I have recorded below a list serve conversation about the knowledge economy for those who are interested. In it I have argued against idealistic approaches to forecasting and talking about the future and argued instead for multiple small safe-fail experiments. Its not a complete document, but it has some basic thinking.
THE ORIGINAL QUESTION ====================================
Here is my original post David ,to give it a 2nd chance. I and others had not responded the first time round
To avoid a discussion focusing on how much forecasting we can realistically make (as it happened the first time I posted this) I would like to mention that what will actually really happen to KM in 2050 isn't really the important point here, it is more the idea that some scientific advances to come would lead to (or would correspond with) a full recognition of the value of knowledge in our societies at large, and in particular in the business world.
What if we tried to foresee what will follow the currently unfolding Knowledge Economy? What will be the new buzz word for corporate leaders in 2050? I will not attempt here to answer these questions directly but will use scientific predictions as metaphors to give us a hint.
While reading recently the very interesting scientific book “The Next Fifty Years – Science in The First Half of the Twenty-First Century”, a collection of 25 new essays by leading scientists edited by J. Brockman (A Vintage Original, New-York, 2002) I found three passages from three different authors that are relevant to my two questions above.
First, here is how Alison Gopnik (professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley) ends her essay “What Children Will Teach Scientists”:
“[…] At the end of the last century, knowledge began to become the most valuable currency, like land in a feudal economy or capital in an industrial economy. The new science of learning should tell us that knowledge is not just a prize to be won in some desperate test-taking struggle for places in the contemporary mandarinate. Instead it is, literally and not just rhetorically, our universal human birthright.”
The way I read this (based also on the reading of Alison’s whole essay about the science to understand learning) is that our societies will progressively realise that knowledge is what makes us, humans, so special. The value of knowledge would then take the forefront in all aspects of our everyday life. We would continuously seek better ways to acquire it, to retain it, to share it, to nurture it. Of course, this should have a profound impact on management and organizational cultures. By 2050, the fact that knowledge is a vital asset will be a given fact and competitive advantage will be won by those who will leverage it faster and more effectively. This should mean that organizations of this future will have as a constant priority to make all their collaborators as creative and innovative as possible. Everyone in an organization will be empowered and encouraged to create/innovate making some mistakes along the way but learning a great deal more. This seems to be compatible with the next
extract below.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - a Hungarian-born polymath, formerly chairman of the Psychology Department at the University of Chicago and currently Davidson Professor of Management at the Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California – writes in his essay “The Future of Happiness”: “[…] Among the things we learned is that people who are engaged in challenging activities with clear goals tend to be happiest than those who lead relaxing, pleasurable lives. The less one works just for oneself, thelarger the scope of one’s relationships and commitments, the happier a person is likely to be. […]”
Mihaly sees that by 2050, societies at large but employers in particular will have understood that people are more productive when they are happier, and that people are happier if they have challenging objectives and if these objectives are clearly contributing to the corporate goals. This seem to suppose that individuals will be valued for their specific knowledge and competencies to go beyond what is initially expected of them, in order to create value for the organization.
This nicely leads us to the third extract of this book I believe relevant to the leveraging of Knowledge. I found it at the end of Brian Goodwin’s essay titled “In The Shadow of Culture” where he attempts to explain why he believes a “science of qualities” is developing, where feelings and qualities have at least as much importance as proofs and quantities. Brian (a professor of biology at Schumacher College, Darlington, UK - where he coordinates a master’s program in holistic science- and a member of the Santa Fe Institute) writes:
“[…] In the shadow of current science it is possible to see the components of a science of qualities which would restore qualitative evaluation to the place it occupies in our everyday lives, where judgments depend on quality as well as quantity. This restoration, together with the recognition that feelings belong not only to us but also to the rest of nature, in whatever form, presents us with a dramatically transformed set of possibilities for scientific knowledge, technology, and corporate and political action. A shift in scientific perspective of this magnitude is not going to happen overnight, if it happens at all. It requires new forms of education at a basic level, in which the sciences and the arts are united to keep people whole and in which scientific and technological decision-making require participation by all members of civil society, with knowledge joined again to responsible action.”
This extract is heavy in meanings and could open up many philosophical debates. I will only say this: if science does indeed go though such a drastic shift towards valuing qualitative judgment, it will have an even bigger impact on other parts of society such as the business world.
Accounting would no longer rely on quantitative analysis and the value of a company would give at least as much importance to qualitative aspects such as its intellectual property, including the specific knowledge of all its collaborators.
MY RESPONSE ====================================
Ok I will give it a stab - but have snipped the original as its a long post and the reply is long. I should also warn readers that this is a subject that I get passionate about as its too important to leave to liberal idealism (see later)
My final conclusion at the end of this post is that there is hope, but that thinking of the knowledge economy in terms of assets or in the models of your first two quotes is hope-less and as likely to be effective as waiting for the return in 2012 of the green feathered serpent god green feathered serpent god of the Maya to restore planetary harmony, or consulting the alien master race who planted humans on earth 3000 years ago to mine for monatomic gold monatomic gold for use in their religious rites.
(If anyone things I have gone crazy on this don't - a Washington futurist think tank has given both theories credibility)
TO PETER's POSTING
Each quote provides an interesting position and possible dispute and in general is very much a "first world" perspective that ignores the possibility of ecological change.
The Gopnik quote to the effect that knowledge will be the most valuable currency and that knowledge is a universal human birthright.
Response: I think one of the big mistakes people are making is to see knowledge as the new asset type in succession to land and capital. I think that is wrong for three reasons. (i) knowledge is not tangible in the sense of land and capital, an ASSET model (basis of the intellectual capital movement) is therefore inappropriate. (ii) I see no evidence that the capital model has yet been shattered, although it is changing. Money is still the transaction base of knowledge exchange like it or not (and I don't by the way). (iii) For whole economies LAND is still central and may become so again in the west. Water and living space with population growth and global warming by result in a partial reversion to Feudalism. There is a general trend in all of these and your comments to see the world as necessarily progressive which is a dubious proposition.
Linked to the above you say ":Everyone in an organization will be empowered and encouraged to create/innovate making some mistakes along the way but learning a great deal more
Response: this is the worst form of utopian idealism. Its not going to happen with any asset based economy. You also assume continued growth (see above comments). More harm has been caused to human progress by misplaced idealism, than by repression over the centuries so I think it needs opposing.
Csikszentmihalyi on happiness and the idea that people with challenging and clear goals are happiest than those leading relaxing lives. You extend this to say that employers will have to focus on happy employees.
Response: well yes and no. In some cases its true but we really don't have enough data to know as so few of the world's people are in a state of voluntary leisure. Yes work and rewarding work is good. Even if this statement is true its only go to apply to a very small percentage of the world. Children will still go down mines and people will die young in manual labour to produce food and resources in an increasingly constrained world. Employers will have to keep some employees happy - they do its called share options and its not producing the desired effect.
Goodwin on the science of qualities references the need for a new type of qualitative evaluation and a different type of education
Brian is one of the really good guys and the concept of qualities is important. It was one of the source ideas that we used as we started to develop impact measurement systems based on narrative. However Brian himself says that the change in educational needs is huge and is not going to happen overnight IF IT HAPPENS at all.
HALF EMPTY TO HALF FULL
OK so lets move from optimism to pessimism. I think Brian is closer than the others. He is not looking for or forecasting some huge change. Rather he is focusing on something that could be done - namely create new measurement techniques.
My own work on network government (and thanks for all the contributions which are still coming in - I will email everyone who contributed on that ongoing project hopefully next week) is saying that (in line with complexity theory) we should not focus on trying to forecast or define a desired end state: idealism. Instead we need to start multiple small experiments on a safe fail basis which offer the prospect of different ways of doing things. That is also in line with Brian's philosophy by the way. Two of these are I think obvious and are progressing, but we need more.
Firstly - creating a measurement technique that produces numbers (familiar) but is based on complex behaviour and does not allow gaming would be a major step forward and we hope to announce something on that at the end of the year (current Beta trials are going well) using large volume self indexed narrative as the source. Linking quantitative material to contextual meaning. However this approach will not work if qualitative judgments are made in the process.
The second is to find ways replicating the structural (a key word here) success of the Grameen Bank (referenced here) in which we focus on stimulating network capability rather than using resource allocation methods based on a false notion of fairness and objectivity.
So, to the overall subject. I think the knowledge economy is real. I think if it is to succeed we will need to change from "scarcity" models to those of "abundance" and if that is to take place we must stop using the language of scarcity (Assets) when we talk about it. I think it is about liberation, not libertarianism and the move to everything being a market (including prediction) disturbs me here. Capital, labour and land will still be there like it or not, but you might expect that from an unreconstructed socialist such as myself.
Do I think its likely - well I think its worth trying, but human nature has a perverse attraction to making things scare for "other people" and the natural scarcity of key resources that will arise over the next 20-50 years is going to make that very difficult.
Critically - the worst thing that could happen is to resort to idealism and futurology. If that is the case we might just as well give up and wait for 2012 when as everyone knows the green feathered serpent god of the Maya will return to restore universal peace and harmony. That is about as likely as liberal idealism providing a solution.
A THOUGHTFUL RESPONSE TO THE RESPONSE ===============
Hi there Dave
As someone who has studied both KM and futures studies, I should put in my 2 cents into this conversation.
I wholeheartedly agree with Dave that thinking of knowledge in terms of assets will lead to errors as knowledge is fundamentally different. By using it more, its value grows (abundance process) as compared with resource depletion models which makes the economic world go round. In addition, we are facing a major crisis in relation to global resources over the next 20-30 years (or sooner in the case of oil unless we can come up with some other cheap energy sources) that will cause some major changes to the world's economy and society. It may not be a knowledge economy coming to fruition but a reversion to a material-based economy.
But in relation to the future, futures studies does not equal futurology nor does not equal idealism nor does it equal forecasting, scenarios, or the musings of Mayan serpent god worshippers (but I might be wrong about this one - I'll tell you in 2013). Futures studies has a long history as a discipline with its own theorists and practitioners just like KM. Some are OK, some I find a bit difficult. It's not about prediction but more about exploration with understanding.
For Peter-Anthony's original note, he looks at the role of science in the future - but that is only one perspective. What about a greater humanist perspective - looking at the role of energy healing, meditation and contemplation? What about future social interactions? And also, the scientific approach tends to look at the world with a particular worldview, and as Kuhn stated, things change when new mindsets or paradigms take hold.
An idealist perspective of the future is obviously not a solution, even though that would be the end of many science fiction novels. But seeking out how different ways the future can progress and develop, reaching new levels beyond capitalism that uses knowledge not as mere property but as currency, is really interesting. That would be the subject of a much longer post which I will do later in a couple of weeks.
But I'm currently just up the road of Dave in the middle of Malaysia at a beautiful rainforest B&B near Taman Negara Resort - listening to the frogs and insects outside at 10 pm on a wonderful balmy night. And I'd like to go out and commune with them for a little while ...
Comments (6)
The thread continued with a posting by "Han" which irritated me (not unusual in this case). Here is the post and my reply follows:
Han's Post
Hi Dave and Peter
First using Wikipedia as it is the only reference, I guess Peter you are using 'knowledge economy' as: A *knowledge economy* is either *economy of knowledge* focused on the economy of the producing and management of knowledge, or a *knowledge-based economy*. In the second meaning, more frequently used, it is a phrase that refers to the use of knowledge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge to produce economic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic benefits.
I agree with Dave, capital assets have been economic drivers and hence Capitalism has proven the most successful model for growth. I believe it has done so in an unsustainable way - environmentally, socially, etc. I also believe than any 'ism' (Communism, Socialism, Despotism, etc..) would produce a similar result. It has in the past so why would that change? It is individual benefit that motivates most people, and why most communitarian 'isms' have failed. Therefore any 'knowledge economy' will steer endeavours towards individual (or enterprise) versus collective (wide communal) benefit. So toss the idealism as a motivator into a corner (not quite out the window, but definitely not centre stage either).
Dave, I don't think there is such a thing as a viable (or real) abundance model - we have to work using the scarcity model, as you later state. It is not a 'perverse attraction', Maslow got it right - people have many needs that drive each of us to think and act individually from our basic desire for survival (at increasing levels of comfort, belonging (so of course social association is nurtured and societies form), self worth and actualisation).
Is my position then of despair - not at all!
First we see that strong capitalist individuals who have already benefited from the 'knowledge economy' such as Bill Gates (and Bill Clinton) are investing a lot of their assets (capital, informational, motivational, knowledge) into humanitarian endeavours. Unfortunately I believe their current focus appears to be treating mostly symptoms and not causes. But I have hope that they will also focus more on causes.
For example, while the real cost of energy remains underpriced (because it does not account for the long term costs of environmental degradation) government, industry and individuals (you and me) will continue to use energy unsustainably. It is estimated that we need the resources of 3 earths to bring the world population of today to the standard we enjoy in the west (and quite a few privileged people in lesser developed nations enjoy even more than most of us). Shortsighted energy pricing is a cause that must be addressed.
So IMHO, the knowledge economy is not leading us anywhere. I hope that the aim of sustainability will lead us into a better global (natural, social, etc.) environment. Sustainability can help force real energy and production costing and partly aid social equity. But, sustainability is not enough in itself.
Hence the reason I have previously tried to promote that holistic management needs to occur. We need to take all the existing small 'm' management disciplines (for example, Economic management, Company management, Financial management, Project management, Process management, Quality management, Service management, Customer Relations management, Product management, lifecycle management, and yes even Knowledge management, etc, etc.,,) - drop the first letter and roll all the "m and m's" into one holistic "M". It will require leaders who inspire managers to manage holistically.
We need to change the mindset of people from a focus on one specialty and focus on the big picture. Forget KM, focus on M!
Han
In management, there is an expression ‘the helicopter view’ meaning taking a high level oversight of some business aspect – I prefer the ‘International Space Station view’.
from the book: Reach for the STARS.
---------------------------------------------------------
My Response
I agree with the statement "capital assets have been economic drivers" and nothing else in this post (including the "I agree with Dave" statement). Lets do this by making some statements:
capitalism has proved the most successful model for growth
Possibly, depends a bit on how you measure it, but lets concede the point. Why is growth necessarily good? If growth is achieved by cannibalising other organisations is it really growth? If you look at a company like IBM (or any other large corporate) and add up all their acquisitions over time then look at what the revenue and profit should now be if they had just maintained a steady state you will see what I mean.
In a world of declining real time physical resources can we continue basing strategy on growth? It would be nice to think that the Knowledge Economy could relate to a growth in ideas, without that having to be coupled to a growth in the acquisition and concentration of assets.
it is individual benefit that motivates most people
Well speak for yourself. I think its a lot more complex than that. Atomistic societies tend in that direction (and they are also the most capitalist) but they are not universal and other types of relationships exist. Family, clan and tribal bonds are also part of the rich attractor structure around which behaviour emerges. Bring up a whole generation to believe that selfishness and atomism are good and you might achieve that result, but it would happen as a result of our actions is damaging the richness of the human experience, not because of something innate in human nature.
there is no such thing as a viable abundance model - we have to work using the scarcity model
No and No. Its early days but if you look at micro-lending and the open source movement you are starting to see abundance models emerging in an economic regime based on scarcity. Many of us hope that these will start to build and eventual dominate. Maslow did not get it right, its a fairly limited model and was quickly superseded in organisational studies (Vroom I think is a lot closer). But even then you cannot read from Maslow to a justification of selfishness only to a prioritisation on survival under conditions of stress. Scarcity models are, in a Lacanian sense PERVERTED. They are able to self justify their existance regardless of the external evidence of their bad impact. You use a classic: the altruistic capitalist. See next point.
Is my position then of despair - not at all
Well it bloody well depresses me - I must admit I have hopes and some evidence that the knowledge management community was more progressive, but as it matures I suppose it will attract the more conventional approaches. The altruistic capitals is an argument of the utmost (well words fail me and it would get censored anyway as this list is moderated). Its one the neo-cons use and I would go a long way to avoid that association. The fact that Bill Gates has a great charity programme does not justify a system in which he is the exception not the rule. Neither should human progress and welfare be subject to "charity" (in the modern meaning of the word rather than that of the King James Bible where it is rightly used as an alternative to Love in I Corinthians 13)
the real cost of energy
Well yes - you make a good point here. Now how is the cost of energy set? By a free market dominated by personal self interest. I rest my case.
the knowledge economy is not leading us anywhere
Well I haven't seen it really start yet, its in its infancy. Sustainability if it catches on, and it it is reflected in legislation might help but I agree with you, its not enough in itself.
toss the idealism as a motivator into a corner PLUS holistic managers and the mindset change to get everyone to focus on the big picture
Well you just contradicted yourself. You run through a justification of selfishness and then come with an idealistic concept the achievement of which represents an extreme form of idealism.
In conclusion I do not think that you are "Reaching for the Stars" but rather diving back into the muck of industrialisation. In effect you are mixing a form of idealism with a modern day realism based on observed selfish behaviour. A naturalising approach based on stimulating multiple interventions and practices based on abundance is not only happening, it is looking increasingly viable. With resource constraints it may be too late and if I am honest I think a return to feudalism has a high probability, triggered by a catastrophic failure in human systems linked to a series of catastrophic events in nature. However I can hope as long as there are some people around who do not believe in selfishness as a legitimate motivator.
Posted by Dave Snowden![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/nav-commenters.gif)
|
October 1, 2006 2:05 PM
Posted on October 1, 2006 14:05
Dave,
I am glad to 'jump in' here as the topic is very much on my mind - on tuesday I am leading a session for a large class of mainly Computer Science final year students at Warwick University on the topic "Knowledge Management - myth or reality?"
Like you, I am very much non PC and agnostic on the topic. In this I tend to follow in the footsteps of my father-in-law late Prof. Hans Eysenck when in anticipation of the reactions (yet to start 5 years after) he said in the 1962 Granada lecture:
“I have often found that a simple statement of scientific fact which is displeasing to a person may cause that person to look with disfavour upon the one communicating it as if he were responsible for these facts…. You may feel that it is a great pity that human beings can be conditioned, that they resemble brute animals in this respect, and that rational thought plays so little part in so much of their conduct. If indeed you feel that way, and I know many people do, I beg of you to realise that though I may be the bearer of bad tidings, I am not responsible for the facts being as they are. The scientist is concerned first and foremost with discovering the facts; Society as a whole has to decide what, if any, use has to be made of these facts. This process of fact finding and fact digestion requires an intermediary process, that of fact dissemination, and I have tried … to aid in this process of communication by describing some facts of modern research …” (Eysenck, H.J. 1962)
He was a real 'Rebel with a Cause' (and entitled his autobiography so) and we need people lik you in this expanding area of knowledge economy conversations and activities.
Posted by Lilly Evans | October 1, 2006 3:03 PM
Posted on October 1, 2006 15:03
That's one hell of a father in law! I know that I don't buy eugenics, or IQ testing, or the assumption that ethinic groups correspond to genetic origins (the Bell Curve stuff seemed to me very socially determined). However I defend the willingness to publish and defend hard facts. I think a lot of people (including me) who attacked Eysenck for the political impact of his statements (remember that was the Enoch Powel period) forgot that he had to leave Germany as a result of his opposition to the Nazi's
Posted by Dave Snowden![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/nav-commenters.gif)
|
October 1, 2006 3:23 PM
Posted on October 1, 2006 15:23
Just to add to an already long post and comments, I thought it was worth quoting from what I'm reading at the moment:
We are now more than four and a half centuries into an era which our obsession with progress and our servility to structure have caused us to name and rename a dozen times, as if this flashing of theoretically fundamental concepts indicated real movement. The reality is that we have not moved beyond the basic ideas of the sixteenth century which, for want of any better description, should be called the concepts of reason. This Age of Reason will soon have been with us for 500 years. With each passing day more ideas, structures and beliefs are hung upon the fragile back of those few concepts.
Any yet, even in their early days, they were not ideas of great breadth. What's more, from birth they were based upon an essential misunderstanding - that reason constituted a moral weapon, when in fact it was nothing more than a disinterested administrative method. That fundamental error may explain reason's continuing force, because centuries of Western elites have been obliged to invent a moral direction where none existed.
At first there was an easy conviction that all this was so - a conviction made all the more easy by the moral baggage reason had been carrying for a thousand years. In varying ways, to varying degrees, the Greeks had identified reason (logos) as one of the key human characteristics - the superior characteristic. Reason was virtue. Rational action lead to the greatest good. Roman thinkers did nothing to undermine the coviction, nor did the Christian churches, which simply narrowed the meaning to justify their received truths. And when, in the sixteenth century, thinkers began to free us from this sterile Scholasticism, they turned for guidance back to Socrates, Aristotle and the Stoics in search of a freestanding, ethical approach.
The implication is that most people - particularly the philosophers - were more or less agreed on what actually consituted reason. This simply isn't so. There was and is no generally accepted, concrete definition. As so often with basic concepts, they slip away when you try to approach them. And the philosophers have kept themselves busy redefining as the centuries have gone by.
In truth, the definitions didn't really matter, any more than mine might. More to the point is what our civilization understands or senses or feels reason to be. What are our expectations? What is the mythology surrounding the word?
One thing is clear: despite successive redefinitions by philosophers, the popular understanding and expectations have remained virtually unchanged. This stability seems to withstand even the real effects of reason when it is applied; to withstand them so effectively that it is difficult to imagine a more stubbornly optimistic concept, except perhaps that of life after death.
What's more, the renewed and intense concentration on the rational element which started in the sixteenth century had an unexpected effect. Reason began, abruptly, to separate itself from and to outdistance spirit, appetite, faith and emotion, but also intuition, will and, most important, experience. This gradual encroachment on the foreground continues today. It has reached a degree of imbalance so extreme that the mythological importance of reason obscures all else and has driven the other elements into the marginal frontiers of doubtful respectability.
...
Our ideological bickering over the last hundred years has added extremely little to the central line we have been following. Instead, a series of grandiose and dark events - religious bloodbaths in Europe, Napoleonic dictatorships and unlimited industrial competiton, to name three, overcame Western society and seemed to do so thanks to rational methods. The original easy conviction that reason was a moral force gradually converted into a desperate, protective assumption. The twentieth century, which has seen the final victory of pure reason in power, has also seen unprecedented unleashings of violence and of power deformed. It is hard, for example, to avoid noticing that the murder of six million Jews was a perfectly rational act.
And yet our civilization has been constructed precisely in order to avoid such conclusions. We carefully - rationally in fact - assign blame for our crimes to the irrational impulse. In this way we merely shut our eyes to the central and fundamental misunderstanding: reason is no more than structure. And structure is most easily controlled by those who feel themselves to be free of the cumbersome weight represented by common sense and humanism. Structure suits best those whose talents lie in manipulation and who have a taste for power in its purer forms.
...
Knowledge, of course, was to be the guarantor of reason's moral force -
...
But in a world turned upon power through structure, the disinterested consideration of knowledge simply couldn't hold and was rapidly transformed into our obsession with expertise. ... This civilization of secretive experts was quite naturally obsessed not by the encouragement of understanding but by the providing of answers.
Our unquenchable thirst for answers has been one of the obvious characteristics of the West in the second half of the twentieth century. But what are the answers when there is neither memory nor general understanding to give them meaning? This running together of the right answer with the search for truth is perhaps the most poignant sign of our confusion. ... the fracturing of memory and understanding has created a profound chaos in the individual's sense of what responsibility is.
Voltaire's Bastards, The Dictatorship of Reason in the West.
John Ralston Saul, Penguin Canade,1992
pp 13 - 16
isbn 0-14-015373-X
Posted by Lex McCafferty | October 2, 2006 11:18 PM
Posted on October 2, 2006 23:18
Thanks Lex - its a useful addition. Interestingly thinkers such as Vico challenged the enlightment on similar terms at the time
Posted by Dave Snowden![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/nav-commenters.gif)
|
October 3, 2006 12:26 AM
Posted on October 3, 2006 00:26
Dave, thanks for your generous views on Hans. He was a true 'Rebel with a Cause' and very much the father of shifting Psychology towards becoming a science - at one point he was among 3 most quoted social scientists in the Citation Index (before anyone asks, Freud and Marx being the other two). Yet, he was most proud that no Eysenckin school exists. It was about the science and not about him!
His approach was to be rigorous in applying Scientific Method in all the studies he or his colleagues did but to be totally open to all sorts of hypothesis and resulting theories. He maintained that no discipline makes a progress without much searching in wrong places and that is fine. Criticisms of theories and explanations were totally separated from their originators - much along the lines of your point to Verna in another post.
I am sure you would have liked him!
My lecture at Warwick is quite pertinent to how the exchanges have moved. Driving to the car park close to Warwick Arts Centre (on the UNiversity campus) I saw every 50 yards a flag with motto INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL in large letter and Warwick much smaller below. After introducing the term 'knowledge capital' I asked the audience to tell me if they have seen along the road on the campus some relevant signs. IT took several goes for someone to mention the flag and Intellectual Capital. When I asked what this meant for them, the young man who mentioned it said "University wants to make money from us".
Prior to this, almost at the very begining of the session, I wanted the audience to start to get a feel for knowledge. So, I asked them to do an exercise. To start with, I requested they find someone they do not know and sit in pairs. A few people did not move (happens even in conference audiences with senior executives, so to be expected) but more tellingly there were at least 6 groups of 3 people sitting together! They either did not hear or did not understand even a simple instruction like that! As the exercise progressed to the next stage, the guidance that one person should transmit something they knew well but which their partner does not, with my bell ringing indicating a switch, was misunderstood by about a third of the students. They apparently got into a conversation with each other, not a directed exchange. So, we went through the third step and then I asked for comments and observations.
Among the commentators was a guy who originally was going to come to the floor but then changed his mind. When I asked his conversation partner to tell me what he was trying to share, he said "One of the simplest moves in breakdancing". So, I said, great his partner can come and I will be the learner. Out gets a lanky young man and performs a really amazing set of moves with his body almost on the ground, supporting himself with the right hand on the floor and moving the feet at some speed! Great show and the first breakdance in a KM lecture I know of!
When I asked his partner how much he understood about the move before the demonstration he said "very little". ANd everyone in the audince got it! You can imagine that there was no need for me to elaborate on the notion of 'tacit knowledge' here.
I then asked them what format does a knowledge base takes. They said "words" and "numbers". Again, I am sure they have got the message that IT plays but a very small part in knowledge sharing.
Finally, talking about French philospohers, I deliberately used some slides from several experts in the KM who address the topic from different perspectives. Notably, Philippe BAUMARD, the French professor is not afraid to bring up complex issues and introduce philosophical terms without fear his audience will not understand. Equally, he talks about barriers that include "fear of change", "power", "politics of the organisation" and "problems with ambiguity" and "why we do not learn from mistakes". The UK and US experts are into prpoviding definitions and giving examples. Yet, it fell again to Prof Baumard to provide an example where KM can bring real benefit to the organisation (it was related to DuPont!) that gave numerically the information on what kinds of knowledge are needed, where it resided and thus indicated the type of KM system that would be able to solve the problem.
Apologies for such a long post - it just emerged!
Posted by Lilly Evans | October 5, 2006 1:49 AM
Posted on October 5, 2006 01:49