Social Technologies

Literature & personal standpoint

There seem to be several words referring to the notion of ‘Social technologies’ including Social Computing and Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is described as second generation internet. It has also been referred to as ‘Wisdom Web’, people-centric web, participative web and read/write Web’. ‘It’s a collection of technologies, business strategies and social trends’ (Murugesan, 2007)
Either way they are words which have been chosen to best describe the vast array of social technologies there out there are at the moment. ‘The Many Forms of Social Computing’ is a diagram which describes and lists examples of these.

Murugesan took an in depth look at several social technologies. Describing how they work and how they can be used. Murugesan believes that “Web 2.0 can help businesses in product development, market research, competative intelligence gathering, and revenue generation” However Murugesan believes that “We need to rethink Web application development methods in light of Web 2.0 Addressing the issues of scalability, performance, and security”. I found it useful that as well as identifying these excellent advantages of Social Technologies Murugesan also picks out imperative implications that all organisations will need to look closely at if choosing to implement a change in the way of working using Social Technologies.

Pascu et al wrote a paper looking into the implications of Social Computing. They describe Social Computing as a trend which “exploit fully the connectivity dimension of the internet to support the networking of people and content. In addition the user is an active participant, co-producing content, taste and relevance, reputation/feedback, storage /server capacity, connectivity and collective intelligence”. (Pascu, Osimo, Geomina, Ulbrich, Punie, & Burgelman, 2008). I am particularly fond of this definition of Social Computing. It fully encapsulates the meaning of ‘Social’ in the context of computing and technologies. Even if these technologies are applied in an organisation, from this description there is the distinct idea that the larger emphasis is on individual or personal as opposed to organisational input, which will all contribute to the overall rich mix of knowledge that will be accessible to all employees though these technologies.

They go on to analyse growth and trends of these technologies and how they are affecting how people “find information, learn, share communicate and consume and the way businesses do business”. (Pascu, Osimo, Geomina, Ulbrich, Punie, & Burgelman, 2008) Although Pascu et al’s paper mainly aims to look at the implications of Social Computing on business they make some practical descriptions and identify useful effects of Social Computing that make you aware of the wider implications of Social Computing. They identify useful growth trends in “Blogs, for example, have doubled every five months for the last two years” emphasising the astonishing rate at which the next generation of Web is catching on. People want to get involved, they realise that they no longer only have to be the dormant consumer but also the provider if they want to challenge information that they disagree with or feel they want to share new knowledge.

Pascu et al’s research finds that “Social Networking websites are the most visited websites in terms of page views, and the largest part of internet traffic by far is peer-to-peer file sharing” (Pascu, Osimo, Geomina, Ulbrich, Punie, & Burgelman, 2008). This is not surprising as Facebook for example has often been referred to in the media as addictive with some places of work making the decision in 2007 to ban it in the work place when productivity and quality of work began to be comprimised.

Pascu et al also interestingly talks about the traditional user. The “Lurker”. These users do not produce content or proactively contribute, however with web 2.0 technologies just the actuality of a user coming to read or buy an item creates useful data and trends. For example websites such as Amazon or iTunes that collect data about user shopping habits creates reccomendations for the next user so in effect the “Luker” is inactivley contributing. E.g. On iTunes if you search for an album you are automatically presented with recommendations based upon other similar customer shopping habits “Listeners also bought xxx “

Yang et al wrote an interesting paper on how social technologies can be used in education. In fact they developed what is part of the paper title, a “Web 2.0 Social Software for Enhancing Knowledge Sharing in Communities of Practice” (Yang, Chen, & Su, 2007). The software that they developed was called PAMS (Personalised Annotation Management System) which they conducted an experiment with. I found this article very interesting, this was mainly because I could relate to the idea of students trying to interact, communicate and collaborate about something, in my case Knowledge Management Strategies.

Yang et al write about establishing what the roles of the people are with the knowledge as opposed to it happening naturally as per with the general public on the internet. They want to “identify co-learners to facilitate communication and collaboration” (Yang, Chen, & Su, 2007). These are facilitated Social Technologies for the purpose of education. This is Similar to the way in which we had to set up blogs and interact with each other for the purpose of our module. The concept of a facilitator ensures that interaction is encouraged and the full potential of the tools are exploited. Without this employees for example that are presented with Social Technology Tools may not see the benefits of the implementation and subsequent maintenance of such a concept in the first place.

Yang et al indicate that the students that they have written the software for are already a formed Community of Practice (CoP), a concept which I have defined and discussed in a previous post. This software is therefore supporting an infrastructure that already exists. They merely want to use this software to enhance and support existing Knowledge Sharing, for “commenting, knowledge articulation and exertion” (Yang, Chen, & Su, 2007).

Through the implementation of this technology students raised questions and prompted each other’s learning positively which is what Yang et al primarily wanted to assess, whether the technology could help enable students to “raise good questions and provide answers through the practice of reading, commenting, reviewing and discussion” (Yang, Chen, & Su, 2007). As well as the setting being similar to that of my current academic situation the PAMS system also sounded like a very similar concept to a blog in a CoP where knowledge sharing is encouraged and members are empowered by the knowledge disseminating tools.

Yang et el value the use of annotations. They believe that “Annotation is an explicit expression of knowledge in the forms of comments which reveals conceptual meanings of annotators’ implicit thought” (Yang, Chen, & Su, 2007). I think that this paragraph sums up the usefulness of social technologies such as blogs. Due to the nature of the content that a blog is capable of holding, much of the ‘in the head’ knowledge that was difficult to share in the past is now much easier to record and share and if there is a misunderstanding of the individuals ‘explicitly expressed implicit thought’ then the reader or co-author simply need question or comment in response to the active author.

The outcome of this experiment was that students that had utilised PAMS scored higher on a content related test than those who had not. “This demonstrates that using PAMS to comment, discuss, and raise question-answers do improve students’ reading comprehension” (Yang, Chen, & Su, 2007) Thus I believe this indicates that social technologies are useful in aiding knowledge management though questioning and discussion which aids to reinforce, reiterate and builds upon viewpoints that would already exist in a technology-less CoP.

Theory In Action

My organisation tends to have employees who often take advice or sources of information literally unless specifically told to treat it otherwise. Social Technologies may have to come with a warning e.g. please note that this blog is the opinion of that of the writer only and does not reflect that of the organisation. Conversely this may cause employees to shy away from the technology if they believe that they are not supported by their organisation in following their peers’ practices or advice. An alternative could be that of the approach taken by Wikipedia, where the technology within the organisation is self regulated. With feedback, ratings of how useful the item was and judgements about what the item may have lacked to focus on are left behind.

I believe that blogs could quite easily be introduced in my organisation linking specialism’s in a way that has never been done before, but would they actually be used? I think that it would be useful for employees to blog their general experiences of (a minimum of) monthly work life as a way of personally reflecting and expressing themselves. It would also form a useful contribution to annual appraisals to reflect upon feelings, milestones, improvements and knowledge contributions to the organisation. Employees would have to be encouraged to read and comment on other blogs (again at least one comment per month) on order to form CoPs. This would gently ease employees into the world of blogging without the risk of it turning into a ‘moan forum’ as the posts will contribute to the employees’ appraisal. The same approach could possibly be taken with other social technologies i.e. number of wiki edits contributed or hits your blog has had. This would again be Incentive related, so the more you contribute the more you would be rewarded in your knowledge contribution and performance related pay.

A User review portal is another technology that I think could be used to specifically allow employees to look at reviews to HR policies and procedures and maybe even allow employees to make recommendations. At the moment policies and procedures sit on the intranet. They are in danger of going out of date and not changing with legislation or general change with the organisations strategic objectives. I am sure that with something like this in place employees will feel more empowered and in line with our move to internal consultancy, give employees more accountability and power.

Podcasts are very useful little tools! We currently use a video conferencing facility to link up to the other regions of the organisation. Why not record (sound, picture or both) these meetings instead of taking minutes of them? It would save time and be a much richer source of information. Manager with smart phones could also watch or listen to these on the go. I think that the use of photos, videos and sound generally are a better way to distribute knowledge as it emulates what we do as humans when passing on information, which is better than misinterpreted notes on paper! These podcasts could be in an area on the intranet available for employees to download. This is also a useful way of ensuring that employees are well informed. Higher level meetings for example have a minute taker and the notes are made available to all employees, but it is time consuming and often employees find minutes boring to read. This would engage many more employees.

A social networking tool for me is the icing on the cake for an organisation in optimising its Knowledge Management. There are in fact possible plans for my organisation to implement Microsoft SharePoint. If implemented main features such as Document Management and numerous collaboration features could be utilised. I see this primarily targeting and resolving the existing problem of management of imperative knowledge leaving the organisation when an employee leaves. This platform could replace personal hard drives which are often seen as an archive of non interpretable files once the employee has left. This would ensure more retrievable and valuable data is where it needs to be found, when it needs to be found, reducing the number of days it takes to rebuild key knowledge crucial to carrying out particular jobs. Of course this is only one way in which SharePoint can help the organisation with its Knowledge Management. There will need to be a close look at what the business crucial knowledge is and how best to utilise this software to aid regeneration, innovation, conservation and empowerment of knowledge to the employees who need it most.

The examples of Social Technologies I have just provided are only a few of those that could be applied in my organisation, there are many others that could be implemented specifically in the Human Resources team to help organise, disseminate and evolve knowledge which I hope to explore further at a later date e.g. tagging, wikis and RSS.

Reflection & Collective Learning

In discussion with the class of Knowledge Management Strategies we spoke about the different terminology used to refer to the concept of Social Technologies, what it is exactly and how it enables People to People interaction as opposed to just business to people. We even spoke about how this may be implemented into an organisation (in theory). In hindsight we identified that we failed to bring this information to life and talk about a specific instances of problems that could be resolved as a result of Social Technologies. Upon reflection it is easy to see that, yes this is what this module ‘Knowledge Management Strategies’ and the learning approach adopted is all about, sharing your experiences and embracing others, though it is not as easy as it sounds. Many of us found it difficult to give ‘valuable’ knowledge back to the class. This presents us a perfect example of how organisations could run into the same or similar problems. What defines a good blog or a good C2C communication? What if content on a wiki is poorly written or wrong? Do there need to be trained standards, Administrators, Specialists or Super Users for guidance or can anyone help us in our search of further knowledge?

Knowledge Networks

Literature & personal standpoint

(Clark, 1999) Cited (Clark, 1998) regarding the characteristics of a formal knowledge network:

(1) The network exists for the purpose of creating and disseminating new knowledge – it does not exist just to provide access to existing knowledge, nor is it new knowledge retained just for the sole use of the network but is made publicly available as soon as possible;

(2) The network is structured and operates so as to maximize the rate at which new knowledge is discovered;

(3) The network provides clear, recognizable, and direct benefits to all participants in the network;

(4) The network is formally organised, and has a well-defined constitution and management structure;

(5) Participation in the network is by invitation based criteria of merit, or by peer review of proposed projects;

(6) The network has a well-developed communications strategy; and

(7) The network transcends boundaries beyond sectors (e.g. university researchers, industry, financial, government) to contribute to sustainable development.

These characteristics were defined in order to further discuss successful Canadian knowledge networks. Canadian Institute for Advance Research (CIAR) was formed to “mobilize the resources of a vast and thinly populated country into international networks of talented individuals” (Clark, 1999). Memberships of these networks were by invitation only and were externally reviewed to ensure they were achieving criteria, proving to be very formal. The main aim of creating new knowledge was subsequently achieved and “Canada has achieved a high international reputation in these fields as which, in the absence of a network, would not have resulted” (Clark, 1999).

This provides a useful breakdown of a formal knowledge network, but do these strict characteristics apply to both the concepts of Social Networks and Communities of Practices?

Social Networks and Tools

Often Social Networks and the tools that support them are muddled together and thought to be the same thing. However they are not. The definition of social networks does not involve the tools that support them; they are quite simply the networks alone.

“ Social networks are made up of people where you can clearly determine how they know each other, either through direct or indirect social relationships. These networks are generally self organised and structured around “people, information and communities” (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007)

"A social networking site connects people based on data about them, stored in user profiles" There are various types of social networks namely personal and professional (Neumann, O'Murchu, Breslin, Decker, Hogan, & MacDonaill, 2005) Classic examples of social networks include Facebook and Myspace. These support personal social networks. Ecademy and Return on Relationships are examples of tools that support professional social networks. These examples reflect the social networking tools that support the social networks themselves.
Social networks are important to organisations because of the “growing importance of the value of knowledge work” (Marouf, 2007) cited Hansen, 2002; Reagans and McEvily, 2003 and particularly more organisations are recognising that there are different types of knowledge. Organisations are particularly embracing the fact that tacit “noncodified” knowledge is of more importance than explicit “codified” knowledge with regard to innovation (Marouf, 2007) cites Leonard and Sensiper, 1998. They therefore realise the importance of social networks with regard to knowledge sharing.

Within an organisation there are often directorates or divisions and within this teams or departments. Cross division or cross department networks need to be established, “knowledge sharing among units provide opportunities for mutual learning and inter-unit cooperation, which in turn stimulates the creation of new knowledge” (Marouf, 2007) cited Tsai and Ghosal, 1998. Conversely, the boundaries to this knowledge sharing within networks are not limited to individual organisations. Social networks can span organisation boundaries. For example an organisation that deals with complaints may wish to network with other complaints organisations obtaining ‘lessons learned’ from each other and increasing the level of ‘best practice’.

This cross organisational sharing is referred to as “Horizontal sharing of knowledge” (Marouf, 2007). However this can be inhibited by what is referred to as “Codification” and “Private Knowledge” (Marouf, 2007).

Codification describes the way in which organisations document their knowledge. That is how they store knowledge about policies, procedures and processes. So an organisation will have a mixture of Non- codified and codified knowledge. They will also have Private knowledge, this describes soft information that is known by an employee and enhances his knowledge but is not documented by an organisation because it is not needed to describe the final piece of knowledge as it may have only been needed to know how to get there. Non codified and private knowledge is obviously going to be the most difficult to share and is thought by many to only be possible through face to face interactions. Again Social networks are able to aid the transfer of this kind of knowledge. If organisations are to gain competitive advantage or even survive they need to acknowledge the impact of effective knowledge sharing through social networks within organisations.

(Marouf, 2007) identifies that there are different types of ties within a Social Network. Some of which identified include friendship, work and advice. Marouf also explains that these types of ties can differ depending on what flows through them (Marouf, 2007). There do not seem to be a set type of ties for every organisation. These would have to be analysed and identified for the specific organisation at hand. Although generally speaking we can identify that there are two types of ties in the workplace; business and social. Both of these ties can exist together or one or the other. (Marouf, 2007) also identifies and goes into more detail about the importance and the strength of social a tie.

Some Social Networks emerge entirely by themselves i.e. not facilitated in anyway. These are often based upon self interest (Marouf, 2007) and I believe are probably the most innovative, as individuals are often more passionate than in for example a facilitated setting that has been made compulsory. These “Emergent Networks” (Marouf, 2007) are just one way of them forming within an organisation and businesses should not discourage their growth as “Businesses rely on patterns of social interaction to sustain them over time. These patterns are built on shared interests, mutual obligations and accomplishment and thrive on corporation and friendly interpersonal relations” (Marouf, 2007).

Ultimately (Marouf, 2007) believes that Social Networks are not networks in existence by themselves. In an organisation setting they are often linked in the same way as the hierarchy and architecture appear linked. However, naturally occurring social networks are more sporadic than this but form as a result of these settings. Both the naturally occurring and the facilitated networks are equally valuable and organisations should not disregard or discourage them because they are perceived to non-work related.

I went on to look at a paper by (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007). Their paper focused on examining social networks for the purpose of developing web 2.0 services to identify Communities of Practice. At a glance social network analysis appears to be very complex. This is the practice which investigates the vast array of the types of ties within a social network. One would assume that this would especially need to be carried out for the purpose of a complimentary social networking system. Yang et al go on to identify some of the key ties in the networks that would be formed for their experiment.

As per Marouf, Yang et al identified social interaction ties “the structural links created through the social interactions between individuals in a network” (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007) These are believed to be important for knowledge exchange. The more social interaction ties you have the more central you are to the network and the more central you are to the network the more you will be impacting upon the “helpfulness and volume of knowledge contribution” (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007). Yang et al identified the following types of ties:

Knowledge relationship ties are the consideration of “a peer’s knowledge domain, proficiency, and reputation of contribution as key indicators determining its capability to participate in collaborations” (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007).

Social relationship ties relate to how familiar people within a network are with each other. It is believed that the more familiar people are the better reputation they have and therefore more likely they are to trust and collaborate with them (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007)

Yang et al’s work concluded that web 2.0 tools could in fact be used to help identify “knowledgeable and socially related participants” (Yang, Zhang, & Chen, 2007) using calculations established about knowledge and social relationship ties during network analysis which in turn could help identify Communities of Practice. Yang et al only worked with two types of social ties, but as established from the previous paper different types of social ties may exist within different organisations. Therefore any analysis needs to be specific to the organisation or that of a similar one.

To provide an example of how a social networking site such as this would work; there are specialist groups / Communities of Practice listed in a common place where you can search and request to join them. Once you are a member you receive regular updates and are able to contribute if focusing on an area of your interest. This could be done in addition to a regular face to face meetings and in the work place if facilitation was required particular groups could be made automatic depending on your profile role. You daily mini feed or specially targeted questions could then trigger your participation reducing the need for excessive time wasting meetings as this actually forms a documented ongoing meeting which can still actually physically convene when required.

Much of these facilities are already in place in most organisations but social networking seems to be more effective because it networks not only people but also other examples of knowledge management e.g. events, focus groups. This technology brings to us a very rich melting pot of knowledge ready to be manipulated at our fingertips.

Communities of Practice

The concept of a Community of practice (CoP) was first introduced by Lave and Wenger (1991). They believe that a CoP is "...a set of relations among persons, activity and world, over time and in relation with other tangenital and overlapping CoPs". They also believe that learning that takes place in a CoP is "learning as legitimate peripheral participation". (LPP) relating belonging and identity in the community to the position an individual has in the world (Hildreth, Kimble, & Wright, 2000).

It is not surprising then that organisations may want to jump on the band wagon and introduce the practice of CoP in the organisation. The main communication channel in a CoP is face to face, spontaneous and informal. CoPs allow sharing and transferring of valuable tacit knowledge which are processed by individuals and groups (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008) cites Kogut and Zander, 1992. There is continuous learning and creation of the practice within these communities. As with Social Networks they (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008) talk about the value of tacit or implicit knowledge. “It is argued that the most effective means to transfer valuable tacit knowledge is actually not to codify it, but rather to transfer it through an implicit mode” CoPs form the platform to do just this.

When solving a problem in a community of practice, members contribute by drawing upon their experience and previous meetings “facilitating the effective creation and transfer of valuable tacit and implicit knowledge within the community” (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008) cites Lave and Wenger, 1991). There are however limitations to CoPs “Communities of Practice can evolve into core rigidities and competency traps – inappropriate knowledge sets that preserve the status quo and limit new insights, resulting in gaps between the knowledge of the firm and changing market conditions” (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008) cites Levitt and March, 1988; Leonard-Barton, 1992). Therefore possibly where this is occurring the dynamics of the social network involved in the CoP may need to be changed, maybe allowing those that do not practice the area but take a keen interest to bring fresh insight and an alternative approach. However if this were to happen it would no longer ba a CoP but a Social Network focused on that area.

Mutual engagement and collaboration among individuals on everyday work tasks is how a community of practice starts. Problems relating to the community are posed and then they try to solve the problem through collaboration. Research into exact effects of CoPs on organisation performance is limited because of “the nature of communities of practice – emergent, fluid and informal” (Schenkel & Teigland, 2008). However a relationship between learning curves and CoPs have been established in that if the CoP is working the learning curve should decrease, if a CoP is not working well i.e. the cumulative memory of the group is not working there will be a reoccurrence of the same problem thus the learning curve will stay the same instead of decrease. This was noticed in research when a CoP became physically dispersed, the learning curve did not decrease, it stayed the same. Therefore communication channel changes affected the performance of the CoP.

The structural characteristics of a Community of practice is analysed using the process of Social Network Analysis. Therefore it seems to me that social networks exist with or without a CoP? They may simply take a different form if a CoP is in place or social networks could be encouraged to take on a similar form to those seen in a CoP. CoP also only consist of individuals within the same practice whereas a Social Network can simply exist from it not being your specialism but just having an interest in the area. CoPs therefore are in essence a Social network with distinctive links which form the specialism of the practice.


Theory in Action

Social networks are particularly useful in my job. I have the unique role of HR Systems and Information Officer within a HR team. There are no other members within my team who have the same specialism. Therefore internal networks I have formed include those with technical support, IT and Project Management specialists within Strategic Support and other project managers and communications staff for collaboration about communication methods. External networks include a HR software provider customer groups where we all learn from each other’s failings or best practices, academic networks, where other students and lecturers experiences are shared, and societal networks such as British Computer Society also have information systems focus groups where you can network with likeminded individuals. However the benefits of these networks are not recognised in every part of my organisation, there is a lack of this between teams within divisions which often causes a duplication of effort and a non-streamlined business effect.

For example our Communications team recently launched a project board for the purpose of the re-engineering of the staff intranet due to it getting bad reviews during the last staff survey. The chair invited from HR; myself, HR Systems and Information Officer and the Head of HR, from IT the Head of IT, Information Manager and Records Officer, from Operations, a Senior Investigator and from Communications, the Publications Editor, Web Officer, and two other members of communications. The chair of the meeting had already drafted a project mandate and a very large document with the scope of the project which roughly included items such as the cleansing of existing information on the intranet by deletion of the old and inaccurate and the indexation and reclassification of what is left. The reorganisation of the existing architecture was also within the scope.

10 minutes into the meeting I could clearly see where social networks lacked. IT had been planning to implement an intranet based social networking tool called SharePoint which the rest of the board had no knowledge of. I had an intranet based self service system on the verge of launch that month which they all know about but did not know the full extent of the functionality and our document management system had just been upgraded that weekend which everyone knew about but did not know the full extent of the functionality. We then had a situation of all of these overlapping technologies with vast functionality all affecting each other’s work. None of us know enough detail about the other work causing concern about the possibility of functionality overlap and compatibility issues. The Operations representative then made an important input. He was confused. He was concerned about where he would find what if all of these new technologies were implemented.

This project board is due to reconvene in the near future, however I can see an ongoing need for this type of network where the organisations technologies are constantly discussed. This may heavily overlap into a network for the organisations information management and knowledge management. Either way a passion for talking about these areas need to be developed if silos such as these are to be eradicated sooner rather than later.

Also with regard to Communities in Practice and the project to re-invent the staff intranet could have serious implications on Communities of Practice that may exist but in the wider organisation are unknown about. Careful investigation will need to be carried out to be sure not to disturb them or provide alternative methods of communication will. For example managers established a Community of Practice for best people management practices. Their main method of communication was on the intranet forum because they are geographically dispersed. The archived posts formed part of their community memory but to the project board the archive of old posts are old inaccurate and useless so they decide to scrap it. This would cause discontent, a drop in morale and probably a drop in performance as they are having to build their knowledge base up again, and that is even if they decide to continue it after what may be seen as an inconsiderate act of sabotage.

With a head office in the London and four other regional offices based in Wales, North East, North West and Central UK being so dispersed there is the challenge of regions and teams creating silos causing inconsistency, duplication of efforts and varied levels of service. Security is very high and therefore organisation material is classified. There are restricted methods of communication depending on the classification of material. Internet access is limited with social networking and email sites blocked to employees due to both security and productivity issues.
Although all of the above restrict the flow of knowledge they are part what overcome by email, Video link and teleconference equipment, intranet, Monthly, Weekly and Bulletin news, forums, numerous specialist focus groups and HR Self Service. The only aspect of social networking missing from this is user profiles in a visual network of people. However is it as simple as incorporating a profiling and networking system?

I am not so sure. Based upon my experience with Facebook the useful aspect of it seems to be that everything is in one place and in addition to that links in together. So if I choose to attend an event it will display on my mini feed which friends in my network can see and also display on my profile page. I also have the facility to invite guests if permitted. If this were an event on Microsoft Outlook I would accept the invitation it would go in my diary and unless you have access to my diary you would be none the wiser about my attendance. Nor would you be able to pursue your interest and simply click on the event to find out more about who is coming. We do however have similar functionality on our HR Self Service system where we are able to browse training courses, dates and descriptions and who is already attending. It does not however have the mini feed function which I find especially useful in a daily update.

There are also other perspectives to the way in which we could encourage social networks. For example our structure... Does the centralisation of our services within the organisation inhibit social networks? Can decentralisation help social networks thrive? Can our learning and Development Strategy help how we network. The roll out of Internal consultancy within the organisation will no doubt increase social networks as the internal consultants are gaining control over what they know what they learn and who they learn it from and for their consulting skills to improve they must draw knowledge from the most reliable sources. Would an approach like this not work across the whole organisation? Where everyone has some knowledge to give and everyone has some knowledge to learn? I think so and I believe this is described as a “Learning organisation” (Marouf, 2007).

Reflection & Evidence of Collective Learning

My initial posts about Knowledge Networks was specifically about Social Networks, it was very brief and barely descriptive and had planned to continue the post at a later date however following a post from (KM Strategies, 2008) “These are valuable ideas but how can it be activated in your own organization? Does your organization allow staff to use social networks during work time? Or is it considered a waste of 'work time'? What do you think?” I decided to do a subsequent post addressing these issues.

A follow up post from (Prof. Mark, 2008) helped me reflect even further “There is a confusion here between social networks (and networking) and the (so-called) Web 2.0 tools and sites that support social networks. You need to give a clear separation between the idea and the tools that might allow those ideas to help with KM. In other words I'd like to see you bring out how social networks can help with KM and then look at the tools to see how good they are in that regard. The list from Kimball & Rheingold is a useful one, but it lacks explanation and examples to make it really meaningful. Can you add that explanation and examples?” I immediately realised that I had fallen into the trap of misinterpreting the similarly sounding concepts of ‘Social Networks’ and Social Networking Tools’.

Others joined in on my confusion and identified how social networking tools are useful, however thought they could discourage members of staff from the fact at hand. That they are there to work! “ To be honest I think its an interesting idea about having a forum or some form of social networking system in built into the organisation. I think there are alot of advantages which i can think of and the ones you have given me. However I think the forum can still be abused and not only used for work purposes but may also divert to other means of non working activities and may possibly lead to other forms of interacting” But is this not a good thing? It has been researched that even informal forms of socialising are productive.

An anonymous reader loved the notion of social networking within an organisation. “I think the idea of a social networking sight is a brilliant idea. The reason being it will enable all employees to see what meetings are happening, their purpose, and who is attending. This in my opinion would empower the employee and make them feel more important and give them a greater understanding about what the business does on a day to day basis. I think a lot of problems occur within organisation due to lack of communication; as such the idea of a social networking sight will at least in part be able to communicate some information to the employees so they are less in the dark about what everyone is doing.” This, again emphasising the fact that communication is key to Knowledge networking. The Web 2.0 technology of Social Networking is giving people the power to communicate with whomever they need to communicate with whenever they need to. It is opening so many doors; empowering employees.

Contrary to the previous comment another anonymous comment was made “But isn't any type of social network open to mis-use by employees? Businesses lose hundreds of millions each year (most likely billions if accurate data was recorded) already through mainstream social networks such as Facebook, Myspace etc. Add social emails at work to this time wastage and you begin to see how detrimental to the overall productivity of a business social networks really are. Internal social networks that engender employee interaction, as opposed to simple information sharing through internal intranets, in my opinion, are counter-productive to the overall business - regardless of industry.” I disagree with this and believe that social networking tools can be used to an organisations advantage. Perhaps the reader has misinterpreted the use of the concept. It did however make me think about ways Knowledge Networks might be counter-productive. This has already been identified in Communities of Practice so could well occur in a badly networked tool or if certain restrictions were not applied.

“As per my comment on your last post, I think you are confusing social networks with the tools that support them. For me the big difference between a social network (and tools) approach to KM and a traditional repository/intranet approach is the lack of control with social networks and how knowledge might emerge from conversations. Although you can plan what a conversation is about you cannot force stuff to emerge from it. Something immediately useful might emerge, or it might take months for a context to appear that made the knowledge in the conversation apparent and useful. By contrast, intranets and the like are people (e.g. management) guessing what might be useful in the future. Whether you agree with my position or not, I think more exploration of what is different about social networks (and maybe within them CoPs) would help in understanding the roles their technologies might have in KM.” (Prof. Mark 2008)
“Conceptualizing organizations as social communities in which knowledge is structured, coordinated, and shared is central to understanding knowledge sharing in organizations” (Marouf, 2007) cites Kogut and Zander 1992. Marouf. Now this quote was taken from a paper relating to Social Networks so it initially confused my interpretation of Knowledge Networks somewhat. Is this implying that a Social Network and a Community of Practice are in essence the same thing? As an organisation viewed as a community is always going to be one that is in practice. Are social networks only formed within communities of practice or can Communities of Practice also exist within Communities of Practice?

Both of these last two quotes made me reflect and confirmed my realisation of Social Networks and Communities in Practice more or less both being one of the same things. These are social networks of people. The only difference is the way in which the social network within the Community of Practice link together. This also gave me insight to go away and do more research on the concepts of Knowledge Networks altogether.

Knowledge, Information and Data

Literature & personal standpoint

Knowledge, Information and Data. They are frequently used in substitution for one another do they all roughly speaking mean the same thing or are they all words with very separate meanings in their own right? My pre-research understanding was that data is what you have before the information from the data becomes interpreted which in turn becomes knowledge.

Knowledge is the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning (WordNet Search - 3.0).

Information is knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction or a collection of facts from which conclusions can be drawn (WordNet Search - 3.0)

Data is a collection of facts from which conclusions can be drawn (WordNet Search - 3.0)

Why is KM and IT/IS so closely interlinked. I can not help but wonder whether the information held by the technology or System has something to do with this. IT has often been referred to as an enabler of KM. I guess without the technology or system to hold the information it would not be so easy to manage the knowledge, but is this Knowledge Management or Information Management? What about quality? We spend a lot of time refining and optimising our organisations data to ensure that it is credible, factual and not misleading information being used. One would assume that in turn this affects our Knowledge?

Technology and systems help organisations to manipulate and easily allow for the data to act in the way we require. Do these differing manipulations form part of the strategy that is managing our knowledge? I have a suspicion that they do.

(Melkas & Harmaakorpi, 2008) believe “Definitions of information have followed two patterns, either:
(1) Focused on information (and knowledge) being fundamentally different from data (which is called the hierarchical view); or
(2) Emphasised that some knowledge is needed before data and information can be created.”

My initial interpretation appears to be the reverse of (2) and my researched definitions seem to agree with (1) “Information is knowledge. As I described earlier (Melkas & Harmaakorpi, 2008) agree with the fact that information and knowledge are used interchangeably. (Melkas & Harmaakorpi, 2008) however cites that Huang et al (1999) “note that in practice, managers tend to differentiate information from data intuitively”. In my experience I disagree with this and find that managers use these words interchangeably to mean the same thing.

“Data – numbers, for instance – are the factual content of information. Only meaningful information can be the basis for purposeful action. When data are put in a meaningful context and processed, they become information” (Melkas & Harmaakorpi, 2008) cited (Lillrank, 1997, 2003). I agree with this statement. However in addition it is important to note that data may have different meaning to different people. For example an NI number may mean something to an individual who is into fraud, but nothing to me.

“Information transforms into a component of knowledge, when it is analysed critically and its underlying structure is understood in relation to other pieces of information and conceptions about how the world works” (Melkas & Harmaakorpi, 2008) cited (cf, Miller et al, 2001).
(Melkas & Harmaakorpi, 2008) provide useful explanations into why the words knowledge and information may be used interchangeably for a common purpose. That is when used within different levels of the organisation. For example I might generate a data extract from the HR database for the purpose of diversity statistics for the board of directors, however before it is presented to them, it has to be made meaningful. Short explanations and comparisons drawn from tacit knowledge may be made to make the data meaningful. When the board of directors receive the data combined with tacit knowledge, to them it may only appear to be data. However if this information was sent to recruitment they would view it as information on which they could base informed decisions.

(Melkas & Harmaakorpi, 2008) cite Miller et al (2001, p. 365) definitions as follows:

Data: A representation of an object

Information: The aggregation of data into something that has meaning (semantics) through interpretation by human or automated processes.

Knowledge: A process for arriving at a solution to a problem, using knowledge to asses and judge information.

To finalise, in my view it appears that for most of these definitions it depends on how your role (i.e. administrator, defrauder, or director) needs to perceive the data, information or knowledge that will determine how you render it.


Theory in Action

In my experience the words data and information are used interchangeably to refer to data. For example, If managers require an extract from the HR database it is often referred to as information. E.g. “I need some information about the male to female ratio in the organisation” However I believe this is data not information.

Using the example of an HR database we can say that it comprises of data like NI number, sickness records, and Next of kin details. However if I remove the ‘meaningful context’ i.e. employee names and any other fraudulent capable data then it is merely meaningless data to an individual who wants to commit fraud which can provide no information to them. However this unidentifiable data still means something to someone. For example, myself and the organisation that created the database. For if they wish to support my technical queries regarding its structure over the phone they will need an identical system to reflect any errors on. So you see that the data provides meaningful information to someone.

If the error is replicated on the copy my database by the technical support team and not on their default copy they can deduce what the error is and understand why it is happening. This then adds to their knowledge of how the database works and can be retrieved if need be in the future. If they document this find then that is information about how the database works. “Information can be created only after there is knowledge” (Melkas & Harmaakorpi, 2008)

Reflection & Collective Learning

Following the write up of this article I made a conscious effort to ensure that I used the correct words to reflect the correct meaning. I soon realised how difficult this is and ended up relaxing back into my old ways, however upon reflection if these words are used interchangeably because of your role when referring to the knowledge, information or data, then surely in a conversational context it does not matter as long as the knowledge, information or data collector has the correct perceived understanding of what you are trying to imply?

Knowledge Management Models

There are various Knowledge Management Models and in this post I hope to successfully discuss the pros and cons of a model when implemented in an organisation.

But first, what is a model? Is it the same as a method?

A Model

Word net describes a model as a "Representation of something (sometimes on a smaller scale)"

A Method

American Heratige Dictionary describes a method as "The procedures and techniques characteristic of a particular discipline or field of knowledge: This field course gives an overview of archaeological method"

With these descriptions and the concept of Knowledge Management in mind it is understandable why the words are sometimes used interchangeably. My interpretation of the main differences between a method and a model is that a model only provides a general representation of a way to manage knowledge and is only usually an overview without going into onerous process detail. However in contrast a method does go into detail and tends to look into the procedures and techniques used in order to apply the model.

The model I have chosen to explore further is the modified version of Demerst's Knowledge Management Model.

Demarests model is described as a holistic model. That is, it looks at the functional and social relationships and transfers between knowledge processes as opposed to say Nonakas model which is termed as mechanistic in that it mainly addresses categorising knowledge and the scientific facts of knowledge management.

Demarests model believes that both scientific and social paradigms should be involved in the initial construction of knowledge. So organisations should be ensuring that when new piece of knowledge is created within the organisation it can be via explicit means e.g. research, training or developing as well as indirect means such as socially in work related forums or away days.

The solid arrows represent primary flows of knowledge and the non filled lines represent iterative flows. The primary flow of knowledge constructs, embodies, disseminates and uses knowledge specifically to the benefit of the organisation or employee.

What I particularly like about this model is that it is very people focused. It recognises the use of both tacit and explicit knowledge in the initial construction and the eventual use of this knowledge management model ultimately benefits both the business and the employee. However the solid and non filled arrows leave me somewhat confused. Do the non filled arrows mean that knowledge flows should not really happen via this route but do? Or that they are simply less important flows. And are the solid arrows the preferred method of knowledge movement?

References

model. (n.d.). WordNet® 3.0. Retrieved January 31, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/model

methods. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved January 31, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/methods

Figure of modified version of Demerest's knowledge management model adapted from (McAdam & McCreedy, 1999)

Introduction to Knowledge Management

Literature & personal standpoint

Having searched through numerous journals, search engines and literature the varying opinions and terminology has made it difficult for me to obtain a definitive answer as to what Knowledge Management really is.

I have only come across one dictionary that has dared to try and define Knowledge Management, which is Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary of English. They define Knowledge Management as

‘The technologies involved in creating, disseminating, and utilizing knowledge data; also any enterprise involved in this’.

How exactly have they come to this conclusion if professors, Lecturers and Researchers that I have come across so far all seem to have differing positions to this? Why is technology in the definition? Surely knowledge can be managed without technology. With all of this inconsistency in mind, is Knowledge Management therefore whatever an organisation needs it to be and can knowledge really be managed?

(Rowley, 1999) cites Davenports et al. (1998) and their project based identification of “four different types of perspectives on knowledge management”

(1) To create knowledge repositories
(2) To improve knowledge access
(3) To enhance the knowledge environment
(4) To manage knowledge as an asset

With so many different perspectives in mind it is no wonder that is seems to be impossible to pin down a definitive definition of knowledge management.

However (Rowley, 1999) attempts to embrace all perspectives in one definition: “Knowledge Management is concerned with the exploitation and development of the knowledge assets of an organisation with a view to furthering the organisation’s objectives. The knowledge to be managed includes both explicit documented knowledge and tacit, subjective knowledge. Management entails all of those processes associated with the identification, sharing and creation of knowledge. This requires systems for the creation and maintenance of knowledge repositories, and to cultivate and facilitate the sharing of knowledge and organisational learning. Organisations that succeed in knowledge management are likely to view knowledge as an asset and to develop organisational norms and values, which support the creation and sharing of knowledge”

This is a very comprehensive and almost exhausting definition of knowledge management but it has captured all perspectives of knowledge management as mentioned above. Davenport seems to realise that managing knowledge as an asset should be the larger part of the definition of knowledge management if all of the other perspectives are too. The first three perspectives seem to equate to the fact that you are putting knowledge in the forefront of your organisational objectives if they are in place, thus it is important to you just like any other business asset. Managing knowledge as an asset seems to almost serve as an umbrella for the first three perspectives to come under.

(Rowley, 1999) cites Galagan (1997) in proposing to define Knowledge Management as a list of processes:

· Generating new knowledge
· Accessing knowledge from external sources
· Representing knowledge in documents, databases, software and so forth.
· Embedding knowledge in processes, products or services
· Transferring existing knowledge around an organisation
· Using accessible knowledge in decision making
· Facilitating knowledge growth through culture and incentives
· Measuring the value of knowledge assets and the impact of knowledge management

This definition is more useful in a practical sense and seems to capture all of the aspects of knowledge management. I would however add one more process. That is the optimisation of existing knowledge. This is different from generating new knowledge because this implies you are generating it from scratch which is never the case. You are always building upon what you already have constantly drawing from existing repositories of knowledge.

(Rowley, 1999) goes on to talk about knowledge management being implemented in the organisation. It is implied that knowledge is not being managed until it is encompassed across the whole organisation. However I do not agree with this. Knowledge Management can be implemented in partial and gradually and still referred to as knowledge management. It does not have to be as radical as ‘Knowledge as an asset’. The needs of the organisation need to be assessed and then knowledge management can be applied in project style phases.

(Rowley, 1999) cites Ernst & Young in two key roles of knowledge management:

· The database content manager is a subject matter expert who is responsible for the quality of the content; and
· The knowledge network co-ordinator is a consultant or coach to the people on the network, and their main role is to drive change in the way in which people do their jobs

I can see how these roles might get bundled into one as often the database manager is the only expert and so need to coach people who are plugged into this data network on how to use it to support their work.

To conclude I believe that there is no one definition for knowledge management. Knowledge management is whatever an organisation needs it to be within the realms of the identified perspectives and processes. However I can see how there may be creep on the perspectives and processes of knowledge management in the future as it is intertwined with other disciplines such as change management and information management.

Theory in Action

In HR we realised that we needed to enhance the knowledge environment and the quality of information that Managers, employees and HR have access to. That is knowledge about their employees for managers and knowledge about their staff records for employees. We had an employee database but we thought that what would better enhance this was a self service system. This is a system where the majority of the database entry is initiated by employees and then authorised by managers. This would significantly improve the quality of the data that HR had to refer to in order to support managers and employees and in addition empower employees and managers with information that they need at their finger tips. The system has been in pilot phase for the last year within the employee services teams. Upon login a manager is fed a dashboard like overview of alerts, forthcoming events such as employee birthdays, holidays employees are booked on to have and training they are due to attend. The manager is empowered with information from overview level to detailed information such as salary detail which they may need to know.

This system is acting as a knowledge portal for both managers and employees, transferring existing knowledge from the HR database around the organisation to managers and employees alike. Empowering managers with the information that they need to make decisions about their employees. This system is serving as an explicit knowledge repository which triggers tacit knowledge that an employee or manager should already have. For example, an employee’s career history or sickness absence history.

Reflection & Collective Learning

My initial impression of knowledge management was that I was unsure of what exactly it was, however in the first class discussion I was able to relate my understanding of it to ensuring that information does not leave the organisation with an employee. It seems that I was on the correct track as knowledge management is that and much more. Drawing upon the entire groups collective first impressions of knowledge management would probably define part of what it is to all of us.
A group discussion in the style of a knowledge cafe was a useful experience to me. I had never experienced or done little research on knowledge cafes before the day and therefore was not sure what to expect exactly. Aboubakr, our lecturer and facilitator explained that Knowledge Cafes involve a conversion of people from differing disciplines with a common interest of deliberation. Ours was Knowledge Management.

The hour long cafe panned out very smoothly. We assembled into approximately 4 groups of groups of 4-5 individuals to deliberate the best way to ensure there is NO knowledge management in an organisation. We took this negative stance in order to find the positive solution to the same topic. i.e. the best way to ensure that there IS knowledge management in an organisation. The method involved brainstorming onto paper all ideas that group members came up with without deliberation or discussion. However we could question whether we thought ideas were the same as ones that may have already come up.

In the space of approximately 10 minutes we had filled 3 flip chart pages with easily thought of negative 'would not do's'. We then had a few minutes to deliberate on our brainstorming and establish the top 3 most important ways to ensure that there is no knowledge management in an organisation. We concluded the following:

No communication strategy (Intranets, Internets & Documentation)
No learning & Development strategy
No identification of the organisations required knowledge

We then reversed these top 3 to establish the top 3 'would do's' to ensure knowledge management in an organisation. That included:

A communication strategy
A learning & Development strategy
An identification of the organisations required knowledge

A communication strategy would ensure that both internal and external communications are consistent, hitting the right people at the right time, there are various successful and appropriate communication medias, there is governance and it fits in with the organisational objectives.

A Learning & Development strategy would ensure that organisational learning is in line with organisational objectives, tailored to organisational and personal needs, accredited, through various Medias and informal learning is harnessed and formalised if deemed imperative needs.
An identification of the organisations required knowledge ensures that the organisation is harnessing, preserving and disregarding the correct knowledge, information and data. This would filter into both the Communication and Learning & Development strategy.

These are in order of importance as agreed amongst the group on the day, however upon reflection I think that priority 3 would probably precede 1 and 2 because put simply I believe it is a prerequisite that would have to be established before you can even think about establishing a Learning & Development or Communications strategy.

I was most impressed by the ease at which we were able to come to these conclusions. These new techniques I have learned will most definitely be harnessed in future business settings to share and deliberate knowledge.