imt 589 km knowledge management institute introduction

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IMT 589 KM Knowledge Management Institute

Introduction

Robert M. Mason

(special thanks to Jochen Scholl, who provided some slides that have been adapted for this session)

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IMT 589 KM Institute Mason; p. 2

Topical Overview• What is the point of managing knowledge?

• What does it mean to manage knowledge?

• How do we distinguish data, information, knowledge, and wisdom?

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Why Manage Knowledge?

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What is “Information?”

• In a few words, what is your definition?

• How does information differ from knowledge?

In a few words, please give your definition

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An Information Exercise

232456622What do you see? Data? Information?

232-45-6622Now what do you see?

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What do you see here ?

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IMT 500b Mason; p. 9

What can a stone-age person from New Guinea see in this

picture ?

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What do we learn from this ?

• Need knowledge• Experience• Context

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ObservationsInformation Is…

• In the eye of the beholderCan you discern meaning?

Data vs. noise

Does it provide an answer to a question?Data vs. information

• Context-sensitive– Time (historical dimension)– Group– Culture/Code/language– Prior knowledge

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Observations

• Recursive Relationship:– Data and information require (prior) knowledge– Knowledge is built up from information and data

• Information is socially constructed, it is not a “given” – “…[W]e must call into question that the idea that the

world is pregiven and that cognition is representation. In cognitive science, this means that we must call into question the idea that information exists ready-made in the world and that it is extracted by a cognitive system…”

Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind : cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, p. 140

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Philosophical Perspectives

• Positivist: Reality exists as an objective world separate from ourselves; research enables us to observe it and deduce the rules that govern its behavior

• Social Constructionist: There is a physical world, but our understanding of it comes from our interacting with it and with others. “Reality” is determined by agreement among a culture.

• Example: 3 baseball umpires

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Knowledge (Some Other Definitions)

• K = I + U (Knowledge is equal to Information plus Understanding) (Brooking)

• Knowledge is information in a context that supports proper decisions and actions (Penny)

• The idea that knowledge can be slotted into a data-to-wisdom hierarchy is bogus (Stewart)

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KnowingMENO. And how will you inquire, Socrates, into

that which you do not know? What will you put forth as the subject of inquiry? And if you find what you want, how will you ever know that this is the thing which you did not know?

SOCRATES. I know, Meno, what you mean; but just see what a tiresome dispute you are introducing. You argue that a man cannot inquire either about that which he knows, or about that which he does not know; for if he knows, he has no need to inquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does not know the very subject about which he is to inquire? [p. 4] Plato, Meno

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Stocks and Flows in IM

KnowledgeStock

LearningUnlearning

Forgetting

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The Tacit Dimenson

“We know more than we can say”-- Polanyi, 1967

• Tacit dimension:– Present but inexpressible

– “Intuition”

– Subconscious knowledge

– Motor skills

• All knowledge has a tacit dimension

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Experiential Learning Cycle

(Kolb, 1984)ConcreteExperience

Reflective Observation

AbstractConceptualization

Active Experimentation

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Information and Learning

Choo, 2001

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Information “Value Chain”

Sensory Awareness

Creation Access / Transfer

Application

Interpretation

Storage

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Data, Information, & Knowledge

Choo, 2001

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Knowing and Not Knowing

Choo, 2001

After Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham, 1969

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Managerial Challenges

Organizational

TechnologicalSocial

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Organizational Learning

Huysman et al, 2002

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Information Problem Spaces

Puzzles Problems

Wicked

Problems

After Michael Pidd, 2004

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Information (Knowledge)

Management “System”• Infrastructure– Technology– People– Processes

• Culture of knowledge sharing• Forums: places (physical, virtual)

for working through issues

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Spanning the Boundary

LEVELo Syntactic

• Semantic

Pragmatic

APPROACHo Technical

standardso Vocabulary

• Databases• Metadata

Dialogue Conferences

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Examples: Pragmatic Level

Maps, models, incentivesDialogue: develop mutual

understanding“Workout” sessions (GE)Forums (Buckman Labs, NASA)

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Concluding Food for Thought

Von Glasersfeld (1995)Knowledge is not passively received, but built

up by the cognizing subjectThe function of cognition is adaptive and the

serves the organization of the experiential world, not the discovery of ontological reality (p. 18)

Maturana & Varela (1981)Everything said is said by an observer to another observer that could be himself

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Think again about the stone-age tribesman who

sees this image

imt 589 km knowledge management institute introduction

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