Corporate Communications Today, Course Module 5: Knowledge Management

Corporate Communications Today

Course Module 5: Knowledge Management29.01.2013

Susanne Robra-Bissantz

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WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite

Course Modules

CM 1Social Media

CM 3„Marketing“

CM 2 Collaboration

CM 4Innovation

CM 5Knowledge

CM 6Web Society

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Collaboration approaches: internal – external?

Collaborative creativity

Innovation Management

Organizational LearningComplaints: ideas and problems

Knowledge Management

Project support

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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).

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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.

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implicitknowledge

unconscious

conscious

categorized / networked

not / difficultverbalizable

verbalizable verbalized

explicitknowledge

Information StickinessKMS, Incentives

Information Stickiness

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Instruments of Knowledge Management

KnowledgeCards

Instruments of Knowledge Management

Best Practices

LessonsLearned

YellowPages

SkillManagement

Find a quite good summary on knowledge management and different instruments on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management.

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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...

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implicitknowledge

unconscious

conscious

categorized / networked

not / difficultverbalizable

verbalizable verbalized

Create contexts

explicitknowledge

BlogWikiStatus update

Networking Content

TaggingTagcloud

knowledge of relationships

NetworkingPerson

Information StickinessKMS, Incentives

Information Stickiness

Create occasions for communication

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Problems / Questions

Response / Solution Discussion

EvaluateIntegrate and linkLearn

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.

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Focus communication occasion: Question- and Responsecards

Occasion for communication: Problem

Additional motivation:- Votings- Expert status

Question

Proposed contacts for the question that had answers to the topic earlier.

Answers may be evaluated and rated.

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Focus communication context: Knowledge networkBasis: Social Network(Relationships) with

• People• Relationships• Projects

and all of them connected by

• Activities• Tags

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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?!?

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Fun to collaborate – willingness to collaborate

Social closeness Motivation

InteractionParticipation

Willingness to collaborate

openness

trust

mutuality

contributions are valuable

fun tocontribute

many supporters

sharedunderstanding

ideas grow„big“

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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.

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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

Need more knowledge?

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Collaboration approaches: internal – external?

Collaborative creativity

Innovation Management

Organizational LearningComplaints: ideas and problems

Knowledge Management

Project support

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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 ...

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Demands of the modern "professional" learning

connectivity

self-responsibility

discursive formats

ad hoc, in situations

collaborative

self-controlled

playful?, authentic?

acquiring skills

Needs of learners „Modern“ learning

Knowledge through exchange

Knowledge in situations

Find knowledge

Construct knowledge

Digital Natives

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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 stimulus-response-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

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Media in modern learning

„With its emphasis on social interaction inauthentic contexts it seems that

especially media-based learning is questionable.“

(Kerres, M.: Multimediale und telemediale Lernumgebungen, München et al. 2001, S. 82)

Behaviouristapproach

Cognitivetheories

Constructivisttheories

Theories ofinformation 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.)

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Technologies

„With its emphasis on social interaction inauthentic contexts it seems that

especially media-based learning is questionable.“

(Kerres, M.: Multimediale und telemediale Lernumgebungen, München et al. 2001, S. 82)

Social Media:- Facebook, Wikis, Twitter- Networking of people- Creation of platforms (Spaces)

contextualising:- Identification of contexts- Reaction to contexts

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Examples: Web 2.0 in teaching

Twitter-Lecture• Mass lecture• Individual adaptation• Discussion, own contributions• Continuation onlineVideo-Discussion

• Advanced level• Youtube thesis videos• Collaboration• Ongoing discussion - public

Wiki-Seminar• Smaller groups• Learning by teaching• Collaboration• Responsibility

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Corporate Communications Today, Course Module 5: Knowledge Management

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Transcript of Corporate Communications Today, Course Module 5: Knowledge Management