Changing world of knowledge sharing: technology or connections?
The last decade has seen massive changes in the way we access, disseminate, share and validate knowledge, opening up a digital environment with seemingly limitless possibilities for personal connections and social networking. This new digital world and the way we interact with it provide great opportunities and many challenges. What are the keys for success?
Characteristics of the change
Many knowledge management professionals, including George Siemens, Alan Levine, Stephen Denning, Stowe Boyd and Dave Pollard continue to explore the implications of the changing digital environment for individuals and organisations.
Siemens comments in a recent blog that we have “fundamentally rewritten how we:
- consume media (music, TV, news – all moving to web-based models)
- collaborate (wikis, groupware, skype)
- find information (Google)
- authenticate (trusted networks instead of established sources)
- express ourselves and our ideas (blogs, podcasts, vlogs)
- relate to information/knowledge (the relationship time is much shorter – compare ½ hour reading the morning newspaper vs. reading 50 news sources online in 10 minutes…or the deluge of information, requiring that we become much more selective and that we start using external resources (tags, OneNote, Furl, del.icio.us) to cope)”
Siemens wonders if we know what we are becoming, calling this period of time the “chameleonesque era”, a time of change and possibilities but with no clear view of the higher ideal.
Information and knowledge can be recorded live and presented to the world as it happens and the trusted sources of knowledge are often colleagues, friends and peers rather than published authoritative experts in the field. Bryan Sinclair comments that
“With the rise of Web 2.0 and social software we are witnessing a major shift in the ways students approach and use information. They no longer merely consume and download information; increasingly, they create and participate in it. They are social creatures in every way that past generations were and in some new ways, sharing information digitally and using each other as sounding boards. They value social experiences that blend communication and learning.”
Social networking, social software, Web 2.0/ 3.0 are new terms but the concepts behind it of creating community, sharing content and collaborating are not. What is “new” is the capability of these new tools in the digital environment which makes connecting to people anywhere in the world easier and faster. Speed of access to information, self-interpretation and discovery, acceptance of information that may be less than authoritative and possibly less accurate is more important than “approved” sources.
As Ash comments “Speed and agility are paramount in the Knowledge Age. Keeping up means survival; not keeping up sudden death”. With the continuing popularity of these new tools for sources of information and interactions, the implications for knowledge management is challenging as is contemplating the future of the print environment? Is there still a place for print?
Valued Knowledge
What kind of knowledge is valued? Dave Pollard, in his highly regarded blog, “How to save the world” shares his views about information which is valued and that which is rarely used. He postulates that most of the energy that goes into organising and maintaining public websites and repositories has “little or no value”. What is valued is:
- connection, just in time knowledge acquired through context-rich interaction (i.e. conversation)
- information to which value (meaning, suggested action) has been added through visualization, synthesis and analysis.
- Conversational content (for participants and for a short time)
- analysed content that tells people either what something means, or what should they do about it
- Project content
- “know-who” directories (if up to date)
- stories (these have the longest shelf life).
For teachers and others, Pollard has this to say:
The value you bring to an organization is not what you do, what processes and infrastructure and other 'organizational changes' you implement, or even what decisions you make. Those things are all transient; they are gone before you know it.
The only sustainable value you bring to an organization is what you show and teach and inspire in other people you work with.
In other words the value you bring to the organisation is your knowledge sharing capability.
Connectivism
George Siemens theorises that learning is a network formation process, which he calls “connectivism”. The currency and the quality of our networks is the thing that determines the quality of our learning. Our expertise lies within our networks rather than with a single person.
Learners, increasingly have their own personal spaces, in applications such as Myspace or Facebook, and don’t want to go to someone else’s space, according to Siemens. “They want YOUR content in THEIR space”.
According to ComScore in June 2007 the world’s top three social networking sites – YouTube, Myspace and Facebook – attracted more the 350 million people to their websites. Alan Levine notes that 90% of US college students now have Facebook accounts and the application’s Australian population grew by 80% in June 2007.
Consider: How then can organizations ensure the knowledge they have created, or want to share, reaches their learners if learners are not going to their websites or if organizations are not venturing into virtual worlds?
This question is vital, given the massive uptake of social software.
The reality of virtual reality
The changing online world now also blurs between reality and virtual reality. Alan Levine, spoke recently about his connectedness through the virtual world, Second Life. He told how he watched the launch of the NASA Space Shuttle in Second Life in July this year and how he was among 70 avatars watching the coverage live from Second Life.
Resources:
Two websites which provide resources and information about how virtual worlds are being used in education are:
The Australian Flexible Learning Framework’s New Practices website has resources and information arising from the GippsTAFE project on the use of virtual worlds.
Jo Kay, who was with NSW TAFE until recently, has a website that tracks educational projects which have used Second Life.
Why would Levine want to watch the launch of the space shuttle in a virtual world and not in the real world? It seems that he could watch it online with “friends” (or avatars) and chat to them about the event whereas in the real world his friends were not available to get together and he would have watched it “home alone”. In the virtual world, he could heighten his experience and comprehension of the event. The new virtual “in world” world is adding to the complexity of knowledge management as educational institutions struggle to come to grips with the potential (or lack of potential) of this new online tool.
How can we embrace the use of virtual worlds for learning purposes? Growing numbers are doing just that - examples include the New Media Consortium, Central Gippsland Institute of TAFE, TAFE NSW - Sydney Institute, TAFE NSW - Riverina Institute, NSW LearnScope, and a huge number of individual educators.
Control or embrace changes
According to Siemens, there exists a number of organizations using new social technologies inappropriately to control and direct activities and outcomes. This issue, he defines as forcing “decentralized models into centralized models”, with the results such as an “LMS for learning, learning object repositories to manage our content, corporate lock-downs on instant message, and district-wide bans on social networking tools”. Does this sound familiar?
Consider: Should students be able to access Second Life in our organizations and use the potential of this virtual world? What have institutions to lose by adopting new technologies rather than spending energy and resources fighting them? How much of our creative energy is being pushed “outside” the organisation?
The concept of changing how we educate to meet these challenges is central to some of the work of Siemens.
“Forget wikis...think collaboration. Forget podcasts...think democracy of voice. Forget RSS/aggregation...think personal networks”.
The online tool is only the instrument used in the change process. Siemens says “If we present blogs and wikis as ways to improve education, our aspirations are noble. If we present them as ways to fundamentally alter the system to align it with the knowledge needs of the next generation, then we are fighting for real change”.
Key to success
The central driver for success in the 21st century according to Stephen Denning et al, will be knowledge sharing using communities of practice and connected environments, supporting Siemens’ view that information technology is simply a tool for enabling knowledge sharing. Denning et al have identified seven “laws” of knowledge sharing:
- Knowledge sharing is essential to economic survival
- Communities of practice are the heart and soul of knowledge sharing
- Virtual community members also need physical interactions – to establish bonds and trust
- Passion is the driving force behind communities of practice – communities need a passionate commitment to a common purpose, if created hierarchically have less success
- Communities enrich organisations and personal lives
- Knowledge sharing has inside-out and outside-in dynamic – organizations need to use insiders who “know” the environment and have credibility. Outsiders can be brought in to validate and move the agenda forward.
- Storytelling ignites knowledge sharing.
Reflection
Reflecting on the principles of these laws and the impact of new technologies in our organisations we could ask the following questions:
- Do the tools we use, like SharePoint, blogs and wikis, provide significant online opportunities for communities to share their knowledge? How successful or well used do you think these online tools are in your experience? Is there more usage when you have a passionate knowledge sharing driver?
- If passion is the driving force of communities of practice, do our organisations try and encourage or discourage emotion in our workplaces?
- Do tools like Adobe Connect provide a sufficient “face to face” component for a community of practice? Is it only the physical sight of someone or is it the physical presence of another community member that is important?
- What about Second Life – is this another opportunity to form personal networks or connect with learners? How can educational pedagogy fuse with this virtual world without losing sight of the higher ideal?
- Are we too controlling in the online environment? Should we be more focused on decentralization rather than centralisation?
- We can capture all online conversations but do we need to and how will we manage them?
There are no simple answers to these questions. As Bob Dylan sang in 1964
don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin
References
We refer to several knowledge management professionals
George Siemens, Associate Director with the Learning Technologies Centre at University of Manitoba and author of Knowing Knowledge
Alan Levine, Vice President of Community and Chief Technology Officer for the New Media Consortium,
Stephen Denning and colleagues from the World Bank from a recent report by Jerry Ash, Next Generation Knowledge Management.
Dave Pollard, consultant, Meeting of Minds, previously Chief Knowledge Officer for for Ernst & Young in Canada. Maintains a highly regarded blog, "How to Save the World."