A *Formula* for Intellectual Infrastructure

It is amazing how you see links to what you truly believe in and are passionate about in just about everything - which at first seems unrelated - you come across. I took a break from work last week during which I caught up with a book called "Small is Beautiful" by EF Schumacher. I was thrilled to find some material for this blog therein and more importantly food for thought.

Schumacher's book was written in the early 1970s and focuses on the importance of preserving the environment through appropriate economic policies and actions. He questions the then economic policies and wonders if our obsession with economic growth at the cost of the environment and people's real needs (employment, manageable growth rate, development of rural areas) will leave us in dire straits. How true. Today, more than 3 decades later, one of the most critical issues for all governments and human beings on earth is the depletion of natural resources, global warming and unabated industrial growth that comes at severe intangible costs.

In one of the chapters, Schumacher talks about the need for an "intellectual infrastructure" strategy in order to help developing countries. And it has an uncanny resemblance to a typical knowledge management strategy, in my opinion. 

Schumacher's intellectual infrastructure plan reads as follows: (Rephrased Extracts)

1. Communication - To enable workers to know what other workers are doing and to facilitate direct exchange of information

2. Information Brokerage - To assemble and distribute relevant information. The essence being not to hold all the information in one centre but to hold information on information or know-how on know-how

3. Feed-back - Transmission of problems from the field to the groups where the solutions exist

4. Sub-structures - Creation and co-ordination of action groups and teams for assistance (champions) within the field - that is, within the target audience themselves

It takes me back to my reflection that KM strategies need the three Tipping Point Cs - Communication, Champions and Context.

What do you think? Does your KM strategy follow these principles and ideas?

Social Media...Nectar or Poison?

Life is such an irony at times! In other words, it is a totally paradoxical world whichever way you look at it.

Social Media and Networking was originally meant to deliver us from ignorance. We were and are being advised to stay in touch, keep running, reading, and having conversations so we will be able to make sense of this complex world. And many of us oblige obediently. Because we want to be in the know. We want to run along with the world and not be left behind. We email, we blog, we tweet, we facebook, we digg and we what not. Some of us have the stamina and bandwidth to manage more than some others....but, eventually, we are all exhausted by the constant bombardment. It becomes so tiring that we don't see/process something that's happening right under our noses. After all, how on earth can we practically keep up with billions of people and events that happen every time we blink? I've, more than once, pondered over the dilemma of having to catch up with too many things and the inability to focus on and get deeper into one of the many things that come to us from the ever-growing virtual world. It is, all in all, a chaotic and fragile web of distractions that we are stuck to or rather dangle from.

So, when @VMaryAbraham tweeted a link to this article, I was amused. [I saw the article only because I happened to be catching up with tweets. Heh.]

Here comes more of the irony I referred to at the start of this post. I saw the tweet, read the article (for once I did not skim through but actually read the whole thing steadily), re-tweeted it to my circle on Twitter, bookmarked it on Delicious, posted it to my colleagues on our own internal equivalent of Twitter, posted it on the Indian KM Community website for feedback from other KMers and then headed over here to talk about it! Mother of all ironies, don't you think? [Could even be a mild form of schizophrenia ;-)]. And before I forget to mention, this was not a continuous process. I obviously got distracted by a dozen mails and plenty of tweets. [Mirthless laugh!]

Getting back to the article, the author starts off with the question, "What are the consequences of exposure to a constant, high-volume stream of media and information?" and goes on to answer it herself. She says - and I agree because it's quite logical - it reduces your attention span, makes you stupid, lazy, turn into a jerk, an annoying companion and gullible. She fortunately finishes the post with some suggestions on how to avoid the impact that addiction to SM tools could potentially have on us.

In the article Nicholas Carr is quoted as saying "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." I couldn't have put it better.

And I must now make the deadliest of confessions. I actually liked the pictures in the article and was chuckling at them (the kitten, the shiny things etc). They served their purpose and distracted me enough to be able to get back to reading the article as soon as I'd seen them. Speaking of which, it's high time I get your attention back on this post. Take a look at this pic and take a deep breath. Nice pic, right?

Calvin and Hobbes

But I seriously think that it is only the IT world that is so distracted and interrupted by social media tools. People in most other professions (especially the ones that don't involve staring at computer monitors and require the mobile phones to be switched off) are away from this chaotic web when they're at work. Makes me want to go away from IT and get into painting or something.

Which reminds me. Before I read the article under question, I actually ended up deleting a lot of pending RSS feeds that I was unable to catch up with for the past one month or so. I should, I suspect, feel relieved about having done that.

If you remember, I said I'd posted this article on the Indian KM community website. Just reaped the benefits of doing that. Even as I was busy writing this piece, I got to read another very useful article that @dineshtantri shared on the thread. This post's author puts it well too - "The speed with which information hurtles towards us is unavoidable (and it's getting worse). But trying to catch it all is counterproductive. The faster the waves come, the more deliberately we need to navigate. Otherwise we'll get tossed around like so many particles of sand, scattered to oblivion. Never before has it been so important to be grounded and intentional and to know what's important." Of course, there are times when we don't know whether something is important or not until we follow it through and, more confusingly, somethings turn out to be important only when we follow it through! It's a complicated world.

PS: I just traced this post (that is, MY POST) back to its beginning and re-read it and have this strange feeling that it is not a continuous post but a loose collection of thoughts from different parts of the brain. Does that reflect something? Eeeks. Scary. Focus. Meditate.

High Performance Entrepreneur

One of the books that I am currently reading is The High Performance Entrepreneur by Subroto Bagchi (of Mindtree Consulting). To start with, I find the book to be a very easy and intuitive read. Bagchi’s narration sounds effortless and is more like a story/conversation rather than an accumulated capsule of advice (which many people are loath to listen to). While the entire book is certainly worth talking about, I’d like to – in this post - quote some of the persuasive statements that Bagchi makes in the chapter on getting good people and keeping them. They are really worth your time and I think if teams understand and follow these aspects well, life in an organization would be so much more effective and fulfilling. In most cases, I do not have anything much to add to the statements….

“Nothing binds people better than trust, freedom, accountability and stretch”

“Once the people know that the system does not play favourites, most of the problems are prevented from happening” (….if it is true that the organization does not play favourites or for that matter dirty politics, then it is important to do everything to ensure transparency……which, in turn, is what will help employees trust and understand that such immoral elements are absent in the organization)

Bagchi believes in five things for managing high-performance professionals – a performance management system that everyone understands, communication with evangelical regularity, feedback capturing via outside support, development of leadership, and support network for leaders.

Bagchi says some interesting things about a certain category of outstanding people – He says they need to be understood, nurtured and valued and goes on to add that they’d be most interested in stretch goals, freedom, constant communication, encouragement in risk-taking and a strong peer group. He reiterates the importance of a strong peer group in the case of a start-up environment.

There was one particular paragraph that struck a resonant note in me. “If the founding team has figured out everything and all it needs is a bunch of order-takers, why should brilliant people take the risk of working in a start-up? People seek inclusion in strategy and problem-solving. Towards this, you have to constantly inform them of issues, problems, opportunities and concerns. For this, they must have access to information at all times – even when it is inconvenient” (I believe that this is quite true even in established companies. A manager who believes that his reportees are there to just take orders will soon run out of luck and reportees. The more competent and impatient the reportees, the sooner they will attempt to run away for such a manager will never ever be respected)

Bagchi quotes Ashok Soota’s interesting ‘information’ principle that says 95% of the people must get access to 95% of the information 95% of the time. Bagchi minces no words to say that despite there being good reasons for secrecy/privacy, competent people hate an environment of secrecy. I’d like to tie up two aspects here and point out that absence of communication can very well be interpreted as an environment of secrecy.

Newspaper on the PC...

Hadn’t come across this kind of a website earlier! It certainly would be a boon for people who find it difficult to get away from the conventional newspaper habit and are not so happy with online versions that contain pages that look like regular HTML pages. But this service, unfortunately, isn’t for free and seems to be targeted only at NRIs. :(

Can we manage knowledge?

When I asked the visitors to this blog for ideas on what to talk about on KM, Peter posed a fundamental but intriguing and important question: Recently, I have been confronted with "KMers" (not sure I agree that they are) that consider that you can only manage information and not knowledge because "knowledge" is only in people's minds, and that what can be communicated is only "information". What would be your arguments to support the view that knowledge can be "managed" and is not only found in our minds?

(Ni)Me says: Peter, thanks for helping me go back to the basics and re-think on a really important aspect of KM. Is KM an oxymoron or not is a question that many people have raised in the past and continue to raise even today. There is a school of thought that believes that knowledge cannot be managed because everything that can be labeled as knowledge lies between the ears of human beings and these human beings walk out, carrying this knowledge with them, at the end of the day. This school of thought also perhaps believes that whatever is extracted/drawn out from people is not equivalent to knowledge once it is extracted/drawn out. It loses a particular attribute of itself that converts it into bare information the minute it is extracted - The human mind retains the cognitive clothing. Now, how much of truth does this perspective carry as seen through my eyes is perhaps what I need to delve into in this post! :)

Human beings are carriers of knowledge, not just carriers but generators, and processors of knowledge. Would managing people (the HR turf) be the equivalent of managing knowledge then? I think so! Now, that is a very simplistic view of managing knowledge according to me! If you’re managing your people, you’re, in a way, managing your knowledge! If you’re capable of inducing people to generate ideas, share thoughts, collaborate, apply their knowledge, learn continuously and act upon what they’re learning – bingo, you are indeed managing the knowledge of the organization! So, am I saying that all we have to do is replace the KM function with the HR function and say there’s nothing else to do to manage knowledge? No! Managing something (content) by managing the container that contains it is not exactly the same as managing the content itself, but it does come close! ;)

Is it really true that ‘knowledge’ when ‘outside’ a person’s head is information and absolutely nothing more? I don’t think so. A concept that I’ve come across when discussing knowledge sharing with some KMers is that of deciding whether the knowledge that has to be shared is of the type that can be just pointed to, or is of the type that has to be told about or has to be actually shown/demonstrated. Thus, when we can simply point to something or explain something, we are passing on not just plain information but adding to it our own experiences, opinions, intuitive feelings etc. When we show or demonstrate something, we cannot possibly help the knowledge seeker replicate our methods immediately or as is but we do succeed in sharing some components of our knowledge. Assuming that the knowledge sharer and seeker are both genuinely interested in the exercise and are using the right tools and methods, through a repeated process, we succeed in transferring quite a significant amount of knowledge. It is important to understand that the ‘knowledge’ transfer is complete only when we explain the reasons, causes, logic and the intricacies of the action under question. Basically, the knowledge transfer is effective when we explain the Why and How of things to the knowledge seeker….else, it may be safely declared that what is transferred is nothing more than information. Knowledge equips the knowledge seeker to think on her own some time down the line, analyze things by herself, understand the methodology and apply concepts and tools in future situations without requiring external support. Thus, true knowledge sharing happens when the knowledge sharers go beyond the ordinary – go an extra mile - and become true mentors and coachers. Thus, it is possible to connect the knowledge sharers with the seekers, help them share knowledge in such a way that it makes a difference to both the entities and thus helps the organization manage its knowledge. Because managing knowledge means ensuring that it flows between different entities, gets used and leveraged upon and gets enhanced by the inclusion of multiple perspectives.

An organization that combines various pieces of information and in order to lead to action and continuously works on aspects like embedding something in an existing process can be said to be managing knowledge because it is leveraging on knowledge from a long-term perspective. It has to be ensured that the process also captures the Why, Who and guidelines for the How so as to be sustained in the long run. When people who use the process understand why it is done that way, they are gaining knowledge and not just information. As long as the why and how are understood, it does qualify to be called knowledge rather than information. Because it equips the receiver to then think and apply the concepts on her own.

Digressing a bit and going into a day-to-day example, superstitions, for example, are labeled so when there is no information about the reasoning behind them. The minute such a ‘belief’ is backed by the why (and how wherever applicable), it ceases to be bare information and becomes richer knowledge because it allows knowledge seekers to understand, evaluate, agree/disagree and use it in their own lives!

Oops. Looks like I’ve ended up writing an article in response to Peter’s query! :D But what I’d like to know from Peter and everyone else who’s interested is whether I’ve hit the nail on the head or left you feeling like using the hammer to hit mine. Let me know…! ;)

Tom Davenport on The Next Big Thing

I did a little bit of reading after quite a significant information-hiatus. Hoping to be able to read some more over the next few days; at least read something that would be enough to get the grey cells reasonably excited.

What I read – TD’s blog on the next big thing.

What I think and said in response -

Thought-provoking article, Tom! I am personally going through experiences that reiterate your thoughts on information consumption. Reminds me of the global rule in economics - that of demand-supply. When there is no dearth of supply, the consumers are on top. They decide things. The suppliers are fighting amongst themselves. But consumers better not miss out on what could be the most important information from their perspective because of the chaos in the information market. Becomes increasingly important for information suppliers to innovate and distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack.

I agree with Narayan (see Tom's blog for Narayan's comments). I myself have been staying away from information for a while just to give myself some introspection time. Ironically, this is perhaps the first article that I am reading after my information-hiatus.

Let's look at where this is going to perhaps lead us. We have RSS readers to subscribe to just the kind of information we are interested in. But we end up subscribing to more than what we can digest in the long run. Does this mean we are back to square one? Will "search" continue to hold the reins? Yes, it is likely to. I think this is also going to lead to some room for people who are good at information assimilation, analysis, packaging and delivery. I am talking about this from the perspective of current scales of information. Advisors. Content Managers. Information Analysts. A team of such people who can help senior executives make decisions or simply sharpen their intuitive abilities will come at a premium. People who can capture the gist of lengthy articles will be celebrated. Which reminds me, I better stop rambling now! :)

Would love to know what the world thinks....

Media Sources - Tagged!

I’ve been tagged by a Blog Meme that I earlier came across on a few blogs I visit and didn’t actually imagine that this meme would hop on to my blog….at least, not so soon…given my not-so-strong blog network. Patrick has passed it on to me (thanks to my recent comments on his blog? :-)) and here’s my stab at it.

The meme is about media sources. Like Dave Snowden indicates, most of these memes are ego-strutting opportunities. So, err, please bear with me and skip the sections where I talk too much about myself. I shall understand.

Print - Books – I love books. I suspect that I suffer from some sort of obsessive compulsive disorder when it comes to books. There has not been a single occasion when I’ve stepped into a book shop and come out empty handed. That would be a crime as far as I am concerned. But a few months ago, I ran out of ideas on where to stack my books because my book shelves cannot possibly accommodate any more. And that has, unfortunately for the book shops, kept me at bay. I bought a couple of books last week though and might have to keep them under the pillow - Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and C&H - Sunday Pages by Bill Watterson. I normally pick up Books on Business, KM, Creativity, Innovation, Humor, Adventure, Mystery, Autobiographies (Business Leaders), Philosophy, Self-Development and Spirituality.

Print – Magazines/Journals – When I was in Business School, I consumed every possible business magazine that was available, basically because I was passionate about business quizzes and wanted to know everything there was to know about business and business personalities. I also used to read a magazine on Investment - Outlook Money – as it was mandated by our SAPM (Securities and Portfolio Management) lecturer. And, well, err……you know….I even managed to win a quiz based on the magazine for which I received a book on the relationship between the tides in the sea and the share market movements (No, I do not apply this knowledge for my investments). Coming back to the present, the only magazines I get to read now are Harvard Business Review and McKinsey Quarterly, and this is only when I visit the office library. I am also subscribed to online articles from Knowledge @ Wharton, Fast Company and Business Week.

Print - Newspapers – I was addicted to Economic Times a few years ago. Now, I am ashamed to say that I don’t even touch newspapers. My love for business has been sacrificed at the altar of KM - now, this only means that I am not fully aware of what's happening in the world of business and has no implications in terms of understanding the relationship between KM and business and how the former can enable the latter :-). But I occasionally browse through RSS feeds from newspapers.

The Web – I spend a lot of time on the web. Googling for information is the rule. I use Bloglines to subscribe to blogs feeds as well as other general RSS feeds. Wikipedia is another great source of information. But I rarely am able to concentrate when on the web because of frequent disturbances at work. If there is something that appeals to me, I end up saving it for offline reading. (Most of the posts I write are also written offline when I am not subjected to disturbances.)

Communication – I rely on Email more than anything else. I was once obsessed about keeping my inbox almost empty. But I’ve got over that phase and ‘am now okay to see it bustling with mails. Apart from my office ID, I use Gmail and Yahoo. I use my mobile for making calls and exchanging messages with local friends. Long ago, I’d tried out Groove to keep in touch with cousins abroad but, now, I use Yahoo messenger.

Audio - Radio – I was addicted to the Radio but only till I bought an iPOD. I have 4 pocket radios and was known for carrying my pocket radio wherever I went when in college and for playing it 24 hours a day.

Audio & Video - Films/Movies – I rarely watch the ‘regular’ movies. But I love animation movies. I went berserk just a couple of days ago and decided to splurge on some animation movie DVDs – I am now a proud owner of Finding Nemo, Garfield, Madagascar, Ice Age 1 & 2, and a few Indian Mythological Stories.

Audio & Video - Music – Music is my oxygen. I can’t live without music. I bought an iPOD video a year ago and have accumulated over 3500 songs so far (apart from hundreds of photographs) . Looks like I will soon use up the remaining 11 GB of space as well. I listen to Indian film music (both old and new), Indian classical music, Western music (melodies only), fusion (I love albums that combine traditional Indian instruments with the Western ones), and a variety of instrumental music.

Audio & Video - TV – I’ve almost stopped watching TV for the past 1 year and ‘am happy for it. But during the weekends, I do spend some hours switching between animal planet, history channel, discovery, nat geo, cartoon network and pogo. I occasionally watch news channels like NDTV and CNBC. I also watch selected music programmes hosted by the Indian channels (Vijay/Jaya/Sony/Zee).

Time to pass it on. I tag the following: :)

Chris Collision, Gautam Ghosh, Ron Young, CHO, and Jack Vinson

Good Food; Bad Food

It occurred to me this morning, that…

Information (food for thought) when served on the plate called context leads to knowledge, if the person who is offered it, takes it and processes (digests) it. It helps the person place it well (pun intended :)).

But information passed on without the context is almost like gossip. No one knows where it came from, where it ideally ought to be placed and whether it is true or not. It is like junk food that spoils the person’s digestive system, leave alone providing nutrition. But more often than not, it is likely to be placed on the person’s own (the one who takes it) plate, which may be very different from the original plate intended for it.

OK. Vented. Now, it’s your problem to digest this post! ;)