At 10:43 AM 11/27/96 -0600, Bill Fulkerson wrote:
>Brock Vodden wrote
>
>> In my view, the most important learning in an established learning
>> organization will not be in the form of canned or person-delivered
>> courses, but will be achieved by drawing upon the collective
>> knowledge, experience, wisdom, and raw information stored in the heads of
>> employees and in the repository of corporate knowledge.
>
Bill's Comment
>While I agree with this in principle, how does it get implemented in
>practice?
Brock's Reply to Bill
I, along with several associates, am working on the development of
technology to support this kind of process. In some organizations, Lotus
Notes is being used as a means of accomplishing some of these things in a
limited way.
We think that Internet and Intranet technologies offer a great deal of
promise. But it is a complex process. We are really talking about figuring
out how to manage the 90% of corporate information which has never been
part of the traditional data processing scope, information which is
"unstructured", on paper, in personal computer files, in various media.
Yet for many organizations, some of this information is absolutely
critical to their purpose. In many cases, I find that re-useable
information is already being captured routinely in the normal course of
people's work. (Examples include payroll time sheets, project management
data, work assignment reports, job specifications, requirements documents,
minutes of meetings, etc.) For some of this information, all that is
required is a way of making that information accessible as part of the
corporate repository. In some cases, no extra effort would be required of
us once that is set up. In other instances, some effort will be required
to deposit items into the repository. We plan to make that effort as small
as possible.
We are cognizant of the fact, however, that the technology is only a set
of instruments to support the learning organization; the people in the
organization are the main factor in determining whether or not it is a
learning organization.
Bill goes on
>To be efficient in the short run, I document almost nothing and learning
>is at best transient. Functions are geographically dispersed
>and my peers who frequently travel to these dispersed sites are
>unavailable.
>Temporary staff abounds.
Brock says:
I think these are all good reasons for finding ways of capturing knowledge
and experience and making it available as widely as possible.
>Bill: This issue is bigger than Franklin Planner's or Lotus Notes.
Brock: Yes. And it's bigger than any technological solution, as well. It
also has to do with the way people perceive their roles and
responsibility, and way they perceive information and intellectual
capital. We are talking major transformational change here.
You raise good questions. With our clients, we first identify the business
requirements for information and knowledge retention. Once that is clear,
we then look for the technical solutions which will meet those
requirements. The two phases need to be completely separate or one will
distort the other.
Brock Vodden
H. Brock Vodden
Vodden Consulting
"Where People and Systems Meet"
Ontario, Canada
brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca
--Brock Vodden <brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>