Bullet Express MIM Study Group (Pennie, Helen, Vijay, Torrance, Ian).
Audience:
Academics, Knowledge Management professionals
Theme:
Organizational information systems (including the internet) generate huge volumes of information and knowledge, most of which has a very short half-life. The act of searching for this information can be difficult and time consuming. If a user is able to locate an answer to a specific issue they face, it is possible that the knowledge is no longer current.
Summary:
The authors propose a new paradigm to link employees to information required to answer questions specific to their job role, and assist in organizational knowledge transfer generally. They term this paradigm the ‘man-man communication paradigm”, and instantiate it in a prototype system built for The University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt.
The authors suggest that their approach is novel in that they assume the solution to complex problems cannot normally be found in documents, but rather, the solution is more likely to be achieved via collaboration and communication between knowledgeable individuals. By way of support, the authors point out that knowledge is information in the context of a given user, and that in order for information contained within a document to be useful to that user, it must be edited and put into the appropriate context. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is hard to do this dynamically using a computer, as the context will always be that of the author – hence the requirement for human to human interaction. Additionally, they ask the key question: “Is it possible and realistic to enter all information relevant to business into a knowledge management system?”.
They propose that an employee with an issue approach a knowledge broker with a description of their problem, and the broker will attempt to identify a person (either within or outside of the organisation) who would be best suited to help provide a solution to their problem (or assist them in identifying a solution themselves). Once identified, the broker will attempt to bring the two individuals together. They suggest that the ideal knowledge broker will have quite a detailed understanding of a particular business related subject area, and have had enough tenure at the organization to be able to readily identify subject matter experts. Additionally, they suggest that having an organisation wide network of knowledge brokers is the ideal solution.
Some of the key features of the prototype they developed included the use of semantic networks in which the linkages encapsulate differing “versions” of context, meta search engines that can span multiple existing knowledge management systems, and having a computer assisted knowledge broker, as opposed to using either artificial intelligence to create a virtual information broker (too difficult) or a dedicated and manual person driven process (high ongoing cost). They termed this hybrid approach “a machine supported human mind”.
Review:
Theme:
Organizational information systems (including the internet) generate huge volumes of information and knowledge, most of which has a very short half-life. The act of searching for this information can be difficult and time consuming. If a user is able to locate an answer to a specific issue they face, it is possible that the knowledge is no longer current.
Summary:
The authors propose a new paradigm to link employees to information required to answer questions specific to their job role, and assist in organizational knowledge transfer generally. They term this paradigm the ‘man-man communication paradigm”, and instantiate it in a prototype system built for The University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt.
The authors suggest that their approach is novel in that they assume the solution to complex problems cannot normally be found in documents, but rather, the solution is more likely to be achieved via collaboration and communication between knowledgeable individuals. By way of support, the authors point out that knowledge is information in the context of a given user, and that in order for information contained within a document to be useful to that user, it must be edited and put into the appropriate context. The difficulty lies in the fact that it is hard to do this dynamically using a computer, as the context will always be that of the author – hence the requirement for human to human interaction. Additionally, they ask the key question: “Is it possible and realistic to enter all information relevant to business into a knowledge management system?”.
They propose that an employee with an issue approach a knowledge broker with a description of their problem, and the broker will attempt to identify a person (either within or outside of the organisation) who would be best suited to help provide a solution to their problem (or assist them in identifying a solution themselves). Once identified, the broker will attempt to bring the two individuals together. They suggest that the ideal knowledge broker will have quite a detailed understanding of a particular business related subject area, and have had enough tenure at the organization to be able to readily identify subject matter experts. Additionally, they suggest that having an organisation wide network of knowledge brokers is the ideal solution.
Some of the key features of the prototype they developed included the use of semantic networks in which the linkages encapsulate differing “versions” of context, meta search engines that can span multiple existing knowledge management systems, and having a computer assisted knowledge broker, as opposed to using either artificial intelligence to create a virtual information broker (too difficult) or a dedicated and manual person driven process (high ongoing cost). They termed this hybrid approach “a machine supported human mind”.
Review:
I found the article interesting and reasonably well balanced, and the authors did have some good ideas (I’m just not sure that they were all theirs….).
While not wanting to be too critical, I did have a few criticisms relating to it. Firstly, its structure didn’t seem to work particularly well, and some sections didn’t seem to mesh or relate to the overall theme. Secondly, the tone of the authors suggested that the idea of knowledge brokering was theirs – I was unable to confirm this one way or the other. The language used also made it sound a bit more grandiose than was perhaps warranted (although this may simply reflect the fact that six years have passed since the article was written). The final criticism is that they provided statistics relating to the effectiveness of an existing system at The University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, without providing any details regarding how they were obtained. This omission was compounded when they introduced a prototype replacement for this system, and provided no statistics for its effectiveness whatsoever, other than to say it “delivered the desired result”.
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