Ok we have been in this class for about six weeks or so now and I’m finding that knowledge management is very repetitive. Is anyone else thinking this? It seems to me that most of the blogs that I read basically say the same sorts of things. Maybe I am missing some of the good blogs that give me new and different information. This information might be coming from the blogs with slid shows that I have not figured out how to open or just don’t work on my computer. I don’t know. But it seems to me that every case and presentation that we have had all say the same basic thing. That is that a company was being inefficient and put in a system for them to share everyones knowledge. Then they would find little problems with the system that they had and would hold meetings to come up with ideas to fix the problems. Then they would implement those ideas. And they know that it was an on going process that they would continually have tweak and modify. This is in a nut shell what every case has been. I know that there is more to knowledge management then just those systems. It is sharing and gaining knowledge in all aspects of the company, but it is all circumstantial. Every company is going to have different wants and needs and you can’t really know what type of knowledge management sharing is going to work best for a certain company. So I just wanted to know if anybody else was having these same types of feelings or if you could show me any information that does tell me things that have all ready been said. Thanks
Knowledge Management (whatever it is)
Knowledge Management is the hottest new field on the planet - or is it?
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April 3, 2008 at 11:13 am
Ares Casai
You may have a point here. Perhaps it is because this is a prototype class, mostly student-led, but there has been little variety in the cases and ideas. The best part is the facilitated sessions, which have a lot more variety, by their nature. Since we are a prototype class, I think we ought to take some thought to this with the view of helping those who will take the class after us.
It seems to me that there are two real possibilities for this problem: first, that this is a class-based problem, and second that this problem in inherent in Knowledge Management.
April 3, 2008 at 11:34 am
Ares Casai
Ooops … didn’t mean to hit enter at that point … there really should be a way to edit comments. I’ll just continue from where I left off:
If it is the first problem, then simply changing things about the class will solve the problem. Perhaps if this class was as small as originally intended (6 students, I believe) there would be less repetition. It has been my experience that the larger the group the more superficial the discussion remains. If there is more depth to Knowledge Management, then the creation of a better discussion would be a possible solution. Also possible is the use of another case book. The Seimen’s book is very good, as that company was and possibly still is the gold standard in Knowledge Management, but more variety might be very refreshing. Perhaps just some outside cases brought in from other media would be sufficient.
If the problem, however, is in Knowledge Management itself, then that should be a a focus of the rest of our discussion. My facilitated session, at the end of the semester, will focus on a definition of Knowledge Management and a recommendation of whether it should be taught as its own discipline. If Knowledge Management is, in fact, so shallow, then that should be a strong argument against teaching it by itself.
Ares Casai
April 4, 2008 at 12:37 pm
mcbridrl
I agree with this post that knowledge management is dependent on the circumstance. The method that a company uses to manage it’s knowledge is depedent on the situation. For me, the problem is not knowledge managaement but it is rather what information the company already has and has it used the information that it has. the reason that I say this is because I beleive that you must have some kind of information or data first before you can ever develop knowledge of something.
April 15, 2008 at 8:53 pm
caruthcf
I think it would have cut back on some of the repitition to bring in an outside guest speaker… Let me explain. If we had someone from a company that uses knowledge management in it daily routine, they may be able to give us specific examples of ‘how’ other than just information sharing. The facilitated sessions, too, are a form of knowledge management- getting the most efficient and effective results in the least amount of time for competitive advantage. I agree that the class has become more interactive and interestng with these sessions as many students feel actually connected to the presentations because their own ideas are implemented in the ‘product’ part of the sessions. And many of them, if not all, are tied back somehow to improving the westminster environment, campus, and experience. The next ‘session’ of this class could even use the ideas we have come up with in furthur meetings and we could take this class to the next level by having it actually inplement our student ideas and possibilities on campus.
That was somewhat of a tangent off the topic of what more there is to knowledge management, but back to it…. It is also about, like Megan’s presentation said today, communication. Not just knowledge sharing, but working as teams and sharing results, rewards, work load, incentives, new ideas, not just information.
Running meetings (in addition to facsec) in an efficient and timely matter is another topic we have covered in KM class lecture; as well as the dysfunctions and how to deal with or eliminate them.
So, overall, I agree that while the Siemen’s case book is an great source as an example of innovative and updated KM, it is repetivite through the presentations. Maybe presentations shouldnt be given until later in the semester when we realize that saying the same things over and over is in fact against the purpose of KM altogether and we should, as a class, learn how to pick out the most important facts and information withina reading/article/journal, etc. Time limits tend to get people rambling as well. The concern becomes talking for that full 20 minutes instead of keeping the class awake and engaged to learn the basic cncepts and ideas within a reading and presentation.