I2K Blog

While a small corner store and Wal-Mart may both be retail businesses, the knowledge and skill set required to operate them successfully are vastly different. The operation of Wal-Mart is not simply a “supersized” version of the small business practices used by the corner store. Unlike the corner store, Wal-Mart has to cope with different and changing regulatory demands across the regions where it operates; it has to deal with logistical issues on an international scale, and much more. Therefore at some point, to enable itself to handle the demands of its growth, Wal-Mart had to incorporate a more comprehensive understanding of the discipline of Business (with a capital B) as taught by Business schools at colleges around the world.

Similarly, the practice of knowledge management is different than the practice of Knowledge Management. People, governments, and businesses have always managed knowledge; and it has always been important to get the right information to the right people at the right time. Yet, it has only been within the past 20+ years that there been a persistent and growing emphasis on the part of big business to manage and apply knowledge more judiciously as a managed asset.

However the challenge faced by large entities in regards to managing knowledge is like that in the case of Business, i.e. the scale of the knowledge management needs of large organizations cannot be fully met by simply “supersizing” individual or small scale knowledge management activities and practices. For example, in a small group it is very easy to share, recognize, and understand what knowledge the group possesses and can use. Also, a small group is much less likely to face hierarchal, geographic and language barriers to managing its knowledge. And so, large entities have found themselves in need of an accurate set of principles that transform the ad-hoc activity of knowledge management into Knowledge Management a professional discipline suitable for addressing the knowledge demands of large organizations.

But unlike Business, Knowledge Management (KM) has not congealed into a mature and generally accepted set of principles. And so, organizations are struggling to find their own way.

Knowledge Management is not a response to so-called information overload, or the increasing quantity of information being created over the past 20 to 30 years of the computer age. Instead, the major role that computerization has played in creating the demand for Knowledge Management has been in enabling the proliferation of information. This is really an obvious point when you consider that the amount of information that had been created over the thousands of years leading up to the past few decades was already unimaginably great. So, if during the computer age not a single piece of new information was created, the existing quantity of information already amassed would easily be enough to overwhelm computer users. So the increased demand for KM cannot simply be a result of greater information creation.

Purely and simply, Knowledge Management is a reaction to an increase in competitive pressure brought about by information proliferation. Businesses only began to consider the need to better manage knowledge over the past 20+ years because it has only been during this period that more people and other entities have been enabled access to information on a scale that use to be reserved only for large entities employing lots of people. So again and finally, the issue that has driven the desire for KM is not about the amount of information available, but instead it is about who has access to available information and what they are capable of doing with the information.

Specifically, individuals and entities large and small are more enabled by greater information access to create better and more competitive offerings. For example, an individual computer user can more easily apply information found on the Internet to creating a new business that can challenge long established companies, or an existing competitor can use the advantage of greater access to information to shorten their product development cycle. The unlimited potential applications of information, couple with increasingly unlimited access to information has made our operating environment much more competitive than ever before.

In short, the current environment is one of “knowledge-based competition”. Information is simply the fuel required to create knowledge; and thus good information is a key component of Knowledge Management in a competitive environment. The objective for Knowledge Management is to create, preserve, use, and reuse knowledge faster and better than the competition. Knowledge Management should be focused on improving two critical activities:

information-to-knowledge (i2k) conversion, and
knowledge-to-product (k2p) infusion

Many of us wiki users, being so proud that we are doing our part to realize the vision of so-called Web x.0, easily fall into the habit of trying to be arbiters of how wiki should be used. As new wiki adopters (a category that really includes every wiki user) seek ways to extract value from the wiki medium, we are seeing more and more phrases like “the goal of wiki is …”, or “wiki is intended to be used like …”, or “the right way to use wiki is …” However, the truth is that wiki is simply a tool, the best use of which is determined by the user.

The best use for any tool is determined first by what the user wants or needs to create; for instance if you want to create chicken soup, you probably wouldn’t want to stir your pot with a hammer, although you could do so effectively. But even in the case where the proper tool is used, there is merit in considering whether or not the tool is returning enough value. For example, if you indeed used a spoon to stir your chicken soup, but you never considered that the same spoon could be used to scoop out food, or that it could be used to stir vegetable soup as well, then you are missing out on some opportunities.

Unfortunately, the seemingly silly example above is precisely what we are doing with wiki when we try to define its “proper use”. Using wiki simply as a modernized version of the encyclopedia is like a business only using Word as a modernized version of the hand written letter or typewriter. Certainly if a business only used Word to write text letters there would be a significant value returned over using typewriters and handwriting, but in no way would the returned value approach the level of the software’s potential. Unquestionably the ability to create simple and sophisticated tables, surveys, and forms or the ability to add pictures and charts greatly increases the ROI of Word.

Applying creative structures to wiki multiplies it ROI in the same way that different front-ends for the same database can transform a collection of records into distinct and specialized systems like a billing system, an accounting system, or an inventory tracking system. So we already know from experience that a different perspective, on even the same data, can return vastly different experiences and value returns. And what is an encyclopedia really? An encyclopedia, no matter if it is paper or electronic, is essentially a database of subject specific entries.

In summary, if one’s desired outcome is simply to develop a robust and community updatable content repository, then it is clear that the best use of wiki is simply to follow the encyclopedic model of for example, a Wikipedia. But for businesses concerned with efficiency and profitability, this type of wiki use is an inadequate application of wiki capability.

While Knol (or the Knol model) certainly represents an alternative use of wiki for encyclopedic implementation,  the knol model may also be a revolutionary catalyst for changing how new knowledge is developed and accepted into the mainstream of human activity. What Google’s Knol does is apply wiki in a manner that is more applicable to today’s environment and business needs than the Wikipedia implementation that many have embraced as the standard or model for wiki application.

The Wikipedia encyclopedia implementation is simply an imitation of traditional encyclopedias like World Book or Britannica with the obvious value-add being the inclusive capabilities of wiki as a tool. Applied encyclopedicly wiki enables content errors to be frequently corrected, and wiki enables entries to be enriched to incorporate a perspective that is much greater than that of traditional encyclopedias (whether paper or online). Yet in regards to entries, a comparison between Wikipedia and traditional encyclopedia is actually an “apple-to-apple” comparison with the subject of the entries included in Wikipedia and Britannica or World Book being very similar.<

The alignment of the entries between Wikipedia and traditional encyclopedia stems from the fact that Wikipedia essentially follows traditional encyclopedia conventions in regards to what and how entries are accepted and included. Wikipedia for example, does not allow original work to be added as new entries; and to be accepted entries must go through a peer review process to determine whether or not they will make the cut. And so, it is to be expected that the end result of Wikipedia’s cloned practices is simply an easier to use traditional encyclopedia.

Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with the Wikipedia approach if the goal is simply to create a traditional type encyclopedia on a wiki platform. However, the Wikipedia approach runs against the grain of the realities and demands of the so-called knowledge environment because it disrespects and/or gives little weight to the ideas of the individual. The knowledge environment is being driven by the fact that small and individual entities have been enabled, by greater information access, to unleash the power of their genius directly upon the marketplace without having to go through the red tape of traditional “brick and mortar” business processes. The only thing that matters today is <strong><em>being right</em></strong>.

The review process of Wikipedia is an anachronism to the spirit of so-called Web 2.0 because it fails to allow for the fact that the vision, genius, and ideas of a single individual may be more significant than those of a group of university scholars.

In contrast, Google recognizes that it is enabled individuals that are driving the knowledge environment, and with Knol they are trying to apply wiki more openly with greater trust in both individuals and the community.Â

The following represents an example of a problem that an implementation like Knol may be able to address:
<ul>
<li>An article in Science magazine highlights a sociologist’s study that finds that “articles from the online age actually cite fewer studies, from a shrinking pool of journals. And the same popular studies are mentioned over and over. ” The study concludes that “the internet leads scientist to the most popular, talked-about research - which could overshadow the lone dissenter”.</li>
</ul>
In other words, the promotion of a group mentality can stifle creativity. Wikipedia’s definitions begin from the group perspective and asks individuals to make their views a part of the group perspective. Google’s definitions start from the individual perspective and asks the community to enhance the individual’s definition. By starting from an individual’s perspective Knol is more likely than Wikipedia to create new knowledge. (Also this is true by default, because Wikipedia entries cannot be new knowledge.)

In conclusion, Google’s Knol empowers small entities and individuals in the spirit of the <em>Open &amp; Equal</em> information environment. Google is entrusting us to make Knol what we think it should be, and not what Google thinks it should be.

The recent transition into the third millennium was the subject of numerous predictions. Some forecasts were centuries old, while others were more recent. Many of the predictions were quite fanciful and benign, and included such visions as cities in the sky, wrist watch radios and a flying car in every garage. Others were gloomier and foretold of great disasters including the timeless classic the end of the world.

As the new millennium approached the prediction that garnered the most notoriety was based on a technology gaffe that came to be known as the Year 2000 or Y2K bug. The Y2K bug referred to the potential of computerized items to fail based on programming deficiencies that compromised their ability to recognize new millennium dates. Left unchecked, it was widely held that numerous disasters, including the failure of common appliances, the crash of the world monetary system and the unintentional launch of nuclear weapons was possible.  In the end, whether a result of outstanding preparation or simply too much hype, the Y2K bug did not bite.

However, lost in the hoopla of the changing calendar was a historic occurrence that in a very real sense, did indeed signal the end of the world – or at least the world as we knew it.  That occurrence was <strong>the <em>loss-of-information-control

The Loss of Information Control
Over the millennia technology advances have enabled information to be transferred from the unmovable media of cave walls, to stone tablets, to paper, to impulses of light capable of being transmitted to the moon in little more than a second.  Each advance has seen greater amounts of information crammed into smaller and more portable formats.

But, while advances in information technology have made information more powerful and more portable, such advances have also served to make information much easier to access, distribute and steal. As a result, over time information became more difficult to control, and increasingly available and accessible to the masses.

The trend toward more powerful, more portability, and more transferable information continued until finally, it became clear that in this period surrounding the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, the ability to control information had been greatly compromised.

Increasingly, even sensitive and proprietary information has found its way into the public domain. In fact, it is more accurate to say that the public domain has found its way to the information.  This has proven true whether the information is copyrighted materials such as movies, music or software, plans for making a bomb, or details about the personal and private lives of ordinary individuals or dignitaries like the President of the United States.

The actions of businesses and institutions all around the world are helping to ensure that the movement toward greater information availability and accessibility continues. Each year more and more products, technologies, and services are being developed and offered to bring computing and information access to people in almost any location and situation. Whether you are driving, hiking, or flying there is now, or soon will be, a product that you can use to access information (news, e-mail, the Internet, etc.) right on the spot.

Of course, in and of itself, widespread distribution of information is benign and, perhaps to most people, preferred. However, the increasingly open accessibility of information represents a significant environment change for mankind.

The loss-of-information-control is <em>the</em> pivotal event of an environment evolution <em>thousands of years</em> in the making.  The unfettered proliferation of information changes the intelethic environment of <em>competition-based-on-information control </em>that had been the basis for human behavior since before the development of the earliest civilizations 10,000 years ago.  In fact, civilization as we know it, was created upon the intelethic environmental foundation of competition-based-on-information-control.</span>

Indeed, information control comprised half of the foundation (the other half being competition) upon which civilization was first created. And what happens to a structure when its foundation is removed? It falls. And, in fact that is what has occurred.

The unfettered proliferation of information access and availability has effectively separated <em>control</em> from <em>information</em>, and has therefore signaled the end of the world as we knew it before the new millennium.  Today, with tight-fisted control over information being less feasible, individuals, businesses and governments are finding that the tried and true practices of the past are no longer effective.  As a consequence, the world is becoming more volatile as the effects of our changing civilization resonate throughout the globe.

The significance of this environmental transition cannot be overstated. It is perhaps the greatest survival challenge mankind has ever faced. Already, a great amount of uncertainty has been introduced into the world. This uncertainty is due to the fact that our worldwide institutions, and in particular our governments, were established and continue to operate based on rules that have been invalidated by the inability to control information access. Â Given that fact, there are no stable institutions the world over, from the smallest nation to the largest power. Â Every government is now battling for its survival. And some (most notably the U.S.) are beginning to get desperate. It is hard to imagine a more serious situation.</span></p>