The New Knowledge Media
by Dr. J. LeRoy Pearce
“Knowledge Management” is not about the management of knowledge but is the management of the uses of knowledge to gain advantage in human endeavours. Prof. T. D. Wilson, and Karl-Erik Sleiby claim that knowledge cannot be managed as it exists in the human mind and is not documented as is information but is possessed by all and used by all. Wilson’s position is that “the knowledge management idea is that it is, in large part a management fad, promulgated mainly by certain consultancy companies, and the probability is that it will fade away like previous fads.”
The use of knowledge includes knowing how, what, when and where to do whatever needs to be done. It also includes the invention or discovery of new knowledge. Knowing is based upon data, facts that can be organized into what can be termed information that has meaning within the context of the organizational frame of reference. Data are the seeds which when fertilized by imagination and experience can grow into knowledge. Based upon information and the user’s experiences, insight can be achieved and the user will then “know”. This has existed for centuries so “what is new?”
In order to better understand the current situation and why we are not confronted by “just another management fad”, it is instructional to review some of the insights published by Marshall McLuhan in the 1960’s, also discussed by Mark Federman. Specifically the famous phase “The Medium is the Message” is applicable. Computers interconnected over distance have caused a fundamental change in human dynamics within business and society. These interconnected networks of information management, discovery, storage and sharing devices have become a new “knowledge media”. They have changed how we use, discover, invent and share our knowing both in business and inhuman relations. This new media has motivated the invention of new terms in language, such as, today when seeking something new, we are most likely to “google it” to see what can be discovered. This approach might not eliminate asking someone or researching paper files or a library of documents but it has spawned a fundamental change of approach and resources. The available tools have greatly expanded into an “instant”, international capability, available to the mass of the population - this never existed before. A revolution in knowledge affairs happened with the invention of the printing press. A new revolution in human knowing has started with the deployment and refinement of the new “knowledge media”.
Notwithstanding, it is important to note that this revolution is not uniform in throughout the world but only within the more advanced economic regions. Approximately 80% of the world’s population has never heard a telephone dial tone let alone an “internet access”. Moreover, computer skills and literacy are fundamental requirements for the connected generation.
The real value for corporations and society will be generated only by creating environments that enable all people to create and share knowledge. This can only be done through building strategy, an environment, production and systems on one of the renewable resource available in organizations: knowledge. The biggest hurdle faced in achieving this goal is corporate culture and the competition model, “empires” hoarding and power. An industrial era culture of competition and survival of the strongest in a “knowledge is power”, hoarding is not conducive to the sharing of knowledge. While shared knowledge can be very powerful, corporate reward systems are often based upon an industrial era paradigm. Salaries, “status” and compensation for employees are generally determined by the size of the organization, the amount of money or number of people managed by an individual and not the criticality of value of the knowledge use skills and contribution that can or is being made by the employee toward corporate success.
The value of knowledge is both cognitive and contextually dependent. Any knowledge acquired has a value proportional to an individual’s ability to process it. The more a person knows the greater meaning it will have and the better the individual will be able to use it. The “knowledgeable person” will likely extract greater value from additional bits of knowledge in his domain of interest than a less knowledgeable person. The context within which the knowledge used influences will likely increase the “value” of that knowledge. For example, knowing how to build buggy whips was of business value in the 19th Century but, although of historical interest in the 21st Century, it has little value. The context of the potential use of the knowledge greatly influences its value. A little knowledge that is acted upon is of greater value that a lot of knowledge that is hidden in the “archives”.
Chun Wei Choo in discussing the “knowing organization” identifies three modes of organizational information use as:
1. sense making – the seeking out of a meaningful context for action, information interpretation
2. knowledge creating – knowledge gap identification, converting and combining tacit and explicit knowledge, the creating of new capabilities, innovations
3. decision making – search and selection of alternatives, guided by premises, rules that lead to goal direct action
The corporate value of knowledge use is a key component of environmental or creation of situational awareness, new capability creation or business innovation, and options, risk analysis as part of the decision making process. Knowledge is also a key ingredient of whatever the product the company is “selling”, and the know-how to generate the product that will be “sold” to the company’s clients. For individuals, knowledge can yield a sense of well-being related to “situational awareness”. While the “value” of knowledge might be difficult to define precisely, there is no doubt that it will grow in importance for both individuals and organizations. The management of knowledge use in the era of the new knowledge media is an employee skill that needs to be valued and rewarded in this evolving era. In addition, it is frequently possible to add employee or staff development. The new knowledge media is a global repository of information that is a key ingredient of knowing. It is important that all members of an organization develop a certainly level of literacy in the use of this new knowledge media if their institution is to be successful in its evolution.
In investigating the management of knowledge use, we must consider some of the components from which knowledge can be built and the nature of knowledge. Data when collected, put into context and organized can be viewed creating information. If this information is combined with experience and an individual’s perspective, knowledge can result for the beholder. Combining knowledge with judgement leads to understanding or even wisdom. Knowledge first needs to be created in an individual’s mind and subsequently documented in another form, such as words, images or film and video. Literacy, local culture and traditions are important considerations in gathering and sharing the knowledge. Some use images while others, particularly the western cultures make extensive use of words. In some cultures the sharing is done through story-telling and mentoring.
Hirotaka Takeuchi presents a perspective of knowledge, explicit and tacit. For western management, knowledge is usually explicit in nature, formal, systematic and can be expressed in words and numbers. In the Japanese culture, the view is that this “knowledge” is only the beginning and that knowledge is primarily tacit, not easily seen or expressed. Because such knowledge is highly personal and hard to formalize, it is difficult to share with others. Subjective insights, intuitions and hunches fall into this category. These are rooted in people’s experiences and also include their ideals, beliefs, values, and emotions. They are culturally dependent on both the society and its institutions. Accordingly, tacit knowledge can be extremely valuable to any organization. Managing it is a challenge that any organization wishing to excel must face.
Knowledge can be used to create product, develop new capabilities, and allow staff to achieve greater situational awareness and to better focus on action-oriented decisions. These goals require dealing with explicit and tacit knowledge and the development of different ways to use, develop and share them. Takeuchi illustrated these activities as a knowledge spiral. These interconnected knowledge devices around the world can facilitate these activities in a very dynamic fashion to help create a modern dynamic, knowledge creating and exploitation process. While this does not negate continued usage of more traditional techniques, it does change the response timelines and the tools available for use. At any point in this continuous knowledge spiral, individuals can tap the knowledge available for use and benefit. It is how this is done on a proactive basis that will determine competitiveness and success. Skilled employees within the current social and business affairs revolution can exploit the traditional and new media to harvest knowledge, create and use techniques to gain “market” advantage. These critical employees need to be valued and rewarded with a modern compensation scheme.
Key to corporate and personal success in the 21st century is good knowledge use management for:
· sense making – the seeking out of a meaningful context for action, information interpretation and generation of a good situational awareness at the tactical, operational and strategic levels
· knowledge creating – knowledge gap identification, converting and combining tacit and explicit knowledge, the creating of new capabilities, innovations
· decision making – search and selection of alternatives, guided by premises, rules that lead to goal direct action
· physical and/or intellectual product generation – know-how to generate a sellable item to clients
· personal and corporate resiliency – expanding knowledge assets so as to facilitate adaptability on a proactive basis.
While these five embody the value of knowledge within a particular contextual and cognitive environment, it is important to keep sight of the explicit and tacit nature of knowledge. Computers and data bases are of value in the management of information, more recently they have been used to facilitate the socialization exchanges. The use of “Facebook”, “YouTube”, “texting” and “Twitter” is developing a new paradigm in the human-to-human exchanges. During these early years of the 21st century, we are seeing the development of a “new knowledge media” both for library/archival storage of explicit knowledge and the exchanges of tacit knowledge. As never before, the scope, breadth and dynamics of exchanges, knowledge discovery and invention is now available to the masses.
Knowledge and its use is no longer the sole domain of an elite small sector of society. Individual and corporate literacy and skill with the use of this new media are key to future success in business and human endeavours.
The question can be asked, “What does all this have to do with Security and Defence?” The new knowledge media is a foundational critical infrastructure of today’s economic and human society and we must learn how to use it to advantage and protect its resiliency and trustworthiness. Modern SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems, vital to the ongoing operation and control of many of our critical systems, such as the electrical power grid and oil pipe lines are using this new knowledge media. The security of our society, way of life and national defence matters are fundamentally linked to the new knowledge media and an effective and efficient use of the media. The corporate aspects of security and defence need to adapt to the new networked business and government functioning world of the 21st century. The operational aspects of security and defence, in particular command and control, have situational awareness knowledge use and influence as an essential activity. In both business and defence operations we must be able to estimate the current situation based on a restricted number of observables. We can use these observables including present and trend information, for the analysis of possible options and outcomes of operational decisions. The accuracy of these operations is key to a secure and stable society.
In terms of the Canadian Forces, it has been noted by LGen Andrew Leslie that in preparing the Army for 2021, the focus is on an adaptive force that is a JIMP-enabled (Joint, Interagency, Multinational, Public) force. To be able to operate in this dynamic and complex environment, the Canadian Army must continue to evolve as a very heavily “digitized” Army, “a learning organization” that makes heavy use of the new knowledge media as well as the added access to real-time “open-source” intelligence.
A changing, dynamic situational awareness for complex operational environments will continue to be a high priority with all branches of the Canadian Forces, Police and Emergency Agencies. As our interests in Arctic region resources grow, so will the need for Canadian controlled knowledge of what is there, what is happening and what could happen in the Arctic region claimed by Canada.
There can be no doubt that the security and defence of our society and way of life is critically interdependent upon the well being, control and development of this new knowledge media. Our way of business, social, and government functioning life will continue to evolve. “The media is the message”.
