Personal Knowledge Management

Sensemaking knowledge, knowledge management and learning

In the lectures, Dr. Lee had covered a number of topics with respect to Knowledge Management. The most fundamental concepts and models which I think crucial for us to make sense of include the different pathways to Knowledge Management, the definitions of knowledge management, the knowledge hierarchy, and the KM Integration Framework. I think it is essential for us to understand what knowledge really means before we can carry out any initiatives to manage knowledge. It was nice to see a message posted by a classmate, Fiona, saying that Jeff Stemke, a knowledge strategist, said that "knowledge management is somewhat an abstract term, Knowledge itself is not something you can manage; you can manage people. But you can accelerate the flow of information and knowledge from one person to another...." However, Henry mentioned in his reply to Fionas message that, according to his experience in manufacturing, it was more difficult to manage people than to manage knowledge. Based on what I saw from the Class KM Blog, I would like to first collect more information about the meaning of knowledge and then try to make sense of it. My plan was to study the first two chapters of the Text Book: To understand the nature of knowledge, and identify what it meant by knowledge and learning, and the relationship between the two (Chapters 1 and 2 of the Text Book). I tried to ask my friends on the web about what they understand by the term knowledge.

Information Dimension
What is knowledge? From one of the slides presented in the evening of Dec 9, it is found that: Knowledge is a fluid mix of contextual information, values, experiences and rules. It originates and resides in the minds of knowers. It would also be useful for us to check the opinions collected from others in the social web. Name of the

Definition of Knowledge

Comments from others

person who replied Lam Knowledge the criteria that influence decision. We make decision based on objective and subjective reasons. And, knowledge plays the role in objective side. true belief Choi Skill and technique are also elements of knowledge. Information-based knowledge influences decisions, but is it really as narrow as the criteria that influence decisions? Surely knowledge produces the criteria and therefore lies behind them. What about knowledge that is less information-based (like how to ride a bicycle)? You need some evidence or justification for the belief that you hold. Bicycle riding is a good example of embodied knowledge information can help in coaching someone, but it cant ensure somebody ends up knowing how to ride a bike. Recipes are better at helping people cook via explicit knowledge or information transfer. One of the problems about definitions of knowledge is that they sit uneasily between descriptions that sound like things i.e. information about; experience; know-how and things that sound like mental activities i.e. understanding judgment decision. If its thing then it does seem to be very hard to pin down, label and manipulate. Do I know my friends telephone number if I forget it? But maybe I remember it again tomorrow. Where did it go? On the other hand, if its a mental activity, how does it move from one person to another, and what was in one persons head suddenly appears in anothers? Knowledge is not just in the human mind. The cognitive psychologist Gary Klein in his book Sources of Power describes what he calls team knowledge to refer to what the team knows and can do and this is not the sum total of the knowledge in each brain, its the ability of the team to react, respond, and make decisions in an

Patrick Classical definition justified

Chan

Knowledge is something that is/could be gained from experience, no matter from the daily life or working environment. It is also a know-how which you relied to continue your life or make a living. Definition of knowledge from the Cambridge Dictionary Understanding of or information about a subject which has been obtained by experience or study, and which is either in a persons mind or possessed by people generally.

Roy

Knowledge is our structured experience, insight and value which give us guideline and criteria for problem solving and evaluation.

integrated, well-oiled way, just like individuals do. This is an interesting concept, because its clearly abstract where is it? It exists in the interaction of the team, and not in any specific location. Being aware of the variety is the key to successfully talking about knowledge. We havent even touched on implicit knowledge yet e.g. the knowledge that is embedded in any designed tool, such that somebody picking it up instinctively knows (from the way it is designed) how to manipulate it. In many ways the term knowledge is a catch-all term to describe the mental stuff we seem to pick up at every moment and keep in our heads (and bodies) over time, to help us act intentionally. Luo Knowledge is information combined with experience, context, interpretation and reflection. Knowledge is what people know, there is no knowledge without someone knowing it. Chiu Knowledge is constant and Contradiction Did knowledge exist before human universal, besides knowledge can beings? be accumulating from learning and experiences. However, the concept of knowledge would have different concept of knowledge during different period of time.

Analytical Dimension
To what extent do these expressions precisely describe the meaning of knowledge? How do we acquire knowledge? Intuitively, I would say we acquire knowledge through learning. Learning is an essential process and capability for living organisms to grow and evolve. The fact is both knowledge and learning are so important that we seldom examine in details what knowledge and learning are.

I think there should be a number of different ways of learning in order to acquire different skills or skill sets. It reflects from the definition of knowledge that it is actually a fluid of contextual information, values, experiences and rules. It originates and resides in the minds of knowers. Sometimes it appears in a tacit form that we do not know its existence until we use it. Sometimes we can externalize it in a codified format. What a perfect match with the definition and theory of knowledge proposed by Cook and Brown, who formed a matrix with tacit and explicit knowledge as one dimension, and individual and group as the second dimension!

Individual knowledge

Group knowledge

Explicit knowledge

Concepts

Stories

Knowing
as Action
Tacit knowledge

Skills

Genres

Social Dimension
It is a good practice to build a platform for all classmates to exchange ideas. The questions raised by Fiona and the reply from Henry were the beginning of a social activity. Basically, it seems to me or anybody else that social activity is good for information exchange. I do agree with that. My question is is social activity good for or limited to information exchange only? The SECI model proposed by Nonaka includes a very important part socialization which talks about tacit to tacit knowledge conversion. This has to be further investigated and studied in what ways socialization is different from information exchange.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) the role of ICT in KM

In the course, a number of knowledge technologies (KT) had been introduced including BPM, TQM, Content Management (records management, document management, Web content management, and Portals), Expert locators, Decision support systems, Expert System, etc. All the knowledge technologies mentioned above have one characteristic in common which is that all knowledge technologies have to be built on top of ICT. As indicated by the result of self-assessment, I myself am quite weak in searching, organizing, editing, and managing information as well as sources of information. In order to enhance my capabilities in using ICT and the knowledge technologies in my PKM and then KM in the organizational environment, I would like to know more about ICT and KT. Portals is selected as the point of entry for my study. In order to make sense of this technology, a preliminary proposal is set to design a corporate portal for a medium size company in Hong Kong. Through this mini-project (learning by action), I would like to learn in what way a portal can help people especially knowledge workers build their knowledge. And, I would also like to enhance my knowledge in portal which is believed to be a good tool for PKM. Brief idea on a Preliminary Proposal What should be included in a corporate portal? (Analytical approach) In the stage of planning and design, reference to the corporate information in the company has to be made. The benefits to the users or employees from the Portal are: 1) the users can easily get access to a large volume of information and guidelines available on the web; 2) the committee users will be able to build up their own corporate communities; 3) the users would appreciate and enjoy the excellent quality of the content, such as the good quality pictures and short videos; 4) the users can purchase relevant products and or services directly through the platform of Portal at a reasonable cost; 5) online/data security and privacy are the top priorities; and 6) it is the user who himself owns the portal. These should indeed be the business objectives of the corporate portal. Types of Portals (Searching information about portal on the web)

Indeed, there are many different types of Portal. What type of portal will a corporate portal belong to? The answer to this question is to firstly position this portal in such a way that it will be able to meet the needs of the users or employees as well as the market. Ovum had developed their taxonomy of portal types outlined as follows:

A corporate portal should be an enterprise portal since its objective is to attract as many employees as possible to get access to this portal, and, on the other hand, has to be designed in such a way that it is also a portal linking the employees to employees, to other networks, websites, and or repositories. Other points for consideration (Application) Since broadband mobile communication is becoming more and more popular, it is also essential to plan a corporate portal, which has a simplified and mobile version that the people can get access to the portal via the portable handsets or devises while they are on the transit, i.e. on the bus, train, etc. The main purpose of a portal is to provide information that is personalized for each user. It would be a big mistake if we do not consider and introduce the concept of personalization in the development and design of a corporate portal. It is because everyone will have his own point of focus.

It is not wrong to say that what users want is INFORMATION more than anything else in a portal. While simple and uncluttered designs are crucial, a good design strategy is that we also need to utilize fascinating graphics, pictures and more sophisticated navigation systems which make the portal better-looking and grow with the time. Key features of portals should consist of security, access different data, collaboration, search, publish content and personal content. Collaboration platform in a corporate portal is essential and central to the success of a corporate portal even though mobile phone, email, and other public instant messaging platform are very mature in terms of technologies and readily available to everyone. In the commercial world, we do not work alone and have to work as a team in order to the job successfully completed. I think I have had some ideas on what portal is and how corporate portal is designed. There is no doubt that portals and any other knowledge technologies are very useful that it allows the seamless flow of information. Someone had said that knowledge technologies, which deliver the right information to the right people at the right time, mean that distance is no longer a barrier to effective collaboration. My question to myself would become whether knowledge technologies will replace face-to-face meetings sometime in the near future. Or, I would put my question is this way: to what extent knowledge technologies might substitute for face-to-face interaction. This is something I have to reflect on.