Posted by Dave Paloian on June 29, 1999 at 19:37:14:

In Reply to: What is the difference between information and explicit knowledge? posted by Kees de Vos on June 02, 1999 at 17:36:29:

I like where you are going with "best principles" vs. "best practices". It jogged loose an inert chunk of tacit knowledge that seems relevant to the information vs. knowledge discussion - the cognitive concept of near and far transfer.

As best I can recall, near transfer tasks are those that are well-defined and rigorously repeatable (eg. changing a winshield wiper). Far transfer tasks are those that can be solved in numerous ways with varying degrees of effectiveness (eg. improving the accelleration performance of a vehicle). Both require the task performer to utilize information. However, the near transfer task (as has been elaborated in another response thread) requires the performer to utilize little other than the procedure itself. The far transfer task will require much different kinds of information and much broader context and experience. And as you suggest, these types of task performers benefit greatly from the codification of principles and guidelines (heuristics).

If the purpose of the knowledge management craze is to enable "knowledge workers", then perhaps we can explicate tacit knowledge for near transfer activities and use the tried and true (though not neceessarily rapid) knowledge transfer mechanism of master/apprentice for the far transfer stuff. This seems to support your observation that we need the information management approach for the former and the communication approach for the latter. Problems tend to surface when we use the wrong approach for a particular situation.

My favorite definition of knowledge comes from Larry Pruszak (not sure of the spelling) - "Knowledge is what people know". On the basis of this definition, any KM strategy MUST have person-to-person interaction as a key component.

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Follow Ups:

• Re: What is the difference between information and explicit knowledge? Kees de Vos 18:29:08 7/01/99 (8)
  • Re: What is the difference between information and explicit knowledge? Dave Paloian 10:32:39 7/03/99 (7)
    • Avoid "best practices" Lauri Grohn 09:48:01 7/05/99 (6)
      • Re: Avoid "best practices" Dave Paloian 20:17:00 7/06/99 (0)
      • Re: Avoid "best practices" Kees de Vos 09:43:35 7/06/99 (3)
        • Re: Avoid "best practices" Lauri Grohn 12:20:29 7/06/99 (2)
          • Re: Avoid "best practices" Kees de Vos 12:26:13 7/06/99 (1)
            • Cultivate "best principles" outsource "best practices" Martyn R Jones 12:45:15 7/06/99 (0)
      • Avoid "best practices" Avoid labels, avoid language Martyn R Jones 11:44:38 7/05/99 (0)

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