Intro to Knowledge management
Spiral of knowledge
Explicit vs. implicit
Information processing view of
organization
• Hierarchy
– Authority
– Information
• Division of labor
Facet analysis of “knowledge”
individual
implicit
explicit
collective
Type of knowledge
Explicit
Conscious
Objectified
Implicit
Automatic
Collective
Individual
Social
Locus of knowledge
Channels of knowledge sharing
Tacit (disinclination to be
formalized, externalized)
Person to person (bound Communities of practice,
to the immediate context social network
of its creation)
(apprenticeship,
participation, ritual, custom)
Explicit
Impersonal (mediated,
transcends time and
space; carried by media)
Documentation
codification (literature,
record, computer
program)
Embodied knowledge
(embodied or encapsulated in
organization or other
artifacts
Oral communication
(speech, lecture,
conversation, question
answering,
performance)
Organizational learning
• How organizations translate individual insights
and knowledge into collective knowledge and
organizational capacity
– Skeptics: learning is essentially an individual
activity
• Yet, sometimes the whole is larger the sums of its parts
(synergy)
• Both individuals and organizations are learning entities.
Cyborg
We are borgs;
Borg Queen ;
https://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=EYJ9sbM0Hho
Spiral of knowledge
• “The centerpiece of the Japanese approach is that recognition
that creating new knowledge is not simply a matter of
“processing objective information”. Rather, it depends on
tapping the tacit and often highly subjective insights,
intuitions, and hunches of individual employees and making
those insights available for testing and use by the company
as a whole. ”
– The knowledge-creating company (Nonaka Ikujiro, 1991) HBR.
Knowledge consultant
The spiral of knowledge (Takeuchi & Nonaka, 1995)
Synthesize
parking, sports
Com vs. innovation
From tacit to tacit: socialization
• Where tacit knowledge can be converted into tacit
knowledge through interactions between individuals,
whether it is through language, observation,
imitation, or practice
– synchronizing fireflies
Mirror neuron and imitation
Socialization (cont.)
• Apprenticeship
– Learning through observation, imitation and practice
(“mirror neuron”)
– Shared experience in specific contexts
– Emotions and commitment
– Not merely transfer of information, but also finding or
forming one’s identity in a community
Redundancy
• The conscious overlapping of company
information, business activities, and
managerial responsibilities.
• Create a common cognitive ground
– Internal competition
– Proliferation of information
– Strategic rotation
Externalization
• A process of articulating tacit knowledge into
explicit concepts.
– In the shapes of writings, metaphors, analogies,
concepts, hypotheses, or models.
From tacit to explicit: articulation
• Find a way to express the inexpressible
– Conceptualization; theorization
• Smile curve; M-shape Society
– Story telling
• Ichiro Suzuki's bat
– Metaphor and model
• A way of perceiving or intuitively understanding one thing by
imaging another thing symbolically
To the left of blue wall
Make implicit explicit
• 1. Story-telling (parable), metaphor
• 2. Codification (skin diagnosis)
• 3. Identify novel patterns in data (book
buying)
Metaphor
• from the Greek for "transference," is the use of language
that designates one thing to designate another in order
to characterize the latter in terms of the former.
• a statement that characterizes one thing in terms of
another thing, juxtaposing concepts from separate
domains of experience. Metaphor can be used to
describe abstract or unfamiliar topics, and to express
ideas difficult to convey with literal language.
– James Geary on Metaphor
“Meme”, a metaphor
Meme (“Memory” + “gene”) the mind “virus” (Richard
Dawkins )
Any idea or behavior that can pass from one person to
another by learning or imitation. Examples include thoughts,
ideas, theories, gestures, practices, fashions, habits, songs,
and dances
Metaphor in the creative process
• Theory of Automobile Evolution, p. 5
– What image does “evolution” conjure up?
– The image of sphere
– “Man-maximum, machine-minimum”
– Tall boy product concept
• Umbrella concept
– “Optoelectronics”
» The merging of microelectronics with optical technologies
• Cannon’s mini-copier
– Disposable beer can
Vision and corporate culture
• At AVIS, We try harder
• RR makes the finest car in the world
• "Our [Amazon's] vision is to be earth's most
customer centric company; to build a place
where people can come to find and discover
anything they might want to buy online.“
• We devote this university to the spirit of the
universe
From explicit to tacit: internalization
• Reading, studying
– Communication (perfect copy) vs.
– Innovation (somewhat not so perfect)
• Creativity in the interpretation of existing materials
• Learning by doing
– Driving, swimming, cooking
Necker’s cube
Vision as a metaphor
From implicit to explicit
• “Articulation (converting tacit knowledge into explicit
knowledge) and internalization (using that explicit knowledge
to extend one’s own tacit knowledge base) are the critical
steps in this spiral of knowledge. The reason is that both
require the active involvement of the self – that is, personal
commitment. ”
• Teaching and learning not merely transfer of information
To the left of blue wall
Combination
• Systematic knowledge
• Discrete pieces of explicit knowledge can be
combined into a new whole
• Combination knowledge of different originals often a
way of innovation
– Scientists develop a patch which can inject
medicines through the skin without causing any pain.
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr//2/hi/health/7002482.stm
– http://www.teslamotors.com/
Innovative combinations
• “I don’t have to invent anything…It’s out there
somewhere if I can just find it and integrate it…Inventing
is frustrating, it’s dangerous, it’s expensive, and inventors
should avoid it whenever possible. Be a systems
integrator. ”
Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway
Innovation of printing press
Art and computer
“I wonder if the Bilbao Guggenheim is a work of architecture
at all? Perhaps it belongs to the category of exhibition and
fairground displays, of giant inflatables and bouncy castles.”
– J G Ballard.
the
• “I started making shapes that were hard to
draw. That led us to the computer and to Catia
software which made me realize the
possibilities and the level and degree of
accuracy you could create in your documents
and your relationships because of the
software.”
Frank Gehry
"one of the most remarkable creative statements of
the last half-century, in any artistic form. It is also
profoundly flawed, a gigantic torso of burstingly
noisy music that absolutely refuses to resolve itself
under any recognized guise.“
The Penguin Guide to Jazz
From explicit to explicit: combination
• Synergy : the whole is greater than the sum of
its parts
– 1+1>2
• Synthesizes information from many different
sources
– Synthesizing knowledge of persons
– Synthesizing codified knowledge (information)
– Synthesized data (data mining: make explicit the implicit)
• searching for patterns, rules and interesting insights from collected
(business) data
Dialogue Or collective reflec
Building a filed of interaction
Systematic
Knowledge
Learning by doing
Networking newly created
And existing knowledge