Posted by Denham on October 31, 1999 at 22:08:43:

In Reply to: Re: Decision making & KM posted by Vaughn P Fox on October 31, 1999 at 20:47:43:

Vaughn,

Saying IM supports decisions and KM does not is not a true reflection of my position. Firstly, I acknowledge KM does have an interest in decisions, but then I see way more to decisions than provision of information and I believe KM has other important focus areas besides decisions. Now it is possible (at a mico level) to see everything as a decision (this is a cognitive recursion). Let me backtrack and explain what my understanding around decisionmaking is, as I feel this may be where we are missing one another. A decision is a selection among alternatives. A holistic view of decisions recognises they are always part of a larger ecology and should be viewed in context. This context revolves around stakeholders, time horizons, decision rules, power to decide and power to implement.

For me, KM looks at a far wider array of issues than IM. This distinction may already be included in your concept of IM hence you have difficulty (along with Reilly?) of seeing why others wish to make a separate issue of KM?

I'm trying to say there is more to KM than just supporting decision making, pointing to learning, innovation, awareness, reflection, synthesis, creativity, agility, conceptual flexibility, open communications and sharing of meaning as typical KM issues and contrasting this with security, data storage, representation, analysis, computer networks, documents, workflow as the essential focus areas of IM. I see a strong focus on the role, importance and magitude of information provision for decisionmaking as a bias to both KM and IM conceptualization.

Not all knowledge is goal driven (at least not directly) some of the major discoveries have come from serendipity (e.g. teflon) and intense curiosity, learning from hard experience (induction?) or remarkable intuition and pattern recognition(e.g. penicillin). I think you will find strong goal driven knowledge creation to be very difficult, it seems knowledge is best created in self-selected communities of practice where the learning agenda is decided by the members not the coporate vision or quarterly targets.

I feel we are missing one another around our respective perceptions of the role of information provision in decisionmaking. Seems to me knowledge is created and mediated by testing opinions and observed patterns rather than making information needs explicit, searching or selecting from external sources then taking a decision. I feel there is far more to decisions than applying some selection rule to information which has been gathered.

It is clear I have a far more restricted view of IM than you hold. From your comments it seems to me you are already including core KM concerns, issues and opportunities within IM as you see it.

Yogesh puts the IM vs KM case quite neatly when he said read Davenport's 1997, "Information Ecology" and then contrast this with Davenport and Prusak, 1998 "Working Knowledge". This gives a very balanced view of the IM / KM shift. In a nutshell, I believe you will find a clear difference in the issues, concerns and opportunities (IM = access, efficiency, architecture, connectivity, algorithms, representation, security, costs) while KM looks at capturing best practices, learning, competitive advantage via customer relationships, reduced cycle times, leverage of solution reuse, gathering & sharing corporate intelligence, JIT solutions and information + meaning sharing. Sure both need and deliver information, IM has a object and document focus, KM has a people and learning thrust. I believe there is a clear enough distinction here not to lump both approaches together.

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Follow Ups:

• Still, why? Reilly Atkinson 16:11:56 11/01/99 (4)
  • Re: Still, why? Mezei 19:01:21 11/02/99 (0)
  • Re: Still, why? Because of top quarks of course! Kees de Vos 20:11:10 11/01/99 (0)
  • Re: Still, why? Denham 17:12:20 11/01/99 (1)
    • Re: Still, why? Ron de Weijze 19:30:02 11/11/99 (0)

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