Posted by Denham on September 02, 2001 at 22:37:58:

In Reply to: Re: Key KM issues -- and loads of questions! posted by Martyn R Jones on September 02, 2001 at 20:34:30:

- How could we continue to use conventional representation paradigms such as books, documents, pictures, spoken word, video, music, symbols, movement etc. whilst at the same time making their creation, use and revision amenable to knowledge work?

Martyn, key areas here are facile annotation and collaborative filters. We have to move towards a balance between broadcast messages and many to many conversations. Making all objects highly interactive - not in the sense of fancy animation but by allowing dialog, critique creative abrasion and being open to alternative 'voices'.

- What level of sophistication would be required in order to be able to capture emergent knowledge from ephemeral exchanges? Would we be looking at tools and techniques for extracting meaning from interchanges such as emails between employees, and project report meetings (e.g. synthesis of audio discussions, topic identification and “meaning” extraction) and scanning of project documents?

If I understand you correctly you are looking at the 'tacit miners' here. This can be useful for collaborative filters - suggesting alternatives, connecting you to interested people or pointing to related artifacts. That is only part of the issue - the other activity is around empowerment for dialog, practices of collecting questions, commitments, insights, producing periodic summaries and having intentional reflective milestones.

- Another question, and I will start with prior apologies to the plain English folk here, really concerns the usefulness of representing tacit knowledge. Does success in the field of KM, knowledge representation and corresponding capability maturity, with special regard to the replication of, the representation schemas and paradigms of tacit knowledge in humans, in tacit knowledge in machines, simply mean a move from one form of not knowing to another? Put another way, does the liquid in the bottle marked Uncle Bob’s Best Sherry tell us any more about itself than the chemical representation of its contents hidden in the dark virtual corridors of an IBM White computer system?

I think you are asking if representations can really hold meaning and knowledge? I do not believe so - unless the artifact is co-designed and co-created by a community. Even then, the essential meaning must be refreshed by reflective rituals and validated as an ongoing practice. No sherry tells us the whole story, the energy in the sunlight, the climates past that shaped the vine, the vinters knowledge that made that special flavor. Those are not things that can be captured in chemistry or revealed through analysis - they are a situated part of the community & ecology.

Hope this helps!

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Follow Ups:

• Questions and Answers Martyn R Jones 02:42:37 09/06/01 (1)
  • Re: Questions and Answers john fitterling 17:43:02 10/03/01 (0)

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