George Siemens' online book Knowing Knowledge
is fun to read: It's laid out like a Tom Peters book -- full of
graphics and different type fonts, and some wonderful quotations1.
It has a kind of stream-of-consciousness style that's a bit
McLuhanesque. It's playful.
I resisted the temptation to take notes and synthesize it (perhaps
because I read it on-screen), although I thought it sometimes presented
concepts awkwardly and had a few glaring omissions. For example, after saying
he doesn't believe in categorizing, he presents a set of categories of
knowledge -- knowing about x, knowing how to do x, knowing how to be x,
knowing where to find x, knowing how and why to transform x -- but
omits knowing who knows x 2).
At the end of the first section of the book he presents these knowledge/learning
'principles of connectivism':
- Learning and knowledge require diversity of opinions to
present the whole…and to permit selection of best approach.
- Learning is a network formation process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
- Knowledge rests in networks.
- Knowledge may reside in non-human appliances, and learning is enabled/facilitated by technology.
- Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known.
- Learning and knowing are constant, on going processes (not end states or products).
- Ability to see connections and recognize patterns and make
sense between fields, ideas, and concepts is the core skill for
individuals today.
- Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
- Decision-making is learning. Choosing what to learn and the
meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting
reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow
due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.
A healthy learning environment, he says, is open, self-managed,
fostered, and conducive to knowledge flow. He implies, as I have
argued, that 'just in time' learning is usually better than 'just in
case' learning, and that collaboration, receptiveness, engagement,
pattern-recognition, direct experience, and sense-making are essential
or conducive to the learning process.
Siemens introduces the concept of 'context games' -- interactions where
our understandings and filters 'compete' in our (and other
conversants') contexts for our (and others') acceptance.
This is all interesting, but after awhile you start to ask yourself how it can be useful.
As fascinating as his theories and models are, I was hoping for something of
practical value comparable to my contrasting of the old 1990s 'acquire,
store, add value, disseminate' and the new 2000s 'connect, canvass,
synthesize, apply' models of knowledge management:
In
the second part of the book, Siemens describes how the principles he
outlines in the first part might be applied. As I outlined in my earlier article,
the approach he suggests to improve knowledge-sharing and learning in
organizations is evolutionary and iterative rather than imposed. It
responds to needs as they emerge
rather than pre-supposing what those needs are. It demands a deep
knowledge of the current state (which requires going out and talking to
and observing people on the front lines to see what is really happening
in their use of information and technology, and appreciating what they
need and how they learn). It is a continuous process rather than a
disjoint series of projects and 'releases'. It is focused on developing
competence and capacity, rather than just increasing the volume of
information flows. For all of these reasons it is superior to the
methodologies that have been Standard Operating Procedure in KM for
more than a decade.
As the illustration at the top of this
article shows, this approach is cyclical, two-way, and accommodates the
needs of both managers and front-line staff. Change is perceived to be
a consensual process: Only when there is a consensus that change is
valuable will it "take root". The four change enablers in the graphic
operate almost like a pendulum: The demand for change (usually from
customers, sometimes from management, sometimes from front-line
workers' learning and adaptation) precipitates 'affordances'
(possibilities, ideas, alternatives and potentials) which, in turn, if
they can achieve consensual traction, precipitate structural, systems,
and infrastructure change within the organization, which, in turn,
finally produce new methods and processes -- different ways of doing
things in the organization.
Or, in other words, needs ->
possibilities -> change programs -> new processes & tools.
Then, the adoption of these new processes & tools (often in
unanticipated ways) yields new change programs and raises new
possibilities that evoke new ‘needs’. Through several iterations
(swings of the pendulum) all four elements converge on a new stasis,
until new needs and change pressures restart the process.
A
healthy knowledge ecology (knowledge-sharing environment), Siemens
says, has the following attributes: flexibility, diversity of tools
(for obtaining content, context and
connection), consistency and sufficiency of time and attention, trust,
simplicity, encouragement, connectedness, decentralization, and
tolerance for experimentation and failure, with ‘space’ for experts and
novices to meet, self-expression, debate, dialogue, search for archived
knowledge, structured learning, communication of news, and nurturing of
ideas. Networks form within such ecologies, and provide better
knowledge and learning environments than hierarchies: As Siemens said
(better, I think) in another article:
The
desire for centralization is strong. These organizations want learners
to access their sites for content/interaction/knowledge. Learners, on
the other hand, already have their personal spaces (myspace, facebook,
aggregators). They don’t want to go to someone else’s program/site to
experience content. They want your content in their
space...When we try and create Communities of Practice (CoPs) online,
we take the same approach – come to our community. I think that’s the
wrong approach. The community should come to the user.
In
the same article (and also in the book), Siemens eloquently describes
the way in which knowledge/understanding emerges in social, ecological
and other complex environments, much to the consternation of
organizations’ command-and-control types:
We
have a mindset of “knowing before application”. We feel that new
problems must be tamed by our previous experience. When we encounter a
challenge, we visit our database of known solutions with the objective
of applying a template solution on the problem. I find many
organizations are not comfortable suspending judgment…Instead of trying
to force these tools into organizational structures, let them exist for
a while. See what happens. Don’t decide the entire solution in advance.
See the process as more of a dance than a structured enactment of a
solution…The view that we must know before we can do, and that problems
require solutions, can be limiting in certain instances. Knowing often
arises in the process of doing. Solutions are often contained within
the problems themselves (not external, templated responses). And
problems always morph as we begin to work on them.
Part of
my responsibility in my current contract assignment is increasing the
awareness and accessibility of the available tools, content and other
resources among our employees and customers. There’s a strong
temptation to ‘prescribe’ how and when these resources should be used
(as I did with my communication tool decision tree),
but while these ‘prescriptions’ may be useful guidance (especially for
novice users) it is important that we allow and encourage employees and
customers, individually and collectively, to use these resources as
they see fit and share their ‘adoptions’ with others, and understand
and accommodate rather than proscribing their problem workarounds.
I
would have liked to read more in Siemens’ book about the cultural
implications of decentralization and networking of knowledge. Some
would have us believe that networks threaten the very existence of
hierarchy, but I’m not so sure: In the organizations I know best,
hierarchy continues to rule because management controls the
purse-strings, and can ‘starve’ those who fail to conform to its
instructions. I used to believe that management also controlled
decision-making, but I’ve come to believe that in most organizations
decisions are de facto hugely
decentralized: When the boss announces a decision that makes no sense
to the front lines, the people on the front lines will figure out how
to work around the decision in such a way they appear to be complying
yet still manage to do things more sensibly. And if decisions don’t
produce action and behaviour change on the front lines, decision-making
‘power’ is impotent. But as the Max Planck quote below makes clear, one
type of decision can help
entrench hierarchy – the decision to fire those who are non-compliant
and to promote those who comply, support and share the boss' values.
Siemens calls for the redesign of organizations3
to enable decentralization and networked knowledge transfer, learning
and action, but in large organizations this isn’t going to happen – it
will only occur, haphazardly, around the ‘edges’ of organizations where
those high in the hierarchy can’t see it happening.
Although his
prescription is, I think, impractical, his vision of an organization
that enables effective knowledge-sharing, learning and collaboration is
worth thinking about. I’m working on an article on ‘workarounds’ as the
means by which most useful 'unmechanizable' work in organizations (i.e.
thoughtful ‘knowledge work’) actually gets done. Knowing Knowledge could be used as a ‘recipe book’ of workarounds by savvy, practical knowledge workers.
If, as Siemens says, solutions are often contained within the problems themselves, then that’s a step in the right direction.
Notes:
1. Examples:
- "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of
Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
(Albert Einstein)
- "An important scientific innovation rarely makes its
way by by gradually winning over and converting its opponents. It
rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is its
opponents gradually die out and the growing generation is familiarized
with the idea from the beginning." (Max Planck)
2. He later seems to imply that "know who" is a special type of "know where".
3.
The redesign process has eight steps: Current state analysis,
representation/evaluation, validation, learning/knowledge strategy
(‘development map’), ecology design/deployment, nurturing learning
capacities/processes, assessment and revision. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
