Knowledge Management Systems Phet Namphengsone MIS 650 – Spring 2004 S. Kadiyala April 28, 2004

Main Topics Introduction to Knowledge Management (KM), the ABC’s – Basic information about knowledge management and a definition The Value Knowledge Provides Data Mining – A technique used to gather data Benefits of Data Mining How Knowledge Seekers Can Improve How They Collect and Gather Knowledge Fusion – A technique used to manipulate knowledge into something useful/purposeful for an organization Human and Social Factors – Factors that should be considered while determining the accuracy of the data Making Distributed Innovation Work – After knowledge has been converted into a useful form, how can it work for the organization by sharing/distributing Introduction to Knowledge Portals – A medium that can be used to share the knowledge

The ABC’s of Knowledge Management There are many versions of what KM means to different people and there is not even agreement as to what comprises knowledge to begin with. Based on a research resource (KM) is the process through which companies and organizations obtain, organize, and manipulate data for use within the company. This type of data may be kept in databases or more sophisticated software that has been designed for data of this magnitude. The data may be shared with many employees, departments, or other companies. Not all data is managed by Information Technology (IT), but it's safe to say IT has a major part in this process. Systems and software either designed in house or bought off the shelve can organize raw data and validate it for purposeful use. Stating that data is powerful and crucial to any business would be an understatement. Without it, most or maybe all companies would not be where they are today.

Valuing Knowledge There is a distinct difference between knowledge itself and the knowledge holder. Knowledge that is actually kept in a knowledge management system is not the same as knowledge that resides in the human mind. The knowledge holder is considered to be an asset to the company and gains value over time. As time goes on the person gains more knowledge, experience, and can use it within his or her environment for intended purpose of the company. Knowledge itself is a depreciating asset. Licenses, patents, and other lose value quickly if they are not being put to use. Whether knowledge is explicit or tacit will determine who owns the knowledge. Explicit knowledge more times belongs to the company because of its data form while tacit knowledge cannot be expressed, it usually belongs to the knowledge holder. It becomes explicit when it transitions from :unexpressionable" to shareable. Still, some companies have tried to own tacit knowledge due to the fact that the knowledge holder is the owner of the company - which in some cases is true. During his or her employment the employee may be limited to what knowledge can be shared outside the company due to proprietary reasons, but if he or she were to ever leave the company, the knowledge that they have gained goes with them. Data, information, and knowledge are very key factors in a company's success, but it still does no good if they are not used to produce quality products or services to make things faster, better, cheaper for the customer..

Introduction to Data Mining Data storing has become easier as larger amounts of computing power becomes available for low cost. There's also been a boost of new methods and technologies available that become convenient for data store versus the traditional data analysis technique. i.e. logic programming and analytical programming packages. Data mining has numerous versions of what it could mean. Here are some that have described this ambiguous term: –Data Mining, or Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) as it is also known, is the nontrivial extraction of implicit, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from data. This encompasses a number of different technical approaches, such as clustering, data summarization, learning classification rules, finding dependency net works, analyzing changes, and detecting anomalies." –"Data mining is the search for relationships and global patterns that exist in large databases but are `hidden' among the vast amount of data, such as a relationship between patient data and their medical diagnosis. These relationships represent valuable knowledge about the database and the objects in the database and, if the database is a faithful mirror, of the real world registered by the database."

What Can Data Mining Do For You? Data mining can help identify the company's best potential customers and then actually keep them long term. –Within the Marketing function at a company, focusing on only the best potential customers will save the company time and money which will result in more affectivity of the marketing operation. Another benefit is the ability obtain cross selling opportunities and then making a recommendation. –No matter what business your in, giving your customers the capability to find products and information about products more efficiently will increase service quality, customer satisfaction, and value of communication. Some other benefits: Learn parameters influencing trends in sales/margin and segment markets and personalize communications.

The Need to Improve Ways on How Knowledge is Gathered and Shared Before and during the 9/11 tragedy, federal agencies didn't focus or make a priority the sharing of knowledge amongst companies. The Department of Homeland Security has now been tasked to changing this mindset. Not only are they required to gather, analyze, and validate knowledge, but they have also been mandated to distribute this information to other agencies that have KMS needs. The government has an abundance of existing information in data warehouses, but the difference is they have not organized it well enough to gain knowledge from it. Some are critical that the information gathered will be put to good use. Communication amongst agencies has always been a problem, so will the aftermaths of not having enough "knowledge" during 9/11 change how they look at this concept? "As taxpayers, we can only hope that by spending the money, the federal government is truly serious about KM. If that's the case, then everyone involved in Washington needs to tackle once and for all the real issue crimping effective KM: It's not a lack of technology but rather a lack of a collaborative environment sustained by a unified vision."

Fusion Fusion is a technique used to generate knowledge by bringing people with different ideas and perspectives together to come up with one viable solution. Fusion is effective when different people's skills, experiences, and ideas are leveraged and combined to develop the best possible alternative to solving the problem. Having only one person's idea of right is not always what is right for the company. Change that will impact large numbers of people requires the input and feedback of those people to really benefit from any one alternative. According to Prusak and Davenport, here are five knowledge management principles that can help make fusion work effectively: –Foster awareness of the value of the knowledge sought and a willingness to invest in the process of generating it. –Identify key knowledge workers who can be effectively brought together in a fusion effort. –Emphasize the creative potential inherent in the complexity and diversity of ideas, seeing differences as positive rather than sources of conflict and avoiding simple answers to complex questions. –Make the need for knowledge generation clear so as to encourage, reward and direct it toward a common goal. –Introduce measures and milestones of success that reflect the true value of knowledge more completely than simple balance-sheet accounting.

Making Distributed Innovation Work The economy is moving towards transparency - the expectation and demand of transparency in all things, including the escape of information. However, in distributed innovation, transparency is a must and required for the people who choose to participate. Information should continue to be updated for the data to be valid. Information escapes, but new/updated information will always replace outdated information if following the right process in providing valuable knowledge. Old knowledge becomes useless. A network that forms to create valuable knowledge will need to have effective systems and processes. Different companies may be at different phases of implementing this knowledge gathering process/system. Some companies use off the shelve software and some build and develop these systems in house by hiring computer programmers and analysts. These companies are coming more and more common in providing knowledge gathering services.

Human and Social Factors in Knowledge Management The common way of describing knowledge management (KM) has been to give people the right information at the right time. Some disagree with this statement and argue that human and social factors should be considered. As the area of KM develops and becomes more widespread and varied in experience with different approaches to how KM is gained, that it will become clearer how all the pieces fit together and how social and intellectual factors fit in. Creating and maintaining knowledge and its social context will only become more vital. One of the most important aspects of a KM system is that it becomes what people have deemed a knowledge community, a place where people find, use, and manipulate knowledge, and can encounter and interact with others who are doing the same. A fundamental characteristic of a knowledge community is that it includes conversation. I. E. stories, group discussion among acquainted people and share professional interests. They understand the contexts within which their remarks are being made. Also, having a better understanding of how to socialize knowledge through techniques such using group interaction will provide organizations greater capabilities in creating, sharing, and reusing the knowledge that is critical to survival of their organization in today's competitive environment.

A Brief Intro to Knowledge Portals The term “portal” is used pretty broadly because it evolved over time and became commonplace. Portals started as applications, providing a single point of access to distributed on-line information. To accommodate access to larger capacities of knowledge, portals include advanced search capabilities and organizing schemes. Because of their focus on information, these portals are often called information portals and provide a valuable service on the Internet, by selecting, organizing, describing, and evaluating useful sites. Portals are defined with respect to a community of users who share common tasks and interests. This is especially true for internal corporate portals, where different functional and organizational groups may have different needs for information access and organization. Information portals used by knowledge workers are also known as knowledge portals to differentiate this KM role and usage from other portal roles.

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