Knowledge Architecture People Designing a Knowledge Architecture Department Tom Reamy Chief Knowledge Architect KAPS Group Knowledge Architecture Professional Services

2 Agenda  Introduction: What is Knowledge Architecture?  KA Roles and Functions  Skills and Backgrounds  Tools and Technology  Services and Partners  Knowledge Architecture Real Life Example  Organization and Location of the KA Team

3 Introduction: What is Knowledge Architecture?  The people, processes, and technology of designing, implementing, and applying the intellectual infrastructure of organizations.  What is an intellectual infrastructure? – The poor neglected cousin of technology and organizational infrastructures – It is just the set of activities that deal with creating, capturing, organizing, visualizing, presenting, utilizing, understanding, the information part of the information age.

4 Knowledge Architecture  Information + Contexts = Knowledge  Information Architecture + Infrastructure of Contexts = Knowledge Architecture  Content Contexts – Structured views  Personal / Community Contexts – Personalization, Virtual and real communities  Activity Contexts – Knowledge workers and embedded knowledge structures – Smart Applications

5 Roles and Functions  Chief Knowledge Architect  Knowledge Analysts  Knowledge Engineers  Knowledge Facilitators  Knowledge Managers  Additional Roles: Supplementary and Support

6 Chief Knowledge Architect  Work with Chief Knowledge Officer – Build a Knowledge Culture – Advocate, Evangelize  Design & lead integration of all the elements of the Intellectual infrastructure of the Enterprise  Design measurement and analytics of KM in organization  Define and lead the KA Team  Research New Ideas and Technologies – Personas, Stories, Semantic Web and RDF, Cognitive Anthropology, Complexity Theory

7 Knowledge Analysts  Corporate Librarians +  Content Specialists  Knowledge Organization Structures – Taxonomies, Classification Schemas – Metadata and controlled vocabularies  Search and Categorization Software  Organization of people and activities – Tacit Knowledge structures – Living map of communities and information needs

8 Knowledge Engineers  User and task specialist  Information Architect+  Collect, analyze, organize tacit knowledge  Interview users, focus groups, persona  Ethnographic studies  Work with Business Analysts

9 Knowledge Facilitators  Establish connections between individuals to facilitate knowledge transfer  Facilitate explicit knowledge transfer  Train people to incorporate KM  Understand the information needs of individuals and communities and work with them to achieve business goals.  Incorporate KM into chat groups, story telling, , collaboration and innovation efforts.

10 Knowledge Managers  Project Management+  Capture the knowledge generated in a project  Develop knowledge sharing practices  Capture Best Practices  Provide training and leadership on projects  Moderate Communities of Practice

11 Additional Roles: Supplementary & Support  Information Architects – Develop information navigation systems – Usability, user research  Web Design – User oriented web sites – Prototype IA designs  Business Analysts, Project managers  E-Learning – Performance Support, Learning Objects

12 Skills: Backgrounds  Interdisciplinary, Generalists, Idea and People people  Library Science, Information Architecture  Anthropology, Cognitive Science  Learning, Education, History of Ideas  Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics  Business Intelligence, Database Administration

13 Tools and Technology: Used by the KA Team  Categorization, Unstructured Data Management  Search Engines  Analytics – usage, language and activity  Important to use the information tools of the company – Collaboration, ideas databases, content management, etc.  Polls and surveys  Spreadsheets  Brains

14 Knowledge Architecture Partners  IT Applications and System – Implementation and Evaluation  Corporate Communication, HR  Training – Practical projects and theory – Learning Objects  Research Departments

15 Knowledge Architecture Services  Knowledge Architecture Audit  Knowledge Creating – Innovation, E-learning – Content Management Taxonomic Model, Distributed Categorization  Knowledge Sharing / Transmission – Collaboration, Retrieval – content and experts  Knowledge Using – Smart Applications, CRM. Portals – Data warehouse, text mining, business intelligence

16 Knowledge Architecture Services  Application of Intellectual infrastructure – People – even Amazon is moving away from automated recommendations  Facilitate projects, KM Project teams – Core group of consultants and K managers  Facilitate knowledge capture in meetings  Answering online questions, facilitating online discussions, networking within a community  Design and run forums, education fairs, etc.

17 Knowledge Architecture Services  Infrastructure Activities – Integrate taxonomy across the company Content, communities, activities – Design content repositories, update and adapt categorization – Package knowledge into K objects, combine with stories, learning histories – Metrics and Measurement – analyze and enhance – Knowledge Architecture Audit Enterprise wide Project scale

18 Knowledge Architecture in Real Life: Knowledge Architecture Audit  A set of reports, catalogs, recommendations, and components characterizing the current state of an organization’s intellectual infrastructure.  A foundation and planning document for improving the intellectual health of the organization by incorporating knowledge architecture into a range of projects.  Can be done in a little as two days, five days, or 10 days  And for the rest of your life.

19 Knowledge Architecture in Real Life: Knowledge Architecture Audit  Preliminary Information Gathering – CKA – design approach, identify people, work with primary project owners – Knowledge Analyst – catalog content repositories, high level characterization, identify content issues – Knowledge Engineer – identify representative sets of people to interview and study, select set of approaches – Knowledge Facilitator – gather available documentation – Knowledge Manager – arrange interviews, meetings

20 Knowledge Architecture in Real Life: Knowledge Architecture Audit  Stakeholder Interviews – CKA, knowledge engineers, business analysts: executive sponsors, steering committees, content owners, publishers, technical and business support teams, representative user groups, and others. – Map the strategic landscape – Map and engage components of the process and procedures of information creation and application

21 Knowledge Architecture in Real Life: Knowledge Architecture Audit  Content Repository Catalog – Knowledge Analyst – Structured and unstructured content repositories – Source, publishers and authors, procedures – where add structure – Metadata, vocabularies, taxonomies, dictionaries (formal and informal – users) – Taxonomy and metadata Evaluation

22 Knowledge Architecture in Real Life: Knowledge Architecture Audit  Community Catalog – Knowledge Engineer – Formal and informal communities – Virtual and Real communities – Type – collaboration, communication, etc. – Business functions – Internal and external communication channels – Primary and secondary content repositories

23 Knowledge Architecture in Real Life: Knowledge Architecture Audit  User and Task Analysis – Knowledge Engineer, Facilitator – Usability plus information behaviors Frequency and depth of access Known item, research, activity – Interviews, focus groups, ethnographic studies – Knowledge Architect Search and usage log analysis

24 Knowledge Architecture in Real Life: Knowledge Architecture Audit  Technology Needs Assessment – CKA, Knowledge Mangers – In partnership with IT and business owners – Map infrastructure elements for each technology – Evaluation plans and design projects – Recommendations and real cost estimates

25 Knowledge Architecture in Real Life: Knowledge Architecture Audit  Practical Foundation & Life After Audit – Seed taxonomies and/or controlled vocabularies – Metadata schemas, Persona Candidates and methods – Project recommendations – Prototype screens, applications, web sites – Monitor usage and design responses

26 Why Knowledge Architecture?  Knowledge Management Foundation  Immanuel Kant – Concepts without percepts are empty – Percepts without concepts are blind  Knowledge Management – KM without applications is empty (Strategy Only) – Applications without KA are blind (IT based KM)

27 Knowledge Architecture – Sight to the Blind  Search & Retrieval: Is anyone happy? – Trends – more articles on taxonomies, CM – New tools and approaches  Need an infrastructure team of general specialists  Anyone can organize information – card sorts, etc. – Web masters to information architects – Develop taxonomies – can’t be done by software or SME’s – Metadata, vocabularies – keywords don’t work – why?

28 Knowledge Architecture: Taxonomies  Need a combination of formal and informal  Difference between browse and formal taxonomies – Hierarchy, lattice, semantic networks, folders, etc. – Important to know the differences  Quality Metrics – Corpus, Coverage, Nomenclature, terminology, dependency – Mixed classes, verbal forms, bad speciation, etc. – Bell Curve, balance of depth and width  Cognitive Difference – Geography of Thought – Panda, monkey, banana

29 Place in the Enterprise: Intellectual Infrastructure  Would you try to run your company without organizing it? – Or let each project redefine the organization, jobs and pay, reporting structures, etc.?  Would you try to run your computers without a networked infrastructure? – Or let each person or team have a standalone, own software, own operating system, etc.?  Why do you think you can run your company without organizing your content in an integrated, systematic way?

30 Organization and Location of the Team  Central, Dedicated Department – Cross Organizational  IT, HR, Corporate Communication, Library, Training  Internal vs. Professional Services  How much can be done at the beginning and then maintained by small staff and how much ongoing? – Answer from Knowledge Architecture Audit

31 Summary  In information age, need to treat information as central  Information organization is an infrastructure element  Knowledge architecture people need to be: – Generalists, good with people and ideas – Smart, funny, and can dance real good  Knowledge architecture will: – Bring about the end of history – Usher in the third age of mankind – Help organizations work smarter and cheaper