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Saturday, October 11, 2008

Where is the Knowledge Lost in Information [Technology]?

As evident, the topic of Knowledge Management has been caught up by the information technology trade press with unsurpassed gusto and fervor. Some of the new trade publications have jumped upon the 'bandwagon', often in some cases by passing around old wines in upgraded bottles: for instance by doing a mass replace of "BPR" with "Knowledge Management" in their production titles and ad copies. Does such faddishness and the hype suggest that the "KM" will be going the way of "BPR"?

In the realm of IT profession and non-IT fields, the topic of "knowledge management" continues creating ongoing debate, controversy and confusion. In an attempt to clarify the hype behind knowledge management, various trade press articles tend to contribute to the increasing confusion and hype. Take for instance the following opening lines from a recent cover story of a very popular IT weekly that positions itself as catering to business and technology managers' concerns.

"To those outside the IT field, knowledge management is just another baffling buzzword. On its face, managing knowledge must sound to non-technology folks like an oxymoron akin to jumbo shrimp. Within the IT profession, however, knowledge management has been widely respected in short time since the phrase was coined."

The article goes on and on… talking about "knowledge management," "intellectual property," "knowledge assets," "capturing information" and other verbiage in the same breath without caring to distinguish between any of them.

It is understandable that some trade press writers may have developed their perspective of what is 'knowledge management' -- and what it isn't -- by reading other trade press articles, vendors' product brochures and surveys of practitioners who are themselves engaged in making sense of the latest buzzword on the corporate horizon. However, their claim of having unraveled the depth of 'knowledge management' and their distinction between IT with non-technology folks seems far-fetched. Even when they have control of the channel for pushing the 'information' to willing ears, it doesn't necessarily give them the 'poetic license' to wax eloquent about any topic unless they have in-depth 'knowledge' about what they are talking about ;-).

For those who really care to 'know' about knowledge management -- here is a recipe of going beyond information and technology. Develop an understanding of underlying bodies of knowledge, such as 'information theory' and 'systems theory,' that underlie most of the pioneering research and development behind modern information technologies. Also understand how the 'people' and 'process' aspect of effective utilization of such technologies are addressed by related bodies of knowledge, such as 'theories of consumer behavior,' 'theories of organizational and human learning,' 'theories of motivation,' 'theories of rational behavior,' etc. that underlie practice of non-IT disciplines such as Marketing and Organizational Development.

In brief, the point is that successful implementation of IT, BPR, Knowledge Management or what-have-you requires deep understanding of not only the people, processes and technology issues, but the changing nature of business as well as the changing business of IT. The techie writer folks who wax eloquent about both IT and knowledge management, without having a deep understanding of either IT or knowledge management should familiarize themselves with the 'sociotechnical systems' model that is staple in most current undergrad text books as well as advanced case method instruction for corporate managers.

If these techie writer folks [and others of their ilk] were conversant with such fundamentals, they would stop gasping at their survey findings about knowledge management initiatives, or more correctly information technology implementation initiatives such as.

There are plenty of obstacles preventing knowledge management from becoming an everyday practice at most companies, but the two largest can be summed up simply as "staff and management."

They would stop reporting such cliched 'findings' that have been reported over and over in trade press as well as scholarly literature over the last four decades of IT implementation initiatives.

Further, given the not-so-new finding of such techie writer folks that:

"the biggest barriers to implementating knowledge-management practices or procedures are the behavior modification required of employees and the difficulty of obtaining buy-in from management."

here is a word of caution and word of advice. Get out of your 'techie mindset' and hobnob with your non-techie folks -- such as those in human resources, business strategy and marketing -- to refresh what many of them may have known from long ago. Perhaps, a better understanding of organizational and behavioral issues would help you tackle this conundrum that has occupied not only such non-techie folks, but also the better informed IT experts for a long, long time. Better yet… get informed about these 'soft' side people issues because these are the issues material for demonstrating the performance of the T&M as well as Gig's and MIPs tied up in the multi-million dollar IT/KM implementations.

A less than adequate understanding of such issues is bound to take the IT/KM implementations the way of the mega-million failures of past IT/BPR implementations. A more socially responsible role of some writers in influential techie trade press is called for if we want to prevent the feeling of 'déjà vu' as we reminisce the recent fate of IT-enabled BPR.

What is the thinking of others on this forum on the role of the trade press and its implications for practitioners?

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Where is the Knowledge Lost in Information [Technology]?

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