My views on KM realities on the ground

Hi, my name is Peter J. Bury, I work at IRC on Resource Centre Development for better access to information and knowledge management.

I have not been able to participate as fully in this e-conference as wanted: a shortage in time, other resources and priority setting?

The above question highlights in my opinion the main dilemma people have, when willing to share their information and knowledge. I think that most of us make a constant, even if at times unconscious, cost – benefit analysis of the investment required to offer and to find information and knowledge. So we stumble on and participate in ad-hoc events – like meetings, Yahoo!Groups, workshops, phone-calls, email correspondence and other ways – to play our part.

In these increasingly digital times – allowing increasingly to find and share information and knowledge all over the world – many KM experts claim that tools like Google, e-conferences, electronic Communities of Practise, contribute to increased sharing of information and knowledge. And this is probably true, except for those who are (still?) left out?

I’m writing this, on my way to South Africa, where I participate in the next steps of making the Water Information Network (WIN-SA www.win-sa.org.za ) a success: a number of physical meetings and workshops that may lead to increasingly digital sharing of information and knowledge. I read thru all the contributions and would like to add to the above thoughts the following bullet-point statements:

- Experience at IRC: it costs time to avoid that our filing system on our servers become a huge jungle; it costs time to package and update information on our intranet, portal and extranets; it costs a lot of effort to encourage people to attend communication and other exchange meetings (disregarding for a moment the fact that many of us constantly travel, and that it is costly to ensure all are in the office at the same time at least twice a year). Nevertheless I do agree with Dick that a lot of good efforts do take place (e.g. travel free weeks in IRC, lunch presentations, etc.), however here information and knowledge is offered at preset times (see below for more on this);

- I fully agree with Renuka, that a key issue regarding making own information and knowledge available, is priority setting and finding the necessary time and other resources;

- Most people make a fairly rational – even if largely unconscious – cost-benefit analysis of the value to invest in documenting and making available one’s own information and knowledge and searching for that of others. It is often not very easy to document and make available one’s own information and knowledge;

- I wonder if increasingly user-friendly and time-efficient (digital) methods and tools will help us to share more and in a more effective way (see also my next points on the right information/knowledge at the right time: demand driven);

- Many managers (also in IRC) still hesitate to prioritize and give time to (individual’s) information and knowledge documentation and making available (this costs time and requires skills!);

- Sub-ordinate staff hesitates to allocate sufficient time and resources out of their own initiative, as they are not assessed on such activities (I have evidence about this in various electronic platforms I manage and participate in);

- A challenge for promoters of information / knowledge sharing remains to provide evidence that investment in such activities is worthwhile, overall, for the sender and for the receiver(s) at individual and organizational levels;

- Distinguishing personal, organizational and network levels can be useful to find practical approaches, but the basic dilemma’s remain the same;

- I fully agree with Renuka, that we should aim at making information and knowledge available (or searchable) when a user needs it, and not limit ourselves at offering at present times or events (workshops, training, e-conferences, etc.). So, yes, we need discernment, but for this we need user-friendly, efficient and effective methods and tools (e.g. Google Desktop Search and similar);

- To Sascha I would like to say: it is not the supplier who decides, but it is the user. But this user needs to be able to find required information and knowledge easily and quickly at the right time. Let the user decide what (s)he needs and let the user tell the supplier which information and knowledge is useful (Why not follow Amazon’s and ZDNet’s example and let customers do the quality assessment thru scores and sharing experience in use? Why not follow Google’s example, who for each new product they launch, set up a discussion group, who’s members review and suggest improvements?);

- To Jabu: yes let’s continue with ‘Imbizo’s’, it is important that people meet physically, but it is not enough. Imbizo’s do not cater for ‘what is needed at the right time’;

- Also the examples Jan-Teun mentions are exclusively ad hoc exchange and only accessible to people that happen to be in touch with the owner of information and knowledge at the very moment (s)he offers it;

- Zuberi, I fully agree with the need of university realm to stay in interactive touch with practitioners, but again: time, resources, tools, instruments are constraints;

A main challenge I see (and which I believe is increasingly addressed in the world) is to offer information and knowledge producers and users the user friendly methods and tools to make information and knowledge available and retrievable. This assumes the holders of information and knowledge are willing to share and willing and able to allocate time to document!

Peter