Corporate Communications Today, Course Module 5: Knowledge Management
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The module discusses knowledge management, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and the challenge of 'information stickiness' in organizations. It highlights tools and techniques for effectively sharing knowledge, particularly through social media and knowledge management systems, to externalize implicit knowledge. The document also identifies key factors for fostering a collaborative environment, such as motivation, context, and structured communication opportunities.
Corporate Communications Today, Course Module 5: Knowledge Management
- 1. Corporate Communications Today Course Module 5: Knowledge Management 29.01.2013 Susanne Robra-Bissantz 1
- 2. Course Modules CM 1 Social Media CM 3 „Marketing“ CM 2 Collaboration CM 4 Innovation CM 5 Knowledge CM 6 Web Society WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 2
- 3. Collaboration approaches: internal – external? Innovation Management Knowledge Management Collaborative creativity Project support Organizational Learning Complaints: ideas and problems WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 3
- 4. Knowledge Management - Facts The ability to apply knowledge in the company and share it with partners correlates positively with the ability to build competitive advantages (Chew et al. 1990) The best ideas come through weak ties in a network– „the strength of weak ties“ (Granovetter 1979). Groups often make better decisions than individuals– „the wisdom of the crowds“ (Surowiecki 2004) Knowledge can be used by the entire company, if implicit knowledge of the individual is externalized. (Nonaka,Takeuchi 1997). Phenomenon of Information Stickiness – Knowledge „sticks“, it is difficult to transfer (from Hippel 1994). WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 4
- 5. And summarized: Collaboration seems to be important for organisations, but, it seems to be difficult. And the reason is the so called „information stickyness“. Organisations know that, and they try to transfer knowledge – from implicit knowledge to explicit knowledge. Implicit knowledge is not externalised and kept by one person. This may be because the person doesn‘t want to explicate it, but also because it is hard (or even impossible) to verbalize or because the person is unconscious about the fact that his knowledge may be important for others. Explicit knowledge is externalised (verbalized), even categorized and connected to other knowledge. Like this it can be adopted by others. They implement Knowledge Management Systems and use Incentives in order to make people share their knowledge. For example „points“ for knowledge pieces you provide. WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 5
- 6. Information Stickiness explicit knowledge categorized / networked Information Stickiness KMS, Incentives conscious unconscious implicit knowledge not / difficult verbalizable verbalizable verbalized WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 6
- 7. Instruments of Knowledge Management Lessons Learned Skill Management Best Practices Instruments of Knowledge Management Knowledge Cards Yellow Pages Find a quite good summary on knowledge management and different instruments on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management. WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 7
- 8. In social media, we try and start with the differences between implicit and explicit knowledge, and find out, that in order to transfer knowledge we need: • Occasions for Communication, that may appear in discussions on Blogs, Wikis and especially with status updates or activity streams, • Contexts – that may be interpersonal context, people are networked. In this case knowledge doesn‘t have to be explicated, but it is enough to know who knows what. Contexts on electronical platforms – between the contents – can brilliantly achieved via tagging, social tagging and tag clouds, as we introduced them last week. And: in our second lecture on social Media and Collaboration, you‘ll find functions in information cylce (slide 16), where you‘ll find „occasions for communication“ and „creation of contexts“. By the way: in the introduction of a Knowledge Management System, that has to be used voluntarily and because someone is motivated to to so, the following way has been proven to be successfull: Start with problems and questions that people may post. That is easy. The others will answer. Then let them post good ideas. Only after that finally build a social network, where you expect people to post what ever they know and may find interesting. By then they have probably understood the mechanic of giving and getting knowledge. And they feel good in posting contents to a social media plattform. What is difficult in the beginning... WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 8
- 9. Information Stickiness categorized / networked conscious unconscious explicit knowledge knowledge of relationships Networking Person Information Stickiness KMS, Incentives Blog Wiki Status update Networking Content Tagging Tagcloud Create contexts implicit knowledge not / difficult verbalizable verbalizable verbalized Create occasions for communication WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 9
- 10. Communication occasion question/problem A good starting point for communication, that may be implemented, are problems. Enable employees to ask their question. Others provide solutions, they may be discussed and evaluated and also linked together. IT enables the system to learn in every step. Find better respondands, discuss and integrate. Problems / Questions Response / Solution Discussion Learn Integrate and link Evaluate WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 10
- 11. Focus communication occasion: Question- and Responsecards Occasion for communication: Problem Question Additional motivation: - Votings - Expert status Proposed contacts for the question that had answers to the topic earlier. Answers may be evaluated and rated. WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 11
- 12. Focus communication context: Knowledge network Basis: Social Network (Relationships) with • People • Relationships • Projects and all of them connected by • Activities • Tags WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 12
- 13. Problems – research questions 1. How do I motivate my employees to contribute knowledge? 2. How do I motivate my employees to augment knowledge together? Starting points: Contributions: How do they have to be formulated in order to foster answers? Platform: Which features are needed, like status, evaluation....? Environment: What has to happen with the organisational culture – collaboration?!? WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 13
- 14. Fun to collaborate – willingness to collaborate openness contributions are valuable Social closeness mutuality Motivation trust Willingness to collaborate fun to contribute Participation shared understanding Interaction ideas grow „big“ many supporters WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 14
- 15. In these self-enforcing cycles: • Motivation is enhanced, because everybody realizes, that his contributions are valuable, and that then it is fun to contribute. • This enhances interaction and many employees support common knowledge. This again leads to a mutual understanding, via discussions and tagging. • The mutual understanding makes ideas grow as a result of a wisdom of the crowds – of participation. And at the same time trust raises – as collaborating works. • With trust a social closeness may grow. You learn that it is worth, being open and a sense of mutuallity appears. This again rises motivation. ... and concluding: the willingness to collaborate rises. But, as always, before you try and implement an IC-System, think about your goals (pinkish) first. WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 15
- 16. Need more knowledge? Social Bookmarking • Explicit knowledge is the asset for our organization. Our knowledge and a lot of knowledge from other sources is available – but often we do not find it. Wiki • Together, we know much more than every individual. We are working on a shared knowledge base. Skill-Network • It is enough if we know someone who knows something. Anything else is too much work. Social Network • Our knowledge is so difficult to grasp and articulate. Sometimes we only realize what is important in conversations. Idea-Blog • We want to continue to discuss and develop. Every individual, every new idea is valuable for our company. (Multi)-News-Blog • We work on projects which accumulate regularly and predictably a lot of information for different groups. Twitter • Not binding, share something not so important– it also strengthens the social cohesion WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 16
- 17. Collaboration approaches: internal – external? Innovation Management Knowledge Management Collaborative creativity Project support Organizational Learning Complaints: ideas and problems WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 17
- 18. In a short excursus, let‘s think about „learning“ – like we do it in organizational contexts, e. g. in courses and during knowledge management. Without explicating different possible systems – it is probably self explaining, that today frontal teaching without interaction and following a strict curriculum, like in lectures, doesn‘t fit learners needs. What we need is learning – in order to escape from the uncertainty we are faced with. We even need life-long-learning. But learning as to be connected to the problems we are faced with. Actually about 80% of what we know, doesn‘t come from institutional learning (in school, university and further education). We learn in contexts and, as information behaviour shows it, at information encounters – spaces in which discussion take place, often unplanned. This is even more important for the so called digital natives – that grow up with the internet and that have a completely different access to knowledge. Therefore we need a „modern“ learning – in situations, in collaboration ... WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 18
- 19. Demands of the modern "professional" learning Needs of learners connectivity „Modern“ learning ad hoc, in situations self-responsibility collaborative discursive formats self-controlled Knowledge in situations Construct knowledge playful?, authentic? acquiring skills Digital Natives Find knowledge Knowledge through exchange WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 19
- 20. We have actually learned about learning. Learning theories have changed – and also the functions of media – coloured in red typing in the next slide. The first behavioural approach stresses learning as based on experiences on stimulusresponse-relations. Material has to be structured and presented - media can support that in knowledge representation. In cognitive theories, internal cognitive processes are taken into account. The learner doesn‘t learn facts but processes that lead him to problem solving. The focus of media is knowledge transfer and the regulation of learning processes, that enable the learner to build new connections and approaches. In constructivist learning, we presume, that reality is always constructed and may only be learned in situations, where the learner is introduced in social or real contexts and works on problem solving himself and together with other learners and teachers. Media support this, when they provide knowledge tools – actually like our knowledge management systems. But still – in todays information behaviour, Kerres sees problems in media supported learning in embedding knowledge in authentic situations and social contexts. Social media may be a WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 20
- 21. Media in modern learning Behaviourist approach Cognitive theories Constructivist theories Theories of information behavior Knowledge presentation: Presentation and organization of knowledge Knowledge transfer: Control and regulation of the learning process Knowledge tool: Communication and construction of knowledge (Kerres, M.: Multimediale und telemediale Lernumgebungen, München et al. 2001, S. 95 ff.) „With its emphasis on social interaction in authentic contexts it seems that especially media-based learning is questionable.“ (Kerres, M.: Multimediale und telemediale Lernumgebungen, München et al. 2001, S. 82) WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 21
- 22. Technologies Social Media: - Facebook, Wikis, Twitter - Networking of people - Creation of platforms (Spaces) „With its emphasis on social interaction in authentic contexts it seems that especially media-based learning is questionable.“ (Kerres, M.: Multimediale und telemediale Lernumgebungen, München et al. 2001, S. 82) contextualising: - Identification of contexts - Reaction to contexts WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 22
- 23. Examples: Web 2.0 in teaching Video-Discussion • Advanced level • Youtube thesis videos • Collaboration • Ongoing discussion - public Twitter-Lecture • Mass lecture • Individual adaptation • Discussion, own contributions • Continuation online Wiki-Seminar • Smaller groups • Learning by teaching • Collaboration • Responsibility WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 23