Cognitive Edge

I am just completing a chapter for a book on Organizational Memory. It is due today US time, and I am 16 hours ahead in New Zealand so I may make it! I am arguing strongly for a fragmented and dynamic approach to memory, rather than that static approach represented by content focused KM approaches and (as mad and bad) recording and archiving of complete stories from people as they approach retirement. For the moment I thought I would share the opening two paragraphs

Once upon a time when people joined organisations with the reasonable expectation of a job of life, apprenticeships were common place and indirect communication was limited to the office memo and the telephone; not many people talked about organisational memory. In an earlier age the oral tradition allowed complex knowledge to evolve through the interaction of those stories with the day to day realities of living; then the very idea of organisational knowledge would have been incomprehensible. In both of these cases knowledge was a living, evolving entity not a static repository of information. In the West our oral tradition suffered at the hands of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm who wrote down the stories, so that in the modern day they seem quaint, they have not evolved. A decade of knowledge management practice has focused on a largely forlorn attempt to codify what people know into best practice documents. Even those who adopt the use of story seem to have a tendency to create archive recordings of material. The living, evolving and creatively messy tradition of our near and distant ancestors appears lost in an over enthusiastic attempt to create highly “chunked” knowledge artifacts at the expense of knowledge dynamics and learning.

In this chapter I will outline an approach to organisational memory which recognises the importance of fine granularity knowledge objects, linked and connected to current realities. I will emphasis the need for serendipitous and contextual encounters with any such knowledge objects, and the need to modify and blend them on the fly. In doing this I will look at the impact of social computing on the field of knowledge management and the use of narrative databases which together and to a degree mirror the oral tradition and apprentice models of knowledge transfer and creation. I will do this by introducing a set of theoretical arguments, in part drawn from the natural sciences to set the scene. This will be followed by a brief summary criticism of existing approaches in the field and will then conclude by elaborating the approach summarised at the start of this paragraph.

All any any comments and questions welcome

Comments (5)

Paul Tudor

The approach to retirement situation is a specific problem that I was hired to solve when I joined here in 2004. As for the solution, fragments, yes, I agree upon, but I have a (thankfully small) group of experts still in a Nonaka headspace, another bunch running around in a chaotic system and the bulk running an ordered km system without any self doubts whatsoever.

Senior management however realise that there is a problem, but they do not understand social computing, despite the MANY seminars I have run on this over the past eighteen months. Rather than social computing, they do understand the oral traditions quite well and the comapny has been doing it for over 40 years. My problem is scalability - I am one frustrated librarian sitting in a company of 600 plus people, spread over 4 countries and 14 different offices. Short of physically walking every single employee through (one guy wants me to set up his Gmail/Blogger account for him...) I do not know what else I can do,

Yours
Desperate of Sandringham

Posted by Paul Tudor | July 15, 2008 2:51 AM

Posted on July 15, 2008 02:51

Dave Snowden

Well, there is an argument that some organisations are just ready for new things. However some suggestions:
- suggest a short term trial between Nonaka methods and narrative based approaches to see what works.
- Stop explaining social computing to senior management and get a few key individuals using the tools, then wait aim for imitation so adoption spreads virally
More on the course tomorrow

Posted by Dave Snowden | July 15, 2008 11:21 AM

Posted on July 15, 2008 11:21

Cheryl:

Excellent - I look forward to reading the whole chapter. Just one part that "jars" for me - wouldn't agree with you about Andersen and Grimm - your comment looks like an over-simplification. They captured a variation on myths that were there before them and variations on their stories have evolved and continue to do so (thinking e.g. Angela Carters short stories and almost any big budget movie which are variations on the same themes and archetypes).

Posted by Cheryl | July 15, 2008 4:39 PM

Posted on July 15, 2008 16:39

WalterRSmith:

Dave:

I suppose that discussing the demise of an organic view of organisational memory is perhaps more a probing of Complex terrain than an analysis of the Knowable.

Regardless, my snap reaction is that other important factors would include (a) the rise of a distinctive mixture of rationalism & empiricism that came to be called science (a mixture which came to viewed in almost mystical terms and applied indiscriminately), and (b) the emergence of "connection" technologies (transportation & communication) that were necessary (but not sufficient) for large commercial organisations to become common.

Regaining a more balanced understanding of organisational memory may require a better understanding of how the organic view came to be replaced by the machine view.

Posted by WalterRSmith | July 19, 2008 5:07 AM

Posted on July 19, 2008 05:07

Good points Walter, although I think the organic form never went away and the science period still saw apprentices. It was when the mechanical view was augmented by technology that we started to loose it. The irony is that social computing could be the technology that brings it back.

Posted by Dave Snowden | July 19, 2008 5:14 AM

Posted on July 19, 2008 05:14

Once upon a time

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