The End Of Knowledge Management?

In our industry, we get to see all sorts of new trends and ideas.  And, occasionally, we see a few older ideas lose favor, to be replaced by newer approaches.

I was out travelling last week, and got into a heated discussion with a customer that classical knowledge management -- as we know it -- was probably well on its way to the dustbin of technology history. 

Given that this person had invested a sizable piece of their career in KM, maybe that wasn't the most politically correct thing to say ... but there's no arguing that there's an entirely new way of looking at the problem.

Classical Knowledge Management

KM is one of those many topics where I am no expert.  The underlying premise is deceptively simple: good things can happen if organizational knowledge is systematically captured, organized and shared.

While there's no argument with the goal, the typical approaches never seemed to work well. 

Long, pedantic discussions about taxonomies and hierarchies.  People being coerced into writing everything down, using standardized templates and style guides.  Huge repositories to store all the stuff.  And various interfaces to search and retrieve "knowledge" -- if you know what you're looking for.

I'm sure that -- somewhere out there -- there are a few shining examples where all of this effort paid off with something of value.  But for every project that worked, I believe there are many dozens that failed.

So, if classical KM is dead, what's replacing it?  Social computing ...

Building The Social Computer

I've probably mentioned that one of my favorite projects these days is working on our internal social productivity platform, dubbed "EMC|ONE".  It uses blogs, wikis, forums, tagging, etc. to create a vibrant, shared space on just about anything anyone wants to discuss.

Over half the company has visited it at one time or another, and about 15% of our employees are categorized as "active", in that they're sharing, posting, commenting, etc.  I would say that our social computer has started to reach a critical mass in many ways.

Tons of good things have come out of this effort.

And one of them is that it makes traditional knowledge management look very old-fashioned.

Do You Want To Read Something, Or Talk To Someone?

If you're interested in a topic, or have a question, you might want both.  The difference with content on our internal platform is that lots of people are involved: commenting, editing, debating, etc.

If you find a document that's useful, you not only get the document, you get all the people who've had a hand in it - and you can ask them a question.  Far more useful than a static PDF, no?

How Do You Find Stuff?

Sure, we can search for things.  That's expected.  But we also have tag clouds to work with, which turns out to be a better way of finding something, once you know how it works.  We also have a "more like this" feature which suggests other discussions and documents you might be interested in.

But -- best of all -- if you don't know where to start, you just find a likely spot, and lob out a question. 

More often than not, some kind soul will lead you to the places where the answers might lie.

I often joke that "search" isn't the killer app, it's "find".  And a helpful, knowledgeable person can beat the smartest search engine in the world, based on my experience.

Eliminating the "Guaranteed Inaccurate" Document?

Like many companies, EMC publishes a ton of documents on all sorts of things.  And I like to joke that each and every one of them is "guaranteed inaccurate" on the day it's published.  Things just move too fast.

One of the other projects at EMC is our use of "structured wikis" that engage the reader in a way that no static PDF can.  Find something wrong with the document?  Offer up a fix.  Confused by an explanation?  Ask a question.  Think you can do better?  Have a go at it.

Readers can choose to view either the final, approved form of a document, or select an alternative view with all the comments, in-process edits, etc. -- and decide for themselves. 

Guess which one they prefer?

And, finally, since you can see who had a hand in the document, you're free to reach out and talk to someone who might be able to really help.

What Really Matters?

When you approach a new topic, you're often overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content you have to read and process before you're smart enough to really know what you're looking for.  I've found that reading a few threads on a topic give you a great shortcut to the issues and concerns that really matter -- and do so very quickly.

And, of course, if you don't find any content to your liking, you're sure to find a few people who can help.

Getting People To Participate: Carrot Vs. Stick

It's not widespread yet, but there's a certain core audience on the platform that likes sharing what they know about their topics.  They want to be helpful, they want to engage with other people, they like writing -- whatever, it doesn't matter.

The bottom line?  We really don't have to force people to share their knowledge -- they seem to want to do that if it's unstructured, and fun.

Of Course, It's Early Days

I'd want at least another 12 months of run time before I conclusively stated "this is a better way to do things", at least, with regards to knowledge management.  But, that being said, we're getting an enormously useful KM capability for very little invested effort, comparatively speaking.

However, I think our environment might be a bit horrifying to the typical KM practitioner. 

We have no formal taxonomy or heirarchy for communities or content.  Anybody can comment or post anything.  There's no formal vetting process for new content whatsoever -- other than community review.  The most active wikis can shift almost hourly -- frustrating if you're looking for the final, authoritative word on something.

For people who like a neat and orderly world, this can be a noisy and confusing situation.

Redefining Knowledge Management?

But -- that being said -- I think what we're seeing a fundamental redefinition of knowledge management -- away from formalized documents living in a repository -- and towards active social networks of knowledgeable people who share, communicate and collaborate -- which we then capture and preserve for future use.

If you're embarking on a classical KM project, I'd urge you to revisit your thinking in light of what's achievable using social computing.  And, if you're embarking on an internal platform for blogs, wikis, et. al. you might want to think of it as a KM initiative.

Don't call it that, though ...

At one level, this makes sense to me -- because I tend to think of knowledge as something innately human and social, and perhaps less formalized and structured.

At least -- that is -- for the interesting knowledge ;-)

Comments

[Shibin Zhang]

Chuck,

Long time no see! I am preparing some job interviews, so I am reading your blog to get myself updated. Your blog is one of the best.

Thanks,

Shibin

[Ken Cowan]

RE: "And a helpful, knowledgeable person can beat the smartest search engine"

Whole heartedly agree.

When I was a kid, I used to think that librarians were the smartest people in the world. You can ask a librarian anything and they'll know the answer, or know where to find it.

Even in a world of Google, you need to know what search terms to enter to find what you need. On EMC|One, there is huge value in the people who, like librarians, either know the answer or know where to find it.

KC

[Michael Hickins]

Chuck,
I couldn't agree with you more. As laudable as KM projects have been, they've always been DOA. Social computing will be the answer, if for no other reason than it offers fun.

[Chuck Hollis]

And, just on the heels of this post, please go see this:

http://chucksblog.typepad.com/a_journey_in_social_media/2008/07/a-humbling-expe.html

[Kevin Shea]

I too believe that KM is changing. But not in the way that the concept is changing. KM has always been there, just improperly defined/executed. Knowledge is a creation process, not an isolated task and must be addressed as a process, not a set of tasks. I believe it is the realization that KM is a process that underlies the shift.

I also believe that KM cannot survive without document management as a prerequite. So, as many folks get control over their documents, they are freer to think about knowledge. Which may be one reason why people are talking about it again.

KM is not information management, it is not document management, it is not tagging, etc. But, it may be the way in which a diverse set of tools are integrated to address the fundamental need.

I don't know if social computing per se is the answer. But I believe that defining the need, outlining a solution, selling the benefits, and introducing proper tools is.

for a brief perspective see http://kevinshea.typepad.com/kevin_shea_process_collab/2008/07/thoughts-about.html

[Dan Keldsen]

Chuck - Enterprise 2.0 and Findability - two great tastes that taste great together. Like minds - hmm, a good sign?

Is it an accident then that the last two research reports I've been involved in have been those very two subjects? There's a method to our madness, and it's clear that you're seeing it.

These reports are a bit hefty at 60-90 pages a piece, but at the ever affordable price of free, surely it's worth a peek, eh?

They can be found at:
Market IQ on Enterprise 2.0:
http://www.aiim.org/enterprise20

and the Market IQ on Findability (fresh off the presses as of last week):
http://www.aiim.org/findability

I put together an overview of the Enterprise 2.0 research and made a comparison of Enterprise 2.0 as Knowledge Management 2.0 = freely available via slideshare at:
http://www.slideshare.net/dan.keldsen/enterprise-20-knowledge-management-20/

Over 2,000 views of that presentation - and have gotten some nice commentary (publicly and privately). Hope it's useful to this discussion.

I'll echo Kevin Shea here - KM is evolving, and for those who have failed in the past, there was probably a disconnect between what you were attempting to do, what the culture would support, and the technologies you applied to solve the problem. KM didn't force people to create rigid taxonomies - some people simply chose that path, and for that matter, some found that to be very useful, and successful. Others never got out of the planning stage, and failed to deliver business value.

Today, people might have all sorts of "fun" via Enterprise 2.0, which may be interesting, and provide virtual camaraderie, but fail to actually DO anything. They might also have raving successes, finding ways to open up lines of communication and collaboration that had never been seen in their organization before.

Perhaps the guru of tech, Eric Clapton, said it best "It's in the way that you use it..."

Cheers,
Dan Keldsen