Intro to Knowledge management

Spiral of knowledge

Explicit vs. implicit

Information processing view of organization

• Hierarchy – Authority – Information

• Division of labor

Facet analysis of “knowledge”

individual

collective

explicitimplicit

Conscious Objectified

Automatic Collective

Individual Social

Explicit

Implicit

Typ

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Locus of knowledge

Channels of knowledge sharing

Tacit (disinclination to be formalized, externalized)

Explicit

Person to person (bound to the immediate context of its creation)

Communities of practice, social network (apprenticeship, participation, ritual, custom)

Oral communication (speech, lecture, conversation, question answering, performance)

Impersonal (mediated, transcends time and space; carried by media)

Embodied knowledge (embodied or encapsulated in organization or other artifacts

Documentation codification (literature, record, computer program)

Organizational learning

• How organizations translate individual insights and knowledge into collective knowledge and organizational capacity – Skeptics: learning is essentially an individual

activity • Yet, sometimes the whole is larger the sums of its parts

(synergy)• Both individuals and organizations are learning entities.

Cyborg

We are borgs;Borg Queen ;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYJ9sbM0Hho

Spiral of knowledge

• “The centerpiece of the Japanese approach is that recognition that creating new knowledge is not simply a matter of “processing objective information”. Rather, it depends on tapping the tacit and often highly subjective insights, intuitions, and hunches of individual employees and making those insights available for testing and use by the company as a whole. ” – The knowledge-creating company (Nonaka Ikujiro, 1991) HBR.

Knowledge consultant

The spiral of knowledge (Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1995)

parking, sports

Com vs. innovation

Synthesize

From tacit to tacit: socialization

• Where tacit knowledge can be converted into tacit knowledge through interactions between individuals, whether it is through language, observation, imitation, or practice– synchronizing fireflies

Mirror neuron and imitation

Socialization (cont.)• Apprenticeship

– Learning through observation, imitation and practice (“mirror neuron”)

– Shared experience in specific contexts– Emotions and commitment – Not merely transfer of information, but also finding or

forming one’s identity in a community

Redundancy

• The conscious overlapping of company information, business activities, and managerial responsibilities.

• Create a common cognitive ground– Internal competition – Proliferation of information – Strategic rotation

Externalization

• A process of articulating tacit knowledge into explicit concepts. – In the shapes of writings, metaphors, analogies,

concepts, hypotheses, or models.

From tacit to explicit: articulation

• Find a way to express the inexpressible– Conceptualization; theorization

• Smile curve; M-shape Society

– Story telling • Ichiro Suzuki's bat

– Metaphor and model• A way of perceiving or intuitively understanding one thing by

imaging another thing symbolically

To the left of blue wall

Make implicit explicit

• 1. Story-telling (parable), metaphor • 2. Codification (skin diagnosis)• 3. Identify novel patterns in data (book

buying)

Metaphor

• from the Greek for "transference," is the use of language that designates one thing to designate another in order to characterize the latter in terms of the former.

• a statement that characterizes one thing in terms of another thing, juxtaposing concepts from separate domains of experience. Metaphor can be used to describe abstract or unfamiliar topics, and to express ideas difficult to convey with literal language.– James Geary on Metaphor

“Meme”, a metaphor

Meme (“Memory” + “gene”) the mind “virus” (Richard Dawkins )

Any idea or behavior that can pass from one person to another by learning or imitation. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, gestures, practices, fashions, habits, songs, and dances

Metaphor in the creative process

• Theory of Automobile Evolution, p. 5– What image does “evolution” conjure up?– The image of sphere – “Man-maximum, machine-minimum”– Tall boy product concept

• Umbrella concept – “Optoelectronics”

» The merging of microelectronics with optical technologies

• Cannon’s mini-copier – Disposable beer can

Vision and corporate culture

• At AVIS, We try harder• RR makes the finest car in the world • "Our [Amazon's] vision is to be earth's most

customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.“

• We devote this university to the spirit of the universe

From explicit to tacit: internalization

• Reading, studying– Communication (perfect copy) vs.– Innovation (somewhat not so perfect)

• Creativity in the interpretation of existing materials

• Learning by doing – Driving, swimming, cooking

Necker’s cube

Vision as a metaphor

From implicit to explicit• “Articulation (converting tacit knowledge into explicit

knowledge) and internalization (using that explicit knowledge to extend one’s own tacit knowledge base) are the critical steps in this spiral of knowledge. The reason is that both require the active involvement of the self – that is, personal commitment. ”

• Teaching and learning not merely transfer of information

To the left of blue wall

Combination

• Systematic knowledge • Discrete pieces of explicit knowledge can be

combined into a new whole• Combination knowledge of different originals often a

way of innovation– Scientists develop a patch which can inject medicines

through the skin without causing any pain.< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/health/7002482.stm

– http://www.teslamotors.com/

Innovative combinations• “I don’t have to invent anything…It’s out there

somewhere if I can just find it and integrate it…Inventing is frustrating, it’s dangerous, it’s expensive, and inventors should avoid it whenever possible. Be a systems integrator. ” Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway

Innovation of printing press

Art and computer

the

“I wonder if the Bilbao Guggenheim is a work of architecture at all? Perhaps it belongs to the category of exhibition and fairground displays, of giant inflatables and bouncy castles.” – J G Ballard.

• “I started making shapes that were hard to draw. That led us to the computer and to Catia software which made me realize the possibilities and the level and degree of accuracy you could create in your documents and your relationships because of the software.”Frank Gehry

"one of the most remarkable creative statements of the last half-century, in any artistic form. It is also profoundly flawed, a gigantic torso of burstingly noisy music that absolutely refuses to resolve itself under any recognized guise.“The Penguin Guide to Jazz

From explicit to explicit: combination

• Synergy : the whole is greater than the sum of its parts– 1+1>2

• Synthesizes information from many different sources – Synthesizing knowledge of persons – Synthesizing codified knowledge (information)– Synthesized data (data mining: make explicit the implicit)

• searching for patterns, rules and interesting insights from collected (business) data

Systematic Knowledge

Dialogue Or collective reflection Building a filed of interaction

Networking newly createdAnd existing knowledge

Learning by doing