Tony Karrer (via Edu RSS):

Interesting discussion going on with contribution by Luis Suarez, Jay Cross, David Wilson – around the distinction between Knowledge Management and Learning:

Knowledge Management and Informal Learning
Knowledge Management and Learning – Separated at Birth? – Where They Really?
KM & learning: separated at birth?
KM and Learning

Sometimes it’s funny and a bit frustrating to see the discussion coming back to the same issues… I guess this is because where I started myself, moving from HRD/training/(e)-learning to KM 5 years ago: from recognising similarities between those fields and from disappointments that they are hardly connected when it comes to shared language and practices. This is also where my PhD has started (I’m far away from there now :) – from fascination with informal learning and recognising the potential of integrating HRD and KM thinking to support it better…

We did some work trying to figure out the overlaps and gaps between KM and learning in theory and practice (mainly focusing on corporate settings) and looked for directions for integration. I have some bits and pieces in my weblog, but it probably makes more sense to look at the papers since they document things in a more coherent way (both are based on the data from interviews and workshops with practitioners):

Efimova, L., & Swaak, J. (2002). KM and (e)-learning: towards an integral approach? “The new scope of knowledge management in Theory and Practice”, proceedings of the 2nd EKMF Knowledge Management Summer School (KMSS02). 2-6 September 2002, Sophia Antipolis, France.

Efimova, L. & Swaak, J. (2003). Converging knowledge management, training and e-learning: scenarios to make it work. Journal of Universal Computer Science, Vol. 9/6 2003, pp. 571-578.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2006/12/14.html#a1871; comments are here.

• Differences between teaching and knowledge sharing
• Releasing PhD ideas to the wild
• Blog as a learning tool

Something that I missed in my Learning: communities vs. courses link collection – Martin Dugage on the motivation for learning is the desire to access a community

The traditional professor-student relationship in a classroom setting, with grades, diplomas and the like still makes sense as a prerequisite to entering a learning community. It is a question of managing time and attention. If we start bringing in newbies who haven’t acquired the fundamentals required to participate in the learning activities of the community, we might end up annoying the top experts of the community, who might then leave for better places where people will make better use of their precious time.

I guess this comment of Martin comes from practical experiences of facilitating communities in corporate context. There are more insights on “how communities work” in the knowledge management field and sometimes I feel very sad that these experiences are not known or not recognised in educational discussion about communities (lack of interaction between these two fields is my old frustration and overcoming it directs much of my thinking).

Anyway, there is a connection between Martin’s concern and Sebastien’s recent post on experts and novices pointing to Joe Cothrel observation about opportunities that weblogs provide in enabling novices learning from “gurus” without making them frustrated with depth and scale of interactions. I believe this is the direction worth exploring.

Final comment of Martin:

I believe learning economies (and the web is definitely one) are economies of access and not economies of transaction, meaning that you had rather pay, and very dearly sometimes, to obtain free access to a community of people that you would like to resemble, than for some of the discrete services that the best of these people could offer you. Or to put it differently, you may be prepared to work like crazy to graduate from MIT, but going through MIT’s courses without being recognized (a.k.a. branded) as an MIT student is worth far less.

In learning environments, there is always some form of exclusion. C’est la vie.There are two sides here: people compete (try to get accepted) in communities that provide better learning/networking environments for them and communities compete between each other to get attention of “best” members.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/10/17.html#a804; comments are here.

• Killer-app: tool for just-in-time learning
• Releasing PhD ideas to the wild
• Learning and knowledge sharing (2)

My colleagues are organising a workshop “Bridging the gap between research and practice of Communities of Practice” during C&T Conference (19 September, Amsterdam). The plan is to bring together presentations of a researcher and a practitioner for each topic, so there are opportunities to contrast their approaches and discuss them. The topics are:

• Communities in a R&D environment
• Communities of commercial employees (btw on this topic – Knowledge management for front-line staff by James Robertson)
• Communities and learning

These are some of the challenges around communities in corporate KM context and the last one is about one of my KM&learning interest. Hope to be there, but not 100% sure yet.

More:

• workshop announcement at KnowledgeBoard (you can add comments there)
• workshop details at C&T web-site and registration form (these are deep links without navigation, if you want proper menus start from C&T Conference site and look for Workshop G)

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/08/06.html#a705; comments are here.

• Knowledge is a noun, learning is a verb
• Barriers for common language
• Scenario 1. Communities and courses

George Siemens about Converging Knowledge Management, Training, and elearning:

This paper looks at several obviously converging concepts. Learning is a multi-faceted process…and one aspect is not indicative of the whole. For example, structured, classroom learning does not account for the values of learning through experience…and vice versa. The contradictory characteristics of learning (structured but open, constructive but knowable, personal but communal etc.) are best represented in creating a “whole perspective” view. KM has a role…but so does elearning…and communities…and classroom learning. To assume that learning can be represented/produced by only one approach is to misjudge how learning really happens. This is why the view of an LMS as the center of elearning is so limiting. It’s not about one thing…it’s about a bricolage.

Thanks for the bricolage learning methaphor (next to Jay’s “Bouillabaisse” learning ;)

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/07/23.html#a692; comments are here.

• Learning trends
• Our findings about relating KM to HR/learning efforts
• Learning as building own context

Erik van Bekkum points to a new weblog by Stephanie Allen, which is related to a study on Virtual Communities as Learning Networks. This study will try to answer the following questions:

• How do employees learn in order to do their jobs well?
• How can virtual communities help employees learn to do their job well?
• What can organizations do to support virtual communities so that employees can do their job well?
• What do organizations gain from supporting virtual communities?

[this post also refers to Improving Knowledge Worker Performance article, which I just want to note for further reading]

Erik comments:

The question that may be missing is about how the collective learning in a community takes place, and it’s impact on the individual learning process. Just recently I was talking about this (yes, at the coffee machine) with Ad Dekkers. if you consider the increase of individual capabilities through collective learning and collective capabilities, you have a better understanding of how the community adds value to the learning process of each participant in the community.

My few cents:

1. Nice to see more e-learning/training people looking at communities of practice as a learning environment.

2. I recognise dialogues that I hear often then learning and KM people get together in a discussion about learning in communities: learning people stress individual learning while KM people say how and why group-collective-organisational learning is important. Sometimes they talk about the same thing without understanding each other. I believe (and some theories say) that learning is always social. From this perspective the nature of learning in a classroom and learning in a community are not so different, the difference is in a degree of steering/facilitation.

3. If I would do this study (and I’m studying related things anyway :) I would:

• check studies of informal learning first, especially those explaning how it happens and how it can be supported (some references are here, especially [1] and [2])
• focus on performance-improvement (in other words on the whole chain share-learn-apply at work; I address it as a performance-focused knowledge sharing in I-KNOW paper)
• and then add KM-world knowledge about communities

In other words, this study could be a good way to get best from both training and KM worlds: understanding how people learn, how to facilitate learning and performance change as well as understanding communities as living systems.

Looking forward to see where this study goes.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/07/15.html#a670; comments are here.

• Learning communities
• Bridging the gap between research and practice of communities
• Learning as building own context

Finally, I can share it: paper I presented at I-KNOW03 conference, 3-4 July 2003, Graz, Austria – “Converging knowledge management, training and e-learning: scenarios to make it work” and presentation. Abstract says:

Companies are starting to recognise synergies between knowledge management, training and e-learning programs, but a closer look reveals that these integration ideas are rarely implemented in practice. The goal of this paper is to provide a starting point for collaboration between corporate KM and HR/learning teams by mapping existing practices of linking KM, training and e-learning efforts. We provide an overview of experiences and future ideas of collaboration derived from several studies, group them in three themes and then illustrate each theme with a scenario. The first theme gives examples of using HR and training instruments to support knowledge management. The second theme represents cases of using KM methods (namely a community of practice) to support HR learning management efforts. The last theme describes how KM and HR/learning teams could work on joint initiatives. Then we discuss the added value of the scenarios and propose further practical steps and research directions.

Selected papers from the conference are availiabe on-line during next two weeks.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/07/06.html#a662; comments are here.

• Learning trends
• KM & learning: why?

Rocket Roadmap Project (large EC funded project): full title doesn’t say it well, description too, but I see focus on KM/e-learning connections :)

[Objectives] Rocket will prepare a strategic roadmap for future developments in organisational learning relevant to the education of engineers and knowledge workers.

[...]How to link knowledge management (KM) at the level of an organisation, with KM and E-Learning at the level of people working within an organisation or moving between organisations, so that knowledge that is new to someone can be captured and shared more readily and so that people can cope better with changes in their working life and their environment (including new colleagues, ever-changing tasks and processes, certification requirements, etc.)

I guess this site it something to mine if you don’t know where to start looking for general overviews of KM/e-learning issues (state-of-the-arts, user requirements – see deliverables).

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/04/11.html#a538; comments are here.

• Knowledge cycle and different types of learning
• Bridging the gap between research and practice of communities
• Learning communities

Jim McGee in Managing for shared awareness about Enterprise Effectiveness

Interesting thinking about what lessons are to be learned from the military about sharing information in real-time or near real-time:

Shared information inside a corporation and with its allies and customers provides greater information richness and reach, and produces shared awareness. Shared awareness in turn enables faster operational tempo and sustainable competitive advantage. This all spells increased competitiveness

An interesting transition from “need to know” to “shared awareness” Hierarchical organizations spend inordinate time and effort trying to work out precise boundaries on who needs to know what and when. Ostensibly about minimizing demands on people throughout the organization, it’s really about the exercise of power and control.

And Stephen Downes about Napsterize Your Knowledge: Give To Receive (here)

The primary lesson: “The more that a company shares its knowledge, the more valuable it becomes.” It’s astonishing how many people still don’t believe this. But when I look back at the success my website and OLDaily have brought me – despite my lack of any obvious qualifications in the field – it is self evidently true. When you share your knowledge, you share your ability, and this is what makes you or your company more valuable. People prefer to hire or contract for services based on proven ability nearly every time. Moreoever, the more you share, the more people share in return (many of the items in OLDaily are the result of submissions from readers), which increases your personal or corporate knowledge base. Anyhow, this article discusses some of the benefits of sharing knowledge and then offers some advice on how to do it.

I wonder if someone does research with large companies about cross-border knolwedge sharing? I believe in its power, but it would be nice to have more arguments to convince others.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/01/24.html#a427; comments are here.

• Bricolage learning
• Learning communities
• Attention to small failures as trigger for learning

Sébastien Paquet is faster than me in linking You have to see the production by Matt Mower with his processes versus products [in Processes and products].

Matt in You have to see the production:

Lilia has pointed me at Knowledge work as craft work an article from April 2002 by Jim McGee which is most pertinent given my new focus on visibility.

It’s a good read. Of particular interest to me was where Jim talks about how, with the advent of purely digital methods of working, only the finished product survives. This implies that it is only the finished item, and not how it was derived, that has value. But we know that’s wrong, our experience tells us that seeing the production is how we learn.

Another key aspect to visibility into a process is what you do when the finished item turns out to be wrong. If you need to backtrack and try a new direction, what are you working from?

Seb in processes versus products (which was long waiting in my aggregator for a comment)

The gradual erosion of the “product” mindset is a direct offshoot of the availability of practically unlimited many-to-many communication. A product is a nice package that you can “get” and “consume”, and it definitely has its usefulness. But in many ways, processes, as things you can “live” and “take part” in, mean more to most humans.

It’s the difference between going at a live music show and listening to a recording of that show. It’s the difference engaging a conversation with an author and reading his book. You often get more out of living a process than consuming a product.

But this is not the end of story: today my Aggregator brings more about the topic from Sebastian Fiedler commenting on Jim McGee‘s Knowledge work as craft work (bold is mine):

I would say that any type of complex knowledge construction can benefit from making the overall process visible. While Jim focuses on the context of knowledge work, I choose to look at it from a more general perspective of self-organized learning. People initiate intentional learning for all kinds of purposes. These purposes do not have to be related to “work” all the time. But reflecting on one’s processes is also an important step towards improving your personal learning. The British psychologists Harri-Augstein and Thomas (1991) have put it this way: “To the extent that a person is aware of his or her constructions of experience – that is, personal meanings – he or she acquires consciousness. To the extent that a person becomes aware of his or her processes of construction and takes control of them that person acquires self-organisation in learning.”

Summarising this discussion from learning perspective I would say that articulated (visible) process of constructing knowledge is good for (at least) two sides:

• self-directed learning of the author
• apprenticeship learning of others [see also my Evolution of thinking ]

Then I would also add organisational learning* in a sense that knowledge flows faster in a company [see The Tipping Blog].

*I have to add that I don’t like the term organisational learning. For me it means the same as knowledge management.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2002/10/25.html#a303; comments are here.

• Knowledge management in instructional design
• Added value of knowledge sharing

I really like these “weekend morning readings” – I have time to read, to think and (more important) to write it down.

The first one is about synchronicity. Today, I had two printouts to read: [1] Jim McGee’s review of Managing the Unexpected (book by Karl Weick, Kathleeb Sutcliffe and Robert Quinn) and [2] Chapter 8: Storytelling to share knowledge by Steve Denning (advance text of a forthcoming book THE SQUIRREL: The Seven Highest Value Forms of Orgninizational Storytelling).

Damn. I just found that Denning’s chapter comes with “not for quotation or citation without written permission”. Now I can’t write more about it. I just hope that providing the link is ok.

Back. I was going to write about the idea in both texts about the need to pay attention to small failures. Now you have to read [2] yourself. [1] says:

Small failures (weak signals) are sought out and treated as opportunities to learn instead of anomalies to be explained away.

Weick et al. write that an organisation needs to operate mindfully and suggest two objectives and five charactiristics focused on them [Note: this is my comment on Jim McGee's review of the book. Not good as a reference.]

• Objective 1. – Anticipating the unexpected. Contributing characteristics: preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify interpretations, and sensitivity to operations
• Objective 2. – Containing the unexpected. Contributing characteristics: a commitment to resilience and a deference to expertise

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2002/10/20.html#a289; comments are here.

• Rocket Roadmap Project
• Tools functionality to support learning
• Learning: communities vs. courses (3) – experts vs. novices and competition