organizations. He was invited to conduct KM workshops in Singapore and India in 2004. In summer 2006, he was invited as a visiting professor from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore, India, where he taught Knowledge Management and participated in the KM activities. As the chief editor, his book Knowledge Management Practice: Context and Connection will be published in March 2008. He was the chief editor of Knowledge Management for the Information Professional, published by Information Today Inc., as part of the ASIS&T Monograph series.  He was the co-editor for Knowledge Management Lessons Learned: What Works and What Doesn’t published by information Today Inc., as part of the ASIS&T monograph series. He has also published two other prominent books one on systems analysis and the other on quantitative research methods.

Preparing Health Information Professionals for Knowledge Management

Efforts in the United States to collect data about patients, clinicians, methods of medical practice, and public health records currently center on the technology, protocols, standards and the spreading of electronic innovations. As health information professionals develop the tools and skills to organize data, they will begin also to prepare knowledge bases. Health is a worldwide issue. The impact in this country may influence knowledge management globally. Perhaps the experiences with KM in other countries may also promote a collaborative approach to dealing with health knowledge on an international level despite the differences in national approaches to providing healthcare. Looking at the recent history and growing status of HIE (health information exchange), HIT (health information technology), and EHR (electronic health records)in the US suggests that there is time to prepare strategies for effective KM in hospitals, clinics, and medical information centers everywhere. The opportunity is here today, as the speaker will describe. Many businesses –Google, IBM, Red Hat, SAS, and more—want to be part of health data collection and information development. Who is ready for health knowledge management? What strategies and models might assist local community, national, and international concerns?

 

Dr. Deborah E. Swain is an Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Sciences at North Carolina Central University in Durham, NC. She has over 20 years experience in process engineering, technical training, and managing information projects for corporations such as IBM, AT&T, and Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs. In 1999, she completed her doctorate in Information Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also has an MA from UNC-CH and a BA from Duke University in English. Her areas of academic research include collaboration, digital libraries, health informatics, and knowledge management.

 Dr. Swain is researching ways to define a collaboration model and tools for knowledge management in healthcare, businesses and educational organizations. Working with the health education department at NCCU in 2007-2008, she is co-principal investigator for an E-health project to introduce communities with health disparities to the National Library of Medicine’s online databases. This project is funded by the United Negro College Fund for Special Projects and involves four historically black universities and colleges in the US. Also, in 2008 she will be presenting results of a study of African-American physicians and electronic health records to the North Carolina Health Information and Communications Alliance conference. In addition to her faculty position at NCCU, Dr. Swain has also taught at UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State, and Campbell University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in information science and communication