Ben Compton wrote:
> A year ago we tried to use computer technology to store the "knowledge"
> acquired by the people in our department. The idea was once a problem was
> solved, the solution should be documented, as well as the context for the
> problem. This would allow us to "store" our experience, and refer to it as
> we progressed.
>
> The projected lasted about four months, and was then disregarded. There
> were a couple of problems: It was impossible to document all the decisions
> made in the normal course of a day, much less provide contextual
> background information; it was difficult to determine which of all the
> problems we solved should be documented; and, once documented, it was a
> pestiferous chore to find the solution to a problem.
>
> We are still wrestling with some important issues, which our project
> attempted to solve:
>
> 1) How should information about complex business issues be stored,
> shared, and accessed for future reference? Should we just go on the
> minutes from our meetings? Is it worth our time and money to
> document, with a contextually rich annotation, the solution to major
> business decisions?
[snip]
Ben, IMHO you have tried to store too much data, made it way too
complicated. Let me relate a true story...
Herb Simon, Nobel Prize laureate[Economics], was asked how he seemed to
know so much about a wide variety of topics. His colleague was truly
amazed, he had never met anyone with such broad knowledge. Herb smiled,
and answered, "Oh that's easy, I keep my knowledge in my network of
friends and colleagues" He simply knew which expert to go to when.
Remember the age old question, "Is it who you know or what you know[that
leads one to success]?" The answer to the question is... YES! -- WHAT you
know depends on WHOM you know!
Ben, if you want to throw technology at the problem, then maybe you keep a
simple data base of WHO is connected to WHOM about WHAT. But realize,
this will change as the environment changes and as the organization adapts
-- some links will grow stronger, some weaker, others will form, and yet
others will dissolve. Your data base may be quickly [and constantly] out
of date. IMHO just keep track of the central players in the various
networks. They have a large horizon of observability into the network and
can quickly point you to the right source or to someone else who can point
you to the right source. This is similar to the role that YAHOO et.al.
plays on the WWW. Also keep track of the emergent groups in the
organization -- the communities of practice [IRL] where 'learning takes
place'. These general pointers will allow you to get to the knowledge you
seek usually in a minimum amount of steps.
If you are interested in my further musings on human networks within and
between organizations then check out the Feb 1996 issue of Esther Dyson's
newsletter "Release 1.0". If you can't locate a copy, I have some extras.
Contact me by email.
Valdis Krebs
Krebs & Associates
Los Angeles, CA (805)582-9498
Cleveland, OH (216)331-1222
inflow@concentric.net
--"Valdis E. Krebs" <InFlow@cris.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>