Knowledge Management article

Knowledge management focuses on future value rather than the quick buck of the dotcom stock frenzy.

In the eighties 'E' was for additives. Today 'E' is for business. Denoting the application of Internet technologies to modified or even entirely new business processes, the 'E' prefix is ubiquitous and indicative of the current ascendancy of technology.

When the IT bandwagon rolled into town, everyone decided to play along to the same tune. How sad. Like Laura from 'The Glass Menagerie', everyone from CEOs to government officials repeatedly play the technology mantra to soothe their jangled nerves about today's hyper-competitive environment. Like the fragile glass creatures of Laura's collection, the arguments used to promote and defend the primacy of technology will eventually be shattered by the sobering reflection of experience.

It's often argued that technology is more than just an enabler. I agree. The egalitarianism of the email system has done more than just remove the space/time cost constraints of communication - it has engendered new possibilities and benefits, affecting the organisational culture in subtle yet powerful ways. However, what I do disagree with is today's technological taboo - that it mustn't be spoken about in anything other than hushed, reverential tones. This is unhealthy. In the world of business this has produced a polemic contagion that technology is the panacea for business ills that simultaneously acts as a steroidal boost to profitability and efficiency. This viewpoint is perhaps understandable when one considers the in-built short-term perspective of today's turbo-capitalism. Understandable, but incorrect nonetheless.

Weird not wired.
Take for example the current Internet stock frenzy. The recipe for success is quite straightforward. Place your latest business idea in the oven until it's half-baked. Remove and garnish with those all-important techno '.com' credentials. Leave to cool until the first Tuesday of the month and bingo! - you too could be playing 'Who wants to be an Internet millionaire?'. Investors are rewarding entrepreneurs on the basis of increasing returns to scale - or so they think. In the networked society the greatest rewards will supposedly go to those who establish an early and strong control of information and economic hub points. Yet these Internet stocks flout some very basic economic fundamentals; whilst they have low, fixed start-up costs they have exponential marginal costs for growing the business. Despite costing millions to build, Internet brands are proving fickle, supplanted by the latest brand on the block. Oh - and you know that its perfectly OK to rake up huge losses. Not so much new economy as (crazy) new economics. 'ROI' could soon be an abbreviation for Internet investors demanding to 'Recoup Our Investment'.

So what has any of this got to do with knowledge management? Paradoxically, quite a lot.

Internet Investment	Knowledge Management
Short-term gain	Long-term value
Technology driven	People orientated
Mass-market volume	Client customisation
Generic portalisation	Innovative solutions

Fundamentally, the desired organisational outcome of knowledge management is to be profitable and successful. Financial markets and armies of private investors also share the same fundamental desired outcome for the stocks that they invest in - profitability and success. However, what they have failed to realise is that by continually fuelling the internet IPO tsunami, investors are actually cannibalising the ability of the earlier internet stocks that they, or others, have invested in to become profitable. Combined with the crazy new economics the current stock market situation sounds like a pyramid scheme waiting to crash.

M is for Mobilisation
Knowledge Management is different in that it is focused on the future value of the organisation, rather than short-term profit realisation. Creating a successful knowledge environment takes time. Of the three dimensions in the KM matrix (people, processes and technology) it is my argument that people is the most important. It is people who generate, interpret and apply knowledge. Yes - clearly defined and articulated processes can help them do this more effectively. Yes - technology will provide the platform for storing, interrogating, retrieving and sharing this knowledge. But both processes and technology are invalidated by the absence of people willing to use them. A paper presented at the recent British Psychological Society's conference revealed that many employees are increasingly unwilling, even refusing, to freely share their knowledge with their employer. With the demise of the job-for-life employees are guarding their knowledge and skills. Unless organisations address these kind of people concerns, and psychologically reward the knowledge sharing behaviours they are seeking to encourage, they will have succeeded only in wasting their technology investments. After all, whilst structured data, well-designed web interfaces and intelligent agents can all help an organisation 'know what it knows', they cannot prepare it for the flux that is the future. To be competitive, organisations need adaptability and agility. Knowledge needs to be mobilised, not managed. It is only people that can interpret information in context and apply it to the organisation's circumstances. It is people who deliver ideas and innovation. Organisations need knowledge environments, not systems.

Power to the people
Whilst that constellation of computers, the Internet, has fostered information awareness, the drive to the knowledge society will cultivate information literacy. Governments are (to varying degrees) investing in, and promoting life-long education & learning amongst their populations. Organisations are training staff in knowledge sharing and information retrieval skills.

However, these skills don't suddenly stop when the individual leaves their place of work or study. No! They will use these skills and information and seek to become better informed about the decisions that they will need to make that affect their personal lives. Professor Susan Greenfield of Oxford University has gloomily forecast that 'the individual will be monitored and manipulated in the next century on a scale never before contemplated'. Reluctantly I agree - but believe that this will be countered by ever-growing information literacy resulting in greater accountability and hopefully, more open democracy. No more disgracefully diluted Freedom of Information Acts.

In her address to the 1999 Annual Conference, the President of the Library Information Association of Australia & New Zealand (LIANZA) emphasised the broader knowledge-led society rather than the more narrow knowledge economy. Quite right. She defined the knowledge-led society as 'each member of society having the right to access information in an equal way to facilitate informed decision making'. This clearly raises issues of privacy and control. Whilst some may challenge the assertion to an 'information right', the driving megatrends of the new economy (industry deregulation and convergence, information & communication technologies, globalisation and changing social attitudes moulded by the media) will make information and knowledge sharing skills a priori for success in the new economy. Information literate consumers will also reshape business-to-consumer relationships.

Bursting the bubble
No organisation is immune to the tensions exerted by the world's social and macro-economic circumstances. Similarly, whilst processes and technology can provide enabling frameworks, improve operational efficiency and enhance communication, they do not deliver the critical requirement for business success in today's environment - flexibility to adapt and generate new modes of thinking, new solutions to both internal and external pressures.

The current internet investment gold-rush has unfortunately served to pollute this fundamental prognosis. The prevailing ethos is one of techno-fuelled short-termism.

If one follows the direction of this dialectic to its conclusion it is clear that organisations need to adopt a longer-term viewpoint with people at the centre of both their knowledge-enabled strategies and their daily business operations. They will need to develop and retain information literate staff. They must not be afraid of greater openness, both internally and externally - to resist will inevitably result in confrontations with staff and loss of customers. Branded relationships are going to supplant branded products - but relationships are conducted between people. Customer services will become customer relationship management - which entails a greater degree of interaction between people.

So don't be afraid to ignore the prevailing technological zeitgeist. In the future, everything will begin with a 'P' - for people that is.

An edited version of this article appeared in the April 2000 issue of Knowledge Management magazine. Reprinted with permission from Learned Information Europe Ltd. All material copyright Learned Information Europe Ltd.