Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

sense-making
(context A)
activation
Frank Habermann, Jörg Fehlinger and Karen Schmidt
codification
KNOWLEDGE
(content)
media
interpretation
SENDER RECEIVER
CONNECTION
sense-making
(context B)
Figure 2: The Communication Process as a Learning Relationship (inspired by Cummings 2003)
The fundamental communication problems <strong>of</strong> knowledge sharing and learning are well known and
widely researched in literature and via case studies (see e.g. Blackler 1995). They can be
summarized in three groups:
Activation problem: deals with <strong>the</strong> fundamental difficulty <strong>of</strong> convincing a knowledge owner, an
expert, to share his/her intellectual capital. Since <strong>the</strong> idea <strong>of</strong> extracting knowledge from people
works against <strong>the</strong>ir natural interests (“knowledge is power”), companies mainly have two options.
The first is to change <strong>the</strong> organizational culture in order to create intrinsic motivation; <strong>the</strong> second
is to invest in financial compensation and incentives. While <strong>the</strong> first way is long-term, some
skeptics even say unrealistic, <strong>the</strong> second is expensive and has not many proved success stories,
too (Gurteen 2010).
Codification problem: addresses <strong>the</strong> idea <strong>of</strong> documenting knowledge and storing it in a retrievable
form. Even if people are fearless and motivated to pass on <strong>the</strong>ir knowledge, <strong>the</strong>y might not be
able to do so. This relates to <strong>the</strong> popular problem <strong>of</strong> embedded and tacit knowledge (Bohn 1994).
Not every piece <strong>of</strong> knowledge can be broken down into data and not each individual is able to
realize what (s)he knows and to express it in a replicable way. Thus, as an extreme, <strong>the</strong> most
valuable knowledge owner could be <strong>the</strong> least valuable knowledge sender (because (s)he is not
able to share anything at all).
Effectiveness problem: discusses <strong>the</strong> applicability and utilization <strong>of</strong> “received” knowledge within a
new domain or context. From Bloom’s taxonomy we know that gaining scenario-related
knowledge as well as self-reflective “know why” are <strong>the</strong> most valuable stages <strong>of</strong> learning (Bloom
1984). Unfortunately, <strong>the</strong>y are also <strong>the</strong> most complex forms that demand significant time and
effort, as well as many interactions between knowledge sender and receiver to be fully reached.
Therefore, “real value learning” predominantly takes place via face-to-face events such as
meetings, workshops and “on <strong>the</strong> job”, while even <strong>the</strong> most sophisticated knowledge
management tools (such as Artificial Intelligence Systems) are limited to providing support, e.g.
by collecting and analyzing vast quantities <strong>of</strong> data (Hey 2010).These technical systems are
certainly important and in many cases even indispensable, but for <strong>the</strong> particular area <strong>of</strong>
“knowledge sharing” <strong>the</strong>y are bound to less effective tasks (Jacobson/Prusak 2006).
In brief, <strong>the</strong> organizational and in particular <strong>the</strong> technical instruments to foster individual learning
relationships are limited. Employees are only partly capable and willing to share <strong>the</strong>ir knowledge and
even if <strong>the</strong>y do, it is hard to gain measurable value that justifies <strong>the</strong> costs invested in a “knowledge
management system”. If we agree on <strong>the</strong>se core patterns, we can define <strong>the</strong> following three
challenges for designing cost-efficient knowledge networks.
Do not try to extract knowledge
Do not rely on codified knowledge
Focus on <strong>the</strong> best knowledge sharers (ra<strong>the</strong>r than on <strong>the</strong> best experts)
2.3 Online social communities
Nowadays, information technology for building online social networks, so called “social s<strong>of</strong>tware” like
wikis, mashup tools, or blogs is already a commodity (Forrester 2009). Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, everyone is
familiar with <strong>the</strong> features <strong>of</strong> online communities like Facebook, or LinkedIn. But has <strong>the</strong> reader <strong>of</strong> this
article ever asked a colleague or friend why (s)he has joined a Web 2.0 community? And if so, did <strong>the</strong>
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