Information Management and New Media Rafael Capurro Steinbeis-Seminar MBA

Information Management and New Media

Rafael Capurrowww.capurro.de

Steinbeis-Seminar MBA

Rafael Capurro: Information Management and New Media

2

WELCOME!


3

Overview

Introduction Information Resources IRM and Knowledge Management External Information Resources The Process of External IRM Use External IR for Decision Makers


4

Introduction: Scope of the seminar

This seminar deals mainly with the field of external information resources and management.


5

Literature

[Combs] Combs, Richard E.: Why Manage Knowledge? In: http://www.combsinc.com/index.html

[Nickols] Nickols, F. W. (2000). The knowledge in knowledge management. In Cortada, J.W. & Woods, J.A. (Eds) The knowledge management yearbook 2000-2001 (pp. 12-21). Boston, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann

In: http://home.att.net/~nickols/Knowledge_in_KM.htm

[Walt] Van der Walt, Marthinus: A Classification Scheme for the Organization of Electronic Documents in Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs). Knowl. Org. 31 (2004) 1, 26-38.

See also the website of the seminar http://www.capurro.de/steinbeis_infomanag.htm


6

Introduction: The Goal of Information Management

Providing:reliable and relevant knowledge at the right time in the right placefor the right person in the right medium


7

Introduction: Organizational Memory

Internal + external information (and knowledge) resources = Organizational Memory


8

Introduction: The Goal of IRM

Watch your IR! Watch your IRM!


9

Introduction: The IRM Process

IdentifyCollectOrganize (Classify)ShareAdaptUseCreateIdentify…


10

Introduction: Tools for IRM

SAP ORACLE IBM Lotus CSB International Livelink Verity Microsoft Windows CI

…and why it is wrong to identify the question of IRM with the question of tools for IRM!


11

Introduction: IRM

-> The following analysis follows [Walt 2004]

„The problem is, however, that the developers of operating systems and application programs usually give very little guidance as to how exactly a system of subfolders should be designed.


12

Introduction: IRM

„Neither could explicit instructions for structuring a system of folders be found in the help files of Windows XP or Outlook 2002. In Internet Explorer‘s „Help“ under „Organize your favorite pages into folders“ it is suggested that the user „might want to organize… pages by topic,“ with „Art“ given as an example. (…)


13

Introduction: IRM

The result of the absence of clear instructions for organizing folders is that folders are created and named intuitively to satisfy the need of the moment and the subjective frame of reference of the individual, without planning an overall logical structure.“ [Walt 2004, 27]


14

Internal IR

Internal information resources:

Are produced by company employees.

They emanate from functional areas cross-functional processes


15

Internal IR

Functional areas: Production: such as documentation on

the purchasing of materials and equipment (information sheets from suppliers, orders, bills etc.), records of quality control, delivery, notes, guarantee cards delivery from customers, servicing records and customer records.


16

Internal IR

Sales and marketing: market research reports, product brochures and information sheets, orders from customers and records of sales transactions.


17

Internal IR

Engineering (Research and Development): project planning documentation, laboratory notes, project reports.

Accounting and finance: budgets, regular financial reports on income and expenditure, documentation relating to taxes, records of investments and assets, etc.


18

Internal IR

Human resources management: job descriptions, advertisements for vacancies, documents relating to employee benefits, employment contracts, training manuals, employee records (records of payment, leav and disciplinary hearings).


19

Internal IR

Cross-functional processes: Product development reports Business plans Competitive intelligence reports.


20

External IR

External information resources

„Many information items gathered for the purposes of competitive intelligence support the cross-functional business processes, especially strategic planning and decision-making.


21

External IR

In the creation of a business plan, which can include processes such as the setting of strategic goals, determining niche market segments and deciding about mergers with, or acquisitions of, competitors, the top management of a company has to rely heavily on external information resources.“ [Walt 2004, 30]


22

External IR

Gathering external IR focuses on: Political, environmental, societal, and

technological trends (P.E.S.T.) Customers Suppliers Competitors (competing products and

services)


23

External IRM

Methodological aspects:

How to identify, collect, organize, share, adapt, use, and create information from external sources that are useful for the company.


24

IRM and Knowledge Management

Knowledge taxonomy: Explicit, Implicit, Tacit Declarative (know that) and Procedural

(know how)


25

Explicit Knowledge

„Explicit knowledge (…) is knowledge that has been articulated and, more often than not, captured in the form of text, tables, diagrams, product specifications and so on.


26

Explicit Knowledge

In a well-known and frequently cited 1991 Harvard Business Review article titled "The Knowledge Creating Company," Ikujiro Nonaka refers to explicit knowledge as "formal and systematic" and offers product specifications, scientific formulas and computer programs as examples. “

[Nickols]

See also:Nonaka, I. / Takeuchi, H: The Knowledge Creating Company,

Oxford 1995.Von Krogh, G. / Ichijo, K. / Nonaka, I.: Enabling Knowledge

Creation. Oxford 2000


27

Implicit Knowledge

„Knowledge that can be articulated but hasn’t is implicit knowledge. Its existence is implied by or inferred from observable behavior or performance. This is the kind of knowledge that can often be teased out of a competent performer by a task analyst, knowledge engineer or other person skilled in identifying the kind of knowledge that can be articulated but hasn’t.“ [Nickols]


28

Implicit Knowledge

„In analyzing the task in which underwriters at an insurance company processed applications, for instance, it quickly became clear that the range of outcomes for the underwriters’ work took three basic forms: (1) they could approve the policy application, (2) they could deny it or (3) they could counter offer.


29

Implicit Knowledge

Yet, not one of the underwriters articulated these as boundaries on their work at the outset of the analysis. Once these outcomes were identified, it was a comparatively simple matter to identify the criteria used to determine the response to a given application. In so doing, implicit knowledge became explicit knowledge.“[Nickols]


30

Tacit Knowledge

„Tacit knowledge is knowledge that cannot be articulated. As Michael Polanyi (1997), the chemist-turned-philosopher who coined the term put it, "We know more than we can tell." Polanyi used the example of being able to recognize a person’s face but being only vaguely able to describe how that is done. This is an instance of pattern recognition. (…)


31

Tacit Knowledge

Reading the reaction on a customer’s face or entering text at a high rate of speed using a word processor offer other instances of situations in which we are able to perform well but unable to articulate exactly what we know or how we put it into practice. In such cases, the knowing is in the doing, a point to which we will return shortly.“ [Nickols]


32

Implict, Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

[Nickols]


33

Declarative and Procedural Knowledge

„The explicit, implicit, tacit categories of knowledge are not the only ones in use. Cognitive psychologists sort knowledge into two categories: declarative and procedural. Some add strategic as a third category.“ [Nickols]


34

Declarative Knowledge

„Declarative knowledge has much in common with explicit knowledge in that declarative knowledge consists of descriptions of facts and things or of methods and procedures.“[Nickols]


35

Procedural Knowledge

„This is an area where important differences of opinion exist.

One view of procedural knowledge is that it is knowledge that manifests itself in the doing of something. As such it is reflected in motor or manual skills and in cognitive or mental skills.“[Nickols]


36


„Another view of procedural knowledge is that it is knowledge about how to do something. This view of procedural knowledge accepts a description of the steps of a task or procedure as procedural knowledge. The obvious shortcoming of this view is that it is no different from declarative knowledge except that tasks or methods are being described instead of facts or things.“[Nickols]


37


„On my part, I have chosen to acknowledge that some people refer to descriptions of tasks, methods and procedures as declarative knowledge and others refer to them as procedural knowledge. For my own purposes, however, I choose to classify all descriptions of knowledge as declarative and reserve procedural for application to situations in which the knowing may be said to be in the doing.“[Nickols]


38

Strategic Knowledge

„Strategic knowledge is a term used by some to refer to what might be termed know-when and know-why.“[Nickols]


39

Knowledge Taxonomy:

[Nickols]


40

Knowledge Taxonomy

„Nonaka addresses the important issues of knowledge transfer and knowledge creation in his 1991 article. He cites four such transfers or creations:

Tacit to tacit. Acquiring someone else’s tacit knowledge through observation, imitation and practice. The example Nonaka uses is that of a product developer, Ikuro Tanaka, who apprentices herself to a hotel chef famous for the quality of his bread. She learns how to make bread his way, including an unusual kneading technique.“[Nickols]


41

Knowledge Taxonomy

„Explicit to explicit. Combining discrete pieces of explicit knowledge to form new explicit knowledge, for example, compiling data and preparing a report that analyzes and synthesizes these data. The report constitutes new explicit knowledge.“[Nickols]


42

Knowledge Taxonomy

„Tacit to explicit. Nonaka cites here the product developer’s subsequent conversion of her acquired tacit knowledge into specifications for a bread-making machine. However, as defined by Polanyi, who coined the term, tacit knowledge cannot be articulated. Thus, although Nonaka’s product developer was clearly able to devise a set of product specifications based on what she learned while apprenticed to the chef in question, it seems doubtful that she actually articulated the chef’s tacit knowledge or her own. It seems more likely that she articulated some rules or principles or descriptions of procedures, that is, she created some declarative knowledge that subsequently proved useful in the design and development of the bread-making machine.“[Nickols]


43

Knowledge Taxonomy

„Explicit to tacit. Internalizing explicit knowledge. Here, Nonaka indicates that the product development team acquired new tacit knowledge; specifically, they came to understand in an intuitive way, that products like the home bread-making machine can provide quality, that is, they can produce bread as good as that made by a professional baker. That Nonaka (or anyone else) knows of this suggests that whatever knowledge was acquired has been made explicit and that means it might have been implicit knowledge at one point but was never truly tacit knowledge because that cannot be articulated.“[Nickols]


44

Knowledge Taxonomy

http://www.12manage.com/methods_nonaka_seci.html The SECI Model (Socialization, Externalization, Connecting,

Combination) of Nonaka/Takeuchi


45

Knowledge Taxonomy

http://www.12manage.com/methods_nonaka_seci.html


46

IRM as…

… management of explicit (declarative) knowledge


47

External Information Resources

Internet Resources Providers of Scientific, Technical

and Economic Information Library Resources


48


1) Internet Resources Portals/Websites: Professional Associations,

Competitors, Customers Search Engines: Catalogues, General Search

Engines Meta-Search Engines, Trade and Business Search Engines, Shopping Search Engines

Blogs Mailing Lists Virtual Communities …


49


2) Providers of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information:

German Providers: STN International (Scientific and Technical

Information, Patents) GBI (Economic Information) GENIOS (Economic Information) FIZ Technik (Technology) Hoppenstedt (Economic Information) Handelsblatt (Economic Information)


50


International Providers: Gale Directory of Data Bases DIALOG (All fields) LexisNexis (Economy, law) Questel-Orbit (All fields) Bureau van Dijk (Companies)


51


Libraries


52

The Process of IRM: Organize!

Organize your IRM process:- Create an (interactive) platform within the

company (as part of the intranet)- Create a list of links (portals, websites, etc.)- Use Mailing List and blogs- Inform actively about IR within the company- Get feed back from your colleagues about the IR

as well as about the IRM process itself- Set goals for special tasks and make case analysis

of IR and IRM within your company.


53

The Process of external IRM: Step by Step

IdentifyCollectOrganize (Classify)ShareAdaptUseCreateIdentify…


54

The Process of IRM: Identify

What kind of external IR are used in your company? Portals/Websites: Professional

Associations, Competitors, Customers Search Engines Blogs Mailing Lists Virtual Communities …


55

The Process of IRM: Collect

How are external IR collected in your company? Using Search Engines? Visiting (regularly) Portals/Websites? Using an Agent System? Using SDI for searching in professional data

bases? Visiting fairs? Connecting with experts? Using Blogs and/or Mailing Lists? Using printed sources? …


56

The Process of IRM: Organize

How are the files with external information organized in your company? Document Management? Intranet? ...


57


Under the heading „Organizing files using folders“ in the help files of Microsoft Windows 2000, for example, the user is simply told to „create folders for categories that match the way you want to orgnize your information.“ (Walt)


58


Walt‘s Classification Scheme:0 General documents1 External environment2 Management (General)3 Finance (financial management)4 Human resources5 Products & Services6 Marketing & Sales7 Customers8 Special collections9 Other subjects


59


The role of classification in business documentation (Walt): Categories are used for organizing

folder systems Categories become part of the

metadata for Information Retrieval purposes

Categories are used for structuring the intranet


60

The Process of IRM: Share

How are external IR shared in your company? Intranet Print E-Mail, Mailing Lists Virtual forums Communities of Practice Blogs Face-to-face meetings …


61

The Process of IRM: Adapt

How are external IR adapted to the goals (vision, mission) of your company? Selecting the information from the

sources? Distributing/writing (executive)

abstracts? Evaluating? …


62

The Process of IRM: Use

Who and how uses external IR in your company? In all departments? Decision Making (at which level)? R&D? Marketing? ...Regularly? In what form/medium?


63

The Process of IRM: Create

How is new knowledge on the basis of external IR created in your company: For decision making? For marketing? For R&D? For dealing with (new) customers? For dealing with competitors?


64

The Process of IRM: Evaluate

Evaluate regularly the IRM process: Who is responsible for what? Where are the blockades? Where are the blind spots? What are the main areas of concern

(priorities)? How much does it cost? What are the revenues?


65

The Process of IRM: Checking List

Create a check list for evaluating regularly your (external) IRM Process:

- What external IR do you use in your company? - How do you manage these resources?- How much money does your company spend in

them? - How much money does your company spend for

the IRM process itself?- What is the revenue?- How (and how often) does the evaluation of the

IRM take place in your company?


66

Use External IR for Decision Makers

Use all possible information sources in order to build a data base that corresponds to the needs of your company

Consider that the kind of information you select will make possible or not to visualize the status of your company according to diverse criteria. These criteria should be as clear as possible before (!) you create the data base


67

Presenting Information for Decision Makers

Building a Data Base:ProductsPricePlacementPromotion

-> Present Status / Advantages and Disadvantages


68

Visualizing Results

Cash Cows Bad Dogs ? Stars


69

Visualising Results


70

Visualising Results

Select two criteria, for instance: Price vs. Placement Market share vs. Market growth Product quality vs. Price

in order to visualize where your company is and where do you place your competitors

Do this kind of visualisation regularly and compare the results from time to time


71

Taking Decisions

Decisions are taken on the basis of information provided.

Due to the necessary simplification of information selection as well as of the criteria used, decisions are always a risk.

Information should be seen in the context of unexpected events.


72

Evaluating Decisions

After taking a decision, the processes of information and of visualisation start again

You should consider the possibility of selecting information from other resources and/or re-organizing your IRM process.


73

Thank you for your attention