9. Technology in KM. ETL525 Knowledge Management Tutorial Four. 16 January K.T. Lam

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1 9. Technology in KM ETL525 Knowledge Management Tutorial Four 16 January 2009 K.T. Lam Last updated: 15 January 2009

2 Technology is KM Enabler Technology is one of the Four Pillars of KM, which supports and enables KM strategies and operations. (Stankosky 2005) KM is to coordinate an organization s people, technology, processes and organizational structure. (Dalkir 2005) Trying to implement a KM systems without technology is extremely difficult but the technology of itself does not make the KM system work; it can facilitate and enable connections and communications but it will not make them happen. (Gamble and Blackwell, 2001)

3 Technology is KM Enabler (cont.) If the culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing does not exist, adopting more technologies will not yield much benefit to a KM implementation. (Park 2005) Too much emphasis on technology without incorporating the other critical elements (i.e., business strategy under leadership, organizational structure, and learning) can easily result in failed KM implementation. (Park 2005)

4 List of Technologies mentioned in KM literature Abstracts Annotation Archiving Artificial intelligence Authoring tools Automated reasoning systems Blogs Business modeling systems Business intelligence tools Chat rooms Classification Communication technologies Collaboration tools Content management systems Customer relations management Data analysis Data mining Data warehousing Database management systems Decision support systems Digital libraries Discussion forums Document management systems Document imaging E-learning systems Electronic publishing Expert systems Expertise location systems Extranets Folksonomies Geographic location management Groupware Help desk applications Indexes Information retrieval systems

5 List of Technologies mentioned in KM literature (cont.) Information technology Instant messaging Intelligent Agents Internet Intranet Knowledge-based systems Knowledge discovery systems Knowledge mapping tools Knowledge repository Knowledge management systems Metadata Mind mapping Neural networks Ontology Optical character recognition Personalization technologies Portals Robots RSS Feeds Search engines Search technologies SMS Social bookmarking Social networking Social software Tagging Taxonomies Text analysis Text mining Text retrieval Time/proximity management social tools Video-conferencing Visualization tools Web-based training Wikis Workflow systems

6 List of Technologies mentioned in KM literature (cont.) Observations: A diversity of technologies are involved in KM. Why? Some of the technologies listed above can be more accurately regarded as tools for information management. How do we differentiate tools for IM and for KM? As new technology is ever emerging, tools and systems for KM can become obsolete very quickly. Any implication to an organization?

7 Discussion Identify technologies and tools that are used in your organization that help in the following KM activities: Knowledge creation Knowledge capture Knowledge sharing Knowledge dissemination Knowledge application Name the software used, if possible. Are they for Information Management or for KM?

8 Roles of Technology in KM KM technology provides a seamless pipeline for the flow of explicit and tacit knowledge through four modes of knowledge conversion (socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization) to enable the following: Capturing knowledge. Defining, storing, categorizing, indexing, and linking digital objects corresponding to a knowledge unit. Searching for and subscribing to relevant content. Presenting content with sufficient flexibility to render it meaningful and applicable across multiple contexts of use. Source: Park (2005)

9 Intranets Internet, Intranet and Extranet Internet is for the public. Intranet is available only to the staff of the organization. Extranet is an intranet that is also partially available to outsiders.

10 Intranet (cont.) Intranet is a must have platform for implementing KM initiatives. Intranet can be utilized to achieve the following purposes: Drive organization efficiency and productivity Support the sharing of best practices Lead to more-informed decisions Serve as a channel for internal communications Intranet is a strategic investment made by an organization to capture and disseminate intellectual capital, and in the process, remain competitive. Source: Sarnoff & Wimmer (2003)

11 Intranet (cont.) Intranet as a platform for knowledge capturing and sharing among staff of an organization: Communities of practice Home page, collaboration, output dissemination, knowledge stewardship Staff directories and expertise finders Photos, organizational chart, linking to projects and content, expertise and knowledge Collaborative environment Collaborative spaces, collaborative tools Intranet-based knowledge tools Weblogs, wikis Drive cultural change To support change management activities Source: Robertson(2004)

12 Intranet (cont.) Intranet (Corporate Portal) as a platform for Finding relevant information and knowledge sources Access to structured and unstructured sources. Searching, categorization, personalization. Codifying and publishing knowledge Content management system Collaborating online Synchronous and asynchronous opportunities for individuals to meet; share information, knowledge, and opinions; make presentations; and collaborate on realtime decisions. Web-based discussion, communications, and community Tools. Source: Terra, J & Gordon (2003)

13 The Intranet for staff of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

14 Case Studies on Intranet Case One: Janssen-Cilag < Technology: Wiki (Atlassian s Confluence) Remark: the best collaboration systems are incredibly simple and open. Achievements: Has dramatically transformed their internal communication. Knowledge management, previously a big concern, has moved off the agenda for the time being.

15 Case Studies on Intranet (cont.) Case Two: SimCorp < Technology: Microsoft SharePoint Remarks: Content is still king on the intranet. We want the content to be easily findable and easily shared, but we also need to ensure that it is of high quality so that it is reliable. We are a knowledge-based organization, so we need to preserve this knowledge.

16 Case Studies on Intranet (cont.) Features: Content rating of documents based on timeliness of updates. Role-based personalization. Employee search. Competence database where employees can enter their training, previous employment, experience, other skills and background information. Achievements: On an average day, 90% of the employees use the intranet. It was acknowledged by employees as the optimal tool to easily locate and share high-quality information in their daily work.

17 Case Studies on Intranet (cont.) Case Three: Intrawest Placemaking < Technology: Wiki (OpenRoad s ThoughtFarmer) Remarks: built a democratic, collaborative communication platform that could capture the company s intellectual capital and strengthen the workplace community. The intranet is a completely open and malleable collection of current thoughts, processes, and learnings.

18 Case Studies on Intranet (cont.) Features: Turn all users into authors. Benefits: Fewer barriers to knowledge sharing. No distortion in knowledge transfer. An increase in employee engagement. Self-healing content. No excessive burden on a couple of administrators. Turn co-workers into friends: create an internal workplace community. expose the existing social network. tie all content to people.

19 Case Studies on Intranet (cont.) Achievements Pervasive use Reduced cost Attracting and retaining new talent Uniting a geographically dispersed workforce The idea that saved $500,000

20 Web 2.0 and Social Software Web has version numbers: Web 1.0 Static information, linked together. One way communication. Web 2.0 Coined 2004 by Dale Dougherty (co-founder of O Reilly Media) to describe the next generation of the Web. Added human factor to Web 1.0; with features that allow social networking, sharing and collaboration. Focus on users and communities. Dynamic content.; highly participating. It is still a work-in-progress.

21 Web 2.0 and Social Software (cont.) Web 3.0 Beyond Web 2.0. Featuring the semantic web, the 3D web, the mediacentric web, and the pervasive web. (Metz 2007) Examples of Web 2.0 tools and technology that foster collaboration: Blogs, wikis, tagging, social bookmarking, user rating, user reviews, RSS feeds. Instant messaging, voice over IP (e.g. Skype), podcasting, vlogs.

22 Web 2.0 and Social Software (cont.) Social software Web-based tools for users to conduct social activities such as interacting, meeting, sharing, collaboration, etc. Examples of social software: Blogs, wikis, instant messaging, music, photo and video sharing, discussion forums, message boards, social networking tools, etc. The bottom-up approach of social software encourages responsibility and content ownership, and at the same time opens wide opportunities for collaboration and interaction. (Avram 2006)

23 Web 2.0 and Social Software (cont.) Blog Also known as weblog or web log. A web site for writing in an on-going basis. A personal diary on the web. Entries (called posts) arranged in reverse chronological order. Viewers can easily add comments to a post. Blog content can reach the users via RSS feeds. Blogging provides great opportunity for bloggers to externalize their tacit knowledge. From a KM perspective, weblogs harness the power of conversation (narrative) to convey messages in a very honest and powerful way. (Robertson 2004)

24 Web 2.0 and Social Software (cont.) Wiki A website that allows users to add, edit and link content collaboratively, and at ease. The most well known example is Wikipedia A multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia created in Written and maintained collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. Suitable for collaborative websites, community websites, intranets, and KM. What is extremely interesting from a KM perspective is the way in which wikis, due to their complete lack of control or restrictions, fundamentally rest upon the social dynamics of the communities that use them. (Robertson 2004)

25 Web 2.0 and Social Software (cont.) Tag A tag is a (relevant) keyword or term associated with or assigned to a piece of information (e.g. a picture, a geographic map, a blog entry, or video clip), thus describing the item and enabling keyword-based classification and searching. Tags are usually chosen informally and personally by the authors and creators, or by consumers, viewers and communities. Social bookmarking - tagging for internet bookmarks. Source: Wikipedia <

26 Web 2.0 and Social Software (cont.) Tag cloud list of tags displayed visually, with more frequently used tags displayed in larger font size. Collaborative tagging (also called folksonomy) a collaborative activity to categorize content by creating and maintaining tags. In contrast to subject indexing with controlled vocabularies by indexers or catalogers.

27 Member assigned tags to a book in the LibraryThing catalog. Tags are displayed as tag clouds. <

28 Tag cloud showing topics relevant to a search results, for facet browsing in a school library catalog. These tags are assigned by library staff (catalogers). <

29 Web 2.0 and Social Software (cont.) RSS Feed RSS is an XML-based format to markup frequently updated content. The RSS formatted content is called RSS Feed. RSS feeds are read by RSS readers, feed readers, or news aggregators. Users subscribe to a RSS feed by adding the link of the feed to the RSS reader. The reader will then automatically check and download new content. Implication: users are automatically kept up-to-date without manually visiting the websites; thus improving communication.

30 This icon contains the URL of a RSS feed, You subscribe this feed to receive up-todate information about videos added to this site in the past 30 days. <

31 Closing Remarks KM is back and is even returning to the spotlight as more lightweight, more focused KM 2.0 tools make it easier to use and justify new investments. (Bonde 2006) A new wave of smaller, lighter and less expensive tools has started to go where the larger KM systems often don t bringing corporate knowledge back out into daylight. (Spanbauer 2006) See Google s list of Communicate, show & share products for examples of light-weight social software tools. <

32 Closing Remarks (cont.) Instead of centralized knowledge repository, the new tools enable a distributed environment for creating content and finding information. Social software and Web 2.0 are timely tools and technology for supporting the social environments that encourage knowledge capturing and sharing. It is however, the leadership and the people that make KM successful.

33 References Avram, G 2006, 'At the crossroads of knowledge management and social software', The electronic journal of knowledge management, volume 4, issue 1, p Bonde, A 2006, The (new) age of knowledge management, CIO. Available online at < Dalkir, K 2005, Introduction to knowledge management in theory and practice in Knowledge management in theory and practice, Elsevier, Burlington, M.A., p Dalkir, K 2005b, Knowledge management tools in Knowledge management in theory and practice, Elsevier, Burlington, M.A., p

34 References (cont.) Gamble, P and Blackwell, J (2001) Technology and knowledge management in Knowledge management: a state of the art guide, Kogan Page. Metz, C 2007, Web 3.0: the Inernet is changing again, PC magazine, April 10, p Park, H 2005, Knowledge management technology and organizational culture in M Stankowsky (ed), Creating the discipline of knowledge management: the latest in university research, Elsevier Butterworth- Heinemann, Amsterdam, p

35 References (cont.) Robertson, J 2004, Intranets and knowledge sharing, KM column. Available online at < Sarnoff, A & Wimmer, T 2003, Knowledge management and intranets: putting people first, Intranet journal. Available online at < Spanbauer, S 2006, Modern knowledge management applications, CIO. Available online at <

36 References (cont.) Stankosky, M 2005, Advances in knowledge management: university research toward an academic discipline in Creating the discipline of knowledge management: the latest in university research, Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, Amsterdam. Terra, J & Gordon C 2003, Key services of a corporate portal platform, in Realizing the promise of corporate portals: leveraging knowledge for business success, Butterworth-Heinemann, Amsterdam.