Samenvatting boek Knowledge Management
Working Knowledge: how organizations manage what they know
Chapter 1
A working definition of knowledge
Data
Data is a set of discrete, objective facts about events. In an organizational
context, data is most usefully described as structured records of transactions.
Data by itself has little relevance or purpose.
Central information systems departments that respond to requests for data from
management and other parts of the company manage it. Quantitatively,
companies evaluate data management in terms of cost, speed, and capacity: how
much does it cost to capture or retrieve a piece of data? How quickly can we get
into the system or call it up? How much will the system hold? Qualitative
measurements are timeliness, relevance, and clarity: do we have access to it
when we need it? Is it what we need? Can we make sense out of it?
All organizations need data and some industries heavily depend on it (banks,
insurance companies, utilities, government agencies).
Information
It is described as a message, usually in the form of a document or an audible or
visible communication. It has a sender and a receiver. Information is meant to
change the way the receiver perceives something, to have an impact on his
judgment and behaviour. It must inform; it’s data that makes a difference. The
receiver decides whether the message he gets is really information.
Information moves around organizations through hard and soft networks. A
hard network has a visible and definite infrastructure: wires, delivery vans,
satellite dishes, post offices, addresses, electronic mailboxes. The messages these
networks deliver include: e-mail, traditional or ‘small’ mail, delivery-service
packages, and Internet transmissions. A soft network is less formal and visible. It
is ad hoc. Example: someone’s handing you a note or a copy of an article marked
with ‘FYI’.
Quantitative measures of information management tend to include connectivity
and transactions: how many e-mail accounts or Lotus Notes users do we have?
How many messages do we send in a given period? Qualitative measures
measure informativeness and usefulness. Did the message give me some new
insight? Does it help me make sense of a situation and contribute to a decision or
the solution to a problem?
We transform data into information by adding value in several ways:
- Contextualized: we know for what purpose the data was gathered
- Categorized: we know the units of analysis or key components of the data
, - Calculated: they may have been analysed mathematically or statistically.
- Corrected: errors have been removed from the data
- Condensed: the data may have been summarized in a more concise form.
The corollary for today’s managers is that having more information technology
will not necessarily improve the state of information.
Knowledge
Working definition of knowledge:
Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and
expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new
experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the mind of the
knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or
repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms.
Knowledge exists within people, part and parcel of human complexity and
unpredictability. Knowledge assets are much harder to pin down. Knowledge
derives from information as information derives from data. If information is to
become knowledge, humans must do virtually all the work. This transformation
happens through such C words as:
- Comparison: how does information about this situation compare to other
situations we have known?
- Consequences: what implications does the information have for decisions
and actions?
- Connections: how does this bit of knowledge relate to others?
- Conversation: what do other people think about this information?
These knowledge-creating activities take place within and between humans. We
obtain knowledge from individuals or groups of knowers, or sometimes in
organizational routines. It is delivered through structured media such as books
and documents, and person-to-person contacts ranging from conversations to
apprenticeships.
Knowledge in Action
Knowledge is valuable because it is close to action. Knowledge can and should be
evaluated by the decisions or actions to which it leads. We can use it to make
better decisions about strategy, competitors, customers, distribution channels,
and product and service life cycles. It can be difficult to trace the path between
knowledge and action.
Key components of knowledge:
Experience, ground truth, complexity, judgment, rules of thumb and intuition,
values and believes (pages 7-12).
, Knowledge as a Corporate Asset
Explicitly recognizing knowledge as a corporate asset is new, however, as is
understanding the need to manage and invest it with the same care paid to
getting value from other, more tangible assets. The need to make the most of
organizational knowledge, to get as much as possible from it, is greater now than
in the past.
The changing Global Economy
A rapidly globalizing economy unified by improved communication and
transportation gives consumers an unprecedented choice of goods and services
and endless cavalcade of new and better offerings from global companies.
Companies can no longer expect that the products and practices that made them
successful in the past will keep them viable in the future. Companies will
differentiate themselves on the basis of what they know. Knowledge may be a
company’s greatest competitive advantage.
Product and service convergence
Distinctions between manufacturing and service firms are disappearing.
Sustainable competitive advantage
The same technology is available to everyone, so it can’t provide a long-term
edge to anyone. A global marketplace for ideas has developed and there are very
few concepts and formulae that are now generally available. Competitors can
quickly duplicate most products and services. The advantages of new products
and efficiencies are more and more difficult to sustain.
Knowledge, by contrast, can provide a sustainable advantage. The knowledge
advantage is sustainable because it generates increasing returns and continuing
advantages. Unlike material assets, which decrease as they are used, knowledge
assets increase with use: ideas breed new ideas, and shared knowledge stays
with the giver while it enriches the receiver.
Corporate size and knowledge management
Studies have shown that the maximum size of an organization in which people
know one another well enough to have a reliable grasp of collective
organizational knowledge is two hundred to three hundred people.
Computer networks and knowledge exchange
The low cost of computers and networks has created a potential infrastructure
for knowledge exchange and opened up important knowledge management
opportunities. The communication and storage capabilities of networked
computers make them knowledge enablers. What we must remember is that this
new information technology is only the pipeline and storage system for
knowledge exchange. It doesn’t create knowledge and cannot guarantee or even
Working Knowledge: how organizations manage what they know
Chapter 1
A working definition of knowledge
Data
Data is a set of discrete, objective facts about events. In an organizational
context, data is most usefully described as structured records of transactions.
Data by itself has little relevance or purpose.
Central information systems departments that respond to requests for data from
management and other parts of the company manage it. Quantitatively,
companies evaluate data management in terms of cost, speed, and capacity: how
much does it cost to capture or retrieve a piece of data? How quickly can we get
into the system or call it up? How much will the system hold? Qualitative
measurements are timeliness, relevance, and clarity: do we have access to it
when we need it? Is it what we need? Can we make sense out of it?
All organizations need data and some industries heavily depend on it (banks,
insurance companies, utilities, government agencies).
Information
It is described as a message, usually in the form of a document or an audible or
visible communication. It has a sender and a receiver. Information is meant to
change the way the receiver perceives something, to have an impact on his
judgment and behaviour. It must inform; it’s data that makes a difference. The
receiver decides whether the message he gets is really information.
Information moves around organizations through hard and soft networks. A
hard network has a visible and definite infrastructure: wires, delivery vans,
satellite dishes, post offices, addresses, electronic mailboxes. The messages these
networks deliver include: e-mail, traditional or ‘small’ mail, delivery-service
packages, and Internet transmissions. A soft network is less formal and visible. It
is ad hoc. Example: someone’s handing you a note or a copy of an article marked
with ‘FYI’.
Quantitative measures of information management tend to include connectivity
and transactions: how many e-mail accounts or Lotus Notes users do we have?
How many messages do we send in a given period? Qualitative measures
measure informativeness and usefulness. Did the message give me some new
insight? Does it help me make sense of a situation and contribute to a decision or
the solution to a problem?
We transform data into information by adding value in several ways:
- Contextualized: we know for what purpose the data was gathered
- Categorized: we know the units of analysis or key components of the data
, - Calculated: they may have been analysed mathematically or statistically.
- Corrected: errors have been removed from the data
- Condensed: the data may have been summarized in a more concise form.
The corollary for today’s managers is that having more information technology
will not necessarily improve the state of information.
Knowledge
Working definition of knowledge:
Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and
expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new
experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the mind of the
knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or
repositories but also in organizational routines, processes, practices, and norms.
Knowledge exists within people, part and parcel of human complexity and
unpredictability. Knowledge assets are much harder to pin down. Knowledge
derives from information as information derives from data. If information is to
become knowledge, humans must do virtually all the work. This transformation
happens through such C words as:
- Comparison: how does information about this situation compare to other
situations we have known?
- Consequences: what implications does the information have for decisions
and actions?
- Connections: how does this bit of knowledge relate to others?
- Conversation: what do other people think about this information?
These knowledge-creating activities take place within and between humans. We
obtain knowledge from individuals or groups of knowers, or sometimes in
organizational routines. It is delivered through structured media such as books
and documents, and person-to-person contacts ranging from conversations to
apprenticeships.
Knowledge in Action
Knowledge is valuable because it is close to action. Knowledge can and should be
evaluated by the decisions or actions to which it leads. We can use it to make
better decisions about strategy, competitors, customers, distribution channels,
and product and service life cycles. It can be difficult to trace the path between
knowledge and action.
Key components of knowledge:
Experience, ground truth, complexity, judgment, rules of thumb and intuition,
values and believes (pages 7-12).
, Knowledge as a Corporate Asset
Explicitly recognizing knowledge as a corporate asset is new, however, as is
understanding the need to manage and invest it with the same care paid to
getting value from other, more tangible assets. The need to make the most of
organizational knowledge, to get as much as possible from it, is greater now than
in the past.
The changing Global Economy
A rapidly globalizing economy unified by improved communication and
transportation gives consumers an unprecedented choice of goods and services
and endless cavalcade of new and better offerings from global companies.
Companies can no longer expect that the products and practices that made them
successful in the past will keep them viable in the future. Companies will
differentiate themselves on the basis of what they know. Knowledge may be a
company’s greatest competitive advantage.
Product and service convergence
Distinctions between manufacturing and service firms are disappearing.
Sustainable competitive advantage
The same technology is available to everyone, so it can’t provide a long-term
edge to anyone. A global marketplace for ideas has developed and there are very
few concepts and formulae that are now generally available. Competitors can
quickly duplicate most products and services. The advantages of new products
and efficiencies are more and more difficult to sustain.
Knowledge, by contrast, can provide a sustainable advantage. The knowledge
advantage is sustainable because it generates increasing returns and continuing
advantages. Unlike material assets, which decrease as they are used, knowledge
assets increase with use: ideas breed new ideas, and shared knowledge stays
with the giver while it enriches the receiver.
Corporate size and knowledge management
Studies have shown that the maximum size of an organization in which people
know one another well enough to have a reliable grasp of collective
organizational knowledge is two hundred to three hundred people.
Computer networks and knowledge exchange
The low cost of computers and networks has created a potential infrastructure
for knowledge exchange and opened up important knowledge management
opportunities. The communication and storage capabilities of networked
computers make them knowledge enablers. What we must remember is that this
new information technology is only the pipeline and storage system for
knowledge exchange. It doesn’t create knowledge and cannot guarantee or even
