Presenting at Web Directions Government

After receiving some encouragement from John Allsopp, I’m presenting at Web Directions this year on the topic of knowledge management and social computing.

For many people, knowledge management is an IT system that sits somewhere and gobbles up documents. Some vendors claim that their Records Management System or their Document Management System will do all your knowledge management, and for us KM practitioners this focus away from people and to systems has led to nothing but trouble for a decade.

Knowledge management is, first and foremost, about people. It’s not about software. It’s about storytelling, having a coffee and sharing war stories, about getting together after a difficult project and doing “lessons learned”, and even about watching a video to learn techniques from other sporting teams. If you can get your people together to share the important bits inside their heads then you can ensure you’ve got ways to equip people with the information they need do successfully do their jobs in an information-demanding world.

The people-centric part is why the boom in social computing tools out of the Web 2.0-sphere is so exciting. In the modern world, people just don’t have lots of time to get together and chat, so a system that supports the way people tend to share information, that is, in a social-way, is vital.

Want to learn more? Come see me at Web Directions Government on 19-20 May at Old Parliament House, Canberra Australia.
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Handbags at dawn — defining the damned thing

So Shawn wants me to define knowledge workers?

One school of thought tries to define knowledge work based on the role. The thinking seems to be: “I’m a knowledge worker; therefore, whatever I do is knowledge work.” Definitions based upon this premise tend to creep naturally toward broadness. Because the activities that correspond to the role can vary so greatly from organisation to organisation, the definition of the role (and thus the activity) grows larger and larger.

The opposing approach is to define the role based on the activity. Whatever knowledge work is, an knowledge worker is the person who does it. These definitions tend to creep naturally toward narrowness. In order to speak meaningfully about the issues surrounding knowledge work and their solutions, we must define the scope of those problems in very concrete ways. When this definition (intended for the activity) is applied to the role, it creates for some the fear of being ‘boxed in’, trapped in a role so narrowly defined that many of the elements essential to the success of any given knowledge work are outside the control or influence of the knowledge worker. Ultimately, it leads to the result that Shawn suggests, with people saying “Our salespeople are knowledge workers but our gas fitters are not”.

The yearning for clarity of a concept by defining it is not something new. Many disciplines have gone through this agony. I actually stole borrowed reframed these words from Jesse James Garrett’s IA Recon essay. Some years ago, Information Architects were attempting to define what they did and ultimately got no where. Business Analysts are going through the same argument of definition right now. What then was Garrett’s solution to definition? Let me again, reframe his words:

Knowledge work is an activity that can be practised by people in a wide variety of roles. Knowledge work can be designed to achieve a wide variety of goals, not just information retrieval. The single most important factor in the success of knowledge work is the skill of the knowledge worker. This skill is applied through a combination of experienced professional judgement, thoughtful consideration of research findings, and disciplined creativity. This skill can be developed and applied by specialist knowledge workers and non-specialists alike.

Only by being honest with ourselves about what makes knowledge work valuable can we convince others of that value. Only by being generous with our knowledge can we reap all of its benefits. And only by creating a culture in which these principles are fully embraced can we foster the growth of our field, and ensure our continued success.

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I’m a schizophrenic, and so am I

Back in my university days, learning psychology, we were taught a very important lesson about labels, and the pigeonholing that can occur as a result — because when a psychologist says someone is diagnosed with a mental illness, like schizophrenia, he uses the term to communicate something to other clinicians so they can communicate with patients and their loved ones. Unfortunately, the nuances of meaning are lost and even misunderstood when used outside the profession [1].

I find misunderstandings quite typical of terms created for use taxonomies. Taxonomies carry with them the implicit assumption that the terms created are for specific uses, primarily the communication of specific meaning within a specific community of practice. When used outside the group, the term can loose all meaning.

Loss of meaning is the real problem behind Shawn Callahan’s post on knowledge workers. He suggests that the term is now misused, and carries with it a sense of superiority of knowledge work over other types of work:

“Sadly, when we use the term ‘knowledge worker‘ today we are often unfairly saying one type of job is superior than another. It’s a dark undercurrent and tacitly becomes a basis for discrimination — ‘Our salespeople are knowledge workers but our gas fitters are not.’”

Shawn doesn’t articulate who ‘we’ are, but as a KM practitioner, I know what this term means. I know that many of my colleagues, like Jack Vinson, have argued and debated at length in the past about what this term means so as to better understand and support the associated activities of this sort of worker and his work. Furthermore, the majority of those who have, and continue to use, the term “knowledge worker”, from the likes of Coulson-Thomas, to Drucker, Nomikos, and others, broadly agree that there is a form of work which we might meaningfully categorise as “knowledge work” [2].

This is not to say, though, that arriving at a single and universal definition for the term ‘knowledge worker’ is the goal. Ultimately, the term ‘knowledge work’ and the debate that surrounds it is important because it highlights that there are people who need to consume, create and share knowledge as an integral part of their work, and need the support of policy, process and technology. This was basis of Drucker’s premise of the knowledge economy — the differentiation of the support required for the mechanised work that produces widgets from work that requires support to share and create knowledge.

Sadly, Shawn misses this point about knowledge workers. The term isn’t irrelevant because the term is still important for communication. It carries with it specific meaning to those amongst us who call themselves knowledge managers and practitioners. The term is vital for education of those outside the profession who still don’t understand (or even misunderstand) the importance of what knowledge work actually means in practice. And, despite Shawn’s suggestion of the ubiquity of technology making the term redundant, there are still organisations that are not yet knowledge-intensive [3] but probably will become, so who need to hear how understanding knowledge work can help them.

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[1]. Bellack AS. (2006) Scientific and consumer models of recovery in schizophrenia: concordance, contrasts, and implications. Schizophrenia Bulletin. Jul, 32(3), 432-42.

[2] Collins, D. (199 Knowledge Work or Working Knowledge?
Ambiguity and Confusion in the Analysis of the “Knowledge Age”. Journal of Systemic Knowledge Management, March. Online at: <www.tlainc.com/article7.htm>, accessed on 24 December 2008.

[3] Håkan WILÉN (2006) Measuring gender differences among Europe’s knowledge workers. Statistics in focus. Science and Technology, 12, 2006.