Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration Knowledge Cafés – Do it yourself knowledge sharing? by Dan Remenyi Visiting Professor Trinity College Dublin Ireland
[email protected] Abstract It is now clear that knowledge management is not just another fad which has been hyped up by the management consultants and technology vendors. In fact it has a long pedigree with considerable support from a number of management thinkers of our times. Although knowledge management has much to offer it is no simple matter to implement it successfully. Although very large sums of money have been spent, technologically based knowledge management solutions have produced questionable results. Simply knowledge management is far more than a technological issue and thus, what is really needed is a rethink with an emphasis on the people side of knowledge management. One such approach is the use of a knowledge café. A knowledge café may be defined as a way of brining together a group of people who have some sort of common interest and wh o will be able to benefit from talking together and listening to each other on the subject of issues related to and surrounding that common interest. The individuals who will benefit from a knowledge café need to have an open mindset, have a common objective and have similar shared values and be people who like to collaborate in their working relationships. The operation of a knowledge café is actually more complex than it first appears and this paper discusses how to operate a successful knowledge café. Key words and phrases Knowledge, knowledge management, intranet, knowledge hierarchy, knowledge cafés
The owl was the wisest of animals. A centipede with 99 sore feet came to him seeking advice. 'Walk for two weeks one inch above the ground; the air unde r your feet and the lack of pressure will cure you,' said the owl. 'How am I to do that?' asked the centipede. 'I have solved your conceptual problem, do not bother me with the trivia concerning implementation,' replied the owl. Shubik M, A Game-Theoretic Approach to Political Economy, The MIT Press, USA, 1988.
Knowledge management and knowledge itself are both very slippery concepts. In some sense everyone knows what knowledge is – it takes knowledge to know how to drive your car and it takes knowledge to know how to find your way home from work – but when it comes to a formal definition of knowledge, even the most astute philosophers run into problems and paradoxes (Davenport and Prusak 1998; Nonaka and Takeuchi 1991; Senge 1998; Snowden 2003). There is simply no clearly articulated and generally agreed definition of knowledge (Pierce 2002; Suresh 2002). But at least many people know in both business and academe that knowledge management is very important and it is very important to both individuals and to organisations (Drucker 2000; Toffler 1990; Quinn 1993). This notion of the importance of knowledge goes back a very long way indeed. Sir Francis Bacon made reference to the central importance of knowledge when he said, “Knowledge is Power” (Bohn 1994). Davenport and Prusak (2003) point out that both Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall highlight the importance of knowledge. In modern times Russell Ackoff developed the hierarchy - data, information, knowledge and wisdom that is 1
used in many textbooks and articles that talk about knowledge management (Ackoff 1978). In this description the things that are known come in a variety of forms and as we process them their usefulness improves. Thus data are just simple facts and figures, which have not yet been given any structure. Information is the result of proce