Knowledge Cafe on 15th Feb 2008

The Knowledge café which was held on the above date as a class session was to discuss about “The worst consequences that could happen as a result of No Knowledge Management”. This was not discussed only in an organizational point of view, but a much broader view which included social and personal point of views.
The café began to work by asking each team to come up with consequences that could happen when there is no knowledge management.

Suggestions and decisions in Group 3

I as a member in group 3 will be first focus on the ideas we came up within our team. The task was to gather ideas from each team member without discussing within the given time. So we came up with 32 ideas. The following figure shows a photograph of the ideas we suggested.

Figure 1: Ideas of group 3

Following were the considered ideas as bad consequences after the discussion among the team.

1. No interaction between employees
2. No knowledge storage
3. No communication
4. No training and development
5. No sharing of ideas
6. No documentation
7. No transfer of knowledge
8. Redundancy
9. No expression of ideas
10. No culture
11. No system in place
12. No rewards
13. No socialisation
14. Goal uncertainty
15. No innovation
16. No regulations
17. No process view
18. No technology
19. No quality assurance and products
20. No learning attitude

At the end of our discussions we came up with the most worst three things that could happen if there is no knowledge management.
1. No socialisation and culture (No interaction, communication and culture).
When there is no socialisation people will tend not to communicate or interact with other people. This may be able to bring down a whole civilisation or a culture.

2. No system (No storage, documentation, innovation, regulations or technology).
The word “system” stands as an overall of systems which can exist. For an example social systems, organisational systems, technological or information systems, etc. When there is no knowledge been transmitted or when there is no interaction the possibilities for a system to exist fails. There will be no knowledge pass on with generations in a social society or there will be no knowledge distribution in an organisation since there is no storage or documentation. So there will be no rules and regulations or no new innovations of technology. One of the main reasons for human begins to be more advance from other creatures in this world is the ability of better communication and knowledge distribution.

3. No training and development.
No communications meaning no training. People will loose the attitude and the interest to learn about something. Hence the development process in every aspect will fail.


Final general discussion

The following figures shows the main three worst ideas each team came up in the knowledge cafe.

Figure 2: Ideas of group 1, group 3 and group 2.

Figure 3: Ideas of group 4.

The ideas presented by each group were almost similar because every body had come up with same kind of facts (e.g.: no communication and no documentation).
Each group made a 5 minute presentation about the suggestions they made. There were few points elaborated at the end of the Knowledge management cafe. There should be some kind of a communication method to transfer knowledge or information. The employees in an organisation should have the necessary access to communicate with the relevant person directly rather than go through a hierarchy of people.
Finally I think the worst suggestions made by group 3 are the best of all the groups since it covers all the possible areas which are relevant to knowledge management without focusing on organisational or technical systems.

Data, Information and Knowledge

Different authors, scholars and researchers have come up with different definitions to Data, Information and Knowledge. Even in our class room we had different views about these three elements. Some argue that there is no different at all among these elements. This will discuss about my views on Data, Information and Knowledge, after all the readings and discussions I have encountered.

What is Data

Data are discrete row facts. The use of data is relative, as it can be either useful or not. Data has no significant meaning or interpretation. For an example Data can be just numbers, images or sounds which derive from observation and/or measurement.
The amount of data needed is also depends on the nature or the purpose. For an example a study or a research on a vast subject area like 'Nature of Earth' will need lots of data, but in an organisational context the data is more precise. Analyze or argue of these data should be done with the correct approach and techniques, which will eventually comes with experience. But gather too much of data also may make it difficult to identify the data that matters.

What is Information

When data is given with significance by categorizing, condensing then it is information. This requires some intellectual input of analysis and also should have relevance and a purpose.
Information should handle with care and cautious as it has the ability to change the way or path the receiver distinguishes about a certain matter. So the creator for some piece of information should have the expertise on the relevant area.

Path to Knowledge




Knowledge can be address as a set of valuable and organized information from a “Human mind”. It has a significance and usefulness. But it is not that easy to explain knowledge and stop in just one sentence. Knowledge can be also differing from person or purpose.
A person may keep some information in his/her mind by just memorizing them. For an example the ATM card pin number, a telephone number. These types of knowledge can be for a shot time in human memory. For an example a person can memorize a mathematical equation or a result of a formula such as “5 X 2 = 10”. But if you ask the answer for “1234 X 4321” it may be hard for the same person to answer as it is not memorized. There should be some analytical skills to find the answer to such a mathematical expression. This can be said as the ability to understand.
From that view knowledge can be understood as data or information added with further intellectual analysis. This process involves interpretation and adding up meaning and it is also structured with existing beliefs and knowledge bodies. People who have the ability to “understand” can synthesize new knowledge, or in some cases, at least new information, from what is previously understood. This means that understanding can build upon currently held information and knowledge. A proper example would be a university student survey, where the statistical data will be analyzed and understand to either justify a course of action or to decide on certain matters. This process involves knowledge from experience or may be previous surveys, from collecting data to analyse data and information and will finally develop new knowledge.
This understands the connection and the relationship between data, information and knowledge is not exactly unidirectional. While data and information provide the foundation to create knowledge, knowledge can be use to create data and information as well. It is always a dynamic process. Furthermore the knowledge each party posse shape the type of data or information that will be generated. The following figure graphically displays the connection between the three elements.





References:

• Hislop Donald, "Knowledge management in organizations", 2005
• Bellinger Gene, "Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom", http://www.systems-thinking.org/index.htm, 2004

Can knowledge be managed?

From an organisational point of view knowledge has a far more importance and value than an individual. Managing the available knowledge is critically an important aspect to an organisation for its growth and success. But this process has to do with lot of caution since knowledge is a very sensitive entity.

According to Polanyi’s (1967) concept has two dimensions for knowledge which are tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge which is bounded into individuals which mostly gain from experience and personal-interactions is hard to express where as explicit knowledge is easy to articulate or capture.

Predominantly based on this concept different scholars have presented number of knowledge management models from organisational and social aspects. The SECI model of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) is one very famous knowledge management model. Even though it is most popular as a knowledge management model, it is more focused in knowledge creation process. The model is about transferring of tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge to others by story telling, documenting, through discussions and inventing of knowledge, etc. Further more the model addresses knowledge dissemination through the processes of “socialisation” and “combination” which is sharing knowledge with others in the forms of tacit and explicit respectively. To be able to share the knowledge more successfully within a modern organisation knowledge storage is also essential. A knowledge base system is one example for storing knowledge.

Definition for Knowledge Management.

Knowledge management is a process of a combination of knowledge creation and knowledge utilisation followed by storage, dissemination and use of knowledge to accomplish any existing objectives or to create new opportunities.

What is knowledge?

It is really difficult to define knowledge. There are lots of views in the literature. But in general knowledge can be said as an organised set of information, ideas and rules. Information is disorganised. In a sense, according to Marakas (1999) information becomes knowledge when it is given a meaning made by mind (Ganesh, 2000). This is ultimately understanding of disorganised information and the relationships or principles in between. This involves experience and skills. So knowledge is organised. The disparity between the knowledge and the information is depending on the users’ perspective (Ganesh, 2000). Knowledge is context dependent, since understanding is interpreted in reference to a particular paradigm.