Knowledge for Human Intelligence

Knowledge that reinforces Different Intelligences in Humans. As we look at KM Systems and the people who design, build and use them, it is very important for use to understand how people learn. More importantly it is more important to understand what type of intelligence people have and how the proposed KMS will support the specific type of intelligence found within the organization. Below is a clip of Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

 What parent can not see gleaming rays of genius in their child? And yet, how many children come to school and demonstrate their own unique genius? There was a time when it might have been a joke to suggest "Every parent thinks their kid's a genius." But research on human intelligence is suggesting that the joke may be on educators! There is a constant flow of new information on how the human brain operates, how it differs in function between genders, how emotions impact on intellectual acuity, even on how genetics and environment each impact our childrens' cognitive abilities. While each area of study has its merits, Howard Gardner of Harvard University has identified different KINDS of intelligence we possess. This has particularly strong ramifications in the classroom, because if we can identify children's different strengths among these intelligences, we can accommodate different children more successfully according to their orientation to learning.

Thus far Gardner 's work suggests nine intelligences. He speculates that there may be many more yet to be identified. Time will tell. These are the paths to children's learning teachers can address in their classrooms right now. They are:

VISUAL/SPATIAL - learning visually and organizing ideas spatially. Seeing concepts in action in order to understand them. The ability to "see" things in one's mind in planning to create a product or solve a problem.

VERBAL/LINGUISTIC - learning through the spoken and written word. This intelligence was always valued in the traditional classroom and in traditional assessments of intelligence and achievement.

MATHEMATICAL/LOGICAL - learning through reasoning and problem solving. Also highly valued in the traditional classroom, where students were asked to adapt to logically sequenced delivery of instruction.

BODILY/KINESTHETIC - learning through interaction with one's environment. This intelligence is not the domain of "overly active" learners. It promotes understanding through concrete experience.

MUSICAL/RHYTHMIC - learning through patterns, rhythms and music. This includes not only auditory learning, but the identification of patterns through all the senses. INTRAPERSONAL - learning through feelings, values and attitudes. This is a decidedly affective component of learning through which students place value on what they learn and take ownership for their learning.

INTERPERSONAL - learning through interaction with others. Not the domain of children who are simply "talkative" or "overly social." This intelligence promotes collaboration and working cooperatively with others.

NATURALIST - learning through classification, categories and hierarchies. The naturalist intelligence picks up on subtle differences in meaning. It is not simply the study of nature; it can be used in all areas of study..

EXISTENTIAL - learning by seeing the "big picture": "Why are we here?" "What is my role in the world?" "What is my place in my family, school and community?" This intelligence seeks connections to real world understandings and applications of new learning. Teachers are now working on assimilating this knowledge into their strategies for helping children learn. While it is too early to tell all the ramifications for this research, it is clear that the day is past where educators teach the text book and it is the dawn of educators teaching each child according to their orientation to the world.

-Walter McKenzie

So Who is the Knowledge Manager Anyway?

“Knowledge Management in Practice: Chief Knowledge Officers and Chief-Learning Officers (ASTD, 2000) is a series of case studies at 18 global organizations representing a wide diversity of industries, including technology, health care, consulting services, retail, financial, education, government, accounting, and insurance. The cases define initial best practices and lessons learned, and provide guidance for people aspiring to be knowledge or learning leaders” (Bonner, 2000). From this and our course readings, I have extracted a consolidated list of Knowledge, Skills, and Ability’s (KSAs) required of CKOs and CLOs. Chief knowledge officer positions should be created to envision, guide, direct organizational systems that deliberately leverage knowledge into tangible business benefits. Similarly, CLO positions should be designed to leverage learning. The organizational culture, the type of knowledge and organizational learning it wants to emphasize, and how technologically focused the duty requires will be essential factors in choosing between CKO and CLO KSA’s. “CKOs locate knowledge within a company and find ways to capture, distribute, and create more of it. In some of the cases, the CKO position originated from that of chief information officer, which is primarily technology-driven. But a CKO is more likely to view technology as only an enabler for an effective knowledge management system, and he or she brings the added dimensions of strategic vision and business savvy” (Bonner, 2000). Nearly universally, the CKOs in the case studies and other literature on this new and growing profession emphasize the need for them be networkers and build key relationship creating access to knowledge leaders. “Nick Milton, a former knowledge manager and a knowledge management pioneer for British Petroleum, says, "The fundamental issues are people, culture, roles, behaviors, and the business processes in your organization. Don't just focus on technology. It may help you manage knowledge, but knowledge is a people issue. It lives in people's heads." Likewise, Andy Campbell, the CKO of the Central Intelligence Agency's Office of Training and Education, says, "Don't get seduced by the technologists." The chief learning officers in the cases generally shares that perspective. Pat Cataldo, CLO for Science Applications International Corporation, adds, "People--throughout the industry in general--are often tempted to view the advantages that new technologies bring to the table as a catch-all solution. One size or one solution does not fit all training situations"” (Bonner, 2000). The following activities were cited universally or nearly so by all of the CKOs and CLOs in the cases as key knowledge areas and requirements for performance: 1. Align and integrate diverse functions or groups. 2. Use previous best practices or design benchmarking studies. 3. Develop a culture of acceptance of organizational learning, continuous learning, and knowledge management. 4. Have a customer service orientation. 5. Identify critical areas for improvement, through needs or gap analyses. 6. Create knowledge-content activities to contribute to or manage the capture, sharing, and retention activities. 7. Leverage corporate-wide learning. 8. Establish partnerships with senior managers. 9. Conduct strategic planning and implementation. 10. Be a visionary and champion for organizational learning and knowledge management. 11. Business objectives & performance (developed or supported) 12. Career planning/staff or professional development 13. Change manager role 14. Communications/build networks/use personal influence 15. Continuous and/or consistent learning systems highlighted 16. Corporate or in-house universities/ learning lab 17. Create/lead expert teams 18. Culture development for learning and/or knowledge 19. Customer service orientation 20. Employee orientation program 21. Employee retention/recruitment programs 22. Executive education and/or action learning 23. Financial knowledge management 24. Identify critical areas for improvement/needs analyses 25. Knowledge-content activities (capture, share & retain) 26. Knowledge-structure (tools, manage infrastructure) 27. Leverage corporate-wide learning and/or knowledge 28. Organization effectiveness consulting/OD activities 29. Partnerships with senior management/others 30. Project management activities 31. Sales/marketing/ business development 32. Strategic planning & implementation 33. Technology for learning/knowledge (developed or supported) 34. Training & education/workshops/retreats/meeting leader In addition to these activities required for CKO and CLO performance, I have summarized a list of key Skills and Abilities required as additional criteria for selecting and hiring CKOs and CLOs. 1. Ability to design information systems (designing, evaluating, or choosing information content, database structures, indexing and knowledge representation, interfaces, networking, and technology. 2. Managing information systems (maintaining the integrity, quality, currency of the data, updating, modifying, improving the system, and operating the system). 3. Managing information resources (managing organizational information resources to support organizational missions and for competitive advantage). 4. Establish and sustain training (coaching, mentoring, community of practice start-up and life cycle training support, and feeding back lessons learned, best practices into training content). 5. Serve as information agent for the organization/agencies (acting as information consultants or guides for clients: advising, training, guiding on information, information sources, information use; acting as agents on behalf of clients: gathering, evaluating, analyzing, synthesizing, and summarizing information for clients). 6. Provide competitive intelligence. 7. Understand, maintain, and improve customer relations for information systems/technology (acting as intermediaries between clients and information system ........

Other resources for perspective....

Here are my knowledge notes from course work, research and general discovery while sitting in Hawaii away from my family.

Knowledge Management—Emerging Perspectives

Yes, knowledge management is the hottest subject of the day. The question is: what is this activity called knowledge management, and why is it so important to each and every one of us? The following writings, articles, and links offer some emerging perspectives in response to these questions. As you read on, you can determine whether it all makes any sense or not.

http//www.systems-thinking.org/kmgmt/kmgmt.htm

Organizational culture, organizational leadership, and Chief Knowledge Officers (CKOs) each play important roles in overcoming human barriers associated with knowledge creation, transfer and sharing. This paper examines three key components of organizational culture: cooperative involvement, trust and incentives. In addition, the impact of organizational leadership on knowledge management as well as the roles and qualifications of CKOs are discussed. Through an examination of previous research and existing literature on knowledge management, this paper also shows where gaps in research exist and suggests directions for future organizational research.


http://jlo.sagepub.com/content/10/4/26.short

Repost from
http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2010/11/24/tom-stewart-on-the-wealth-of-knowledge/

Tom Stewart on the Wealth of Knowledge

by Bill Ives

November 24, 2010 at 8:01 am · Filed under knowledge management

Here my session notes from the KM World 2010 andEnterprise Search Summit 2010 keynote: The Wealth of Knowledge by Thomas A Stewart, Tom is the Chief Marketing & Knowledge Officer – Booz & Company. He  is the Former Editor & Managing Director, Harvard Business Review and I have read his work for some time. Here is the session description:

“Our experienced author and practitioner shares winning strategies for developing and evolving knowledge-driven enterprises that are productive, innovative, and successful. Using real-world examples he illustrates how those strategies have worked in many different types of organizations. Stewart also looks into the future and suggests directions that knowledge-driven enterprises will engage in over the next few years.”

Tom started by pointing out the knowledge effort has been around for a while, running hot and cold like the Gartner hype curve. Investing in knowledge can still return great value. He began by looking at value in the knowledge economy.

He asked if the primary role of management is to address change or continuity. Change won, as did intellectual assets over physical assets.

 said that the knowledge economy stands on four pillars, First, knowledge is what we buy and sell. More of the money we spend now is on knowledge versus food, shelter, etc. Our smart phones have more knowledge than what was required to put a man on the moon.  He now has a smart stove. This has created new strategic options for companies. For example, how are we going to package knowledge? One option is to put it into things. You can also distil your knowledge and sell it as a product. The third option is black box services such as what consulting companies and law firms do.

The TV show Mad Men shows old style marketing. They gave away marketing strategy to get the physical ads. Now these are separate and the ad agency game has changed. Firms such as law firms need new business models.

Knowledge now defines our work and activities.  People need to ask what knowledge they need to do thier job. This is an opportunity for KM. This basic business case has limits. The first is that traditional organizations do not manage knowledge well and knowledge gets distorted in the communication process.  Networks can be a solution. There are three kinds: the network of our team, networks from the center of an organization to those on the edge (including customers and partners), and networks to connect those on the edge with each other.  Knowledge managers need to get these three networks under control.

Knowledge management needs to be able to handle fuzzy problems. When things are clear you provide best practices. When cause and effect is knowable you provide access to experts. When cause and effect are not known, you need to be able to take intelligent action within the chaos. This is where the most value from knowledge can be derived.

The third pressure on companies is the increasing globalization. First there was the globalization of markets, then production, now it is intellect. Now R&D budgets are being increasingly spent off shore. Distributed decision making only works when everyone understands the strategy and the knowledge to support it. Knowledge assets are what separate winners and losers. You need to be able identify your value to the market. Is it innovation, consistency, service, etc.? Does the sales force agree with management? This alignment is essential to compete.

The last pillar of knowledge economy is that return on knowledge should exceed that for other assets. This is how you create value. KM can accelerate this value creation.

Next, he addressed the rise of extreme competition. Everything is going faster. The customer expects 24/7 service. Customer power is growing. Pricing power is elusive. Traditional media has to compete against free products.  Finding these products is much easier. Adaptability is key and KM can address this issue.

Then he covered pursuing a capabilities-driven strategy. The first order is defining what an organization really is. What is the identity? How do we create value for our customers? What do need to do this? To who are we selling what? The problem comes when these answers do not align. Problems when companies get side tracked to go after other goals because they seem easy. Coherence pays off.  How can KM support this alignment? The answer will drive value in the 21^st century.

Key questions include: Have we earned the right to win? Can we articulate the capabilities that give us this right? Have we created coherence in our KM system? How can we create the needed synergy by creating coherence through the same knowledge base? Tom suggests that knowledge management’s role has increased and become more strategic in today’s marketplace. I would agree.

Ideas on Way Ahead....

In my mind, it seems the future of KM will required a more integrated and holistic Knowledge Network with components of a Social Knowledge Network focusing on the who (people), Semantically linked information focusing on the what (Knowledge), Inline Library Systems for increased building of the what (Knowledge) for organizational knowledge environments that have a demand for knowledge for specific business objectives (Why). This will mean that shinny objects (new technology) will need to be resisted initially until it can be proven this shinny object can support and be supported by the people, type of content (knowledge representations) representing knowledge and meet the metrics established for the business objectives. It appears to me that the KM Community of Practice (CoP) has failed to a significant degree in the past with poor correlation to IT implementation and informational processing. This will require the rebuilding of the new millennial approach to KM or what I prefer to call Knowledge Information Management (KIM) as Knowledge is distinguishable different that information and Information Technologies. In the rebuilding of the KM CoP and approach, it will be a requirement for more structure education, training, and certifications. This education and training will require a specific model and process for conducting SixSigma type Knowledge Audit Capabilities with a focus on translating emergent KIM language into the accepted business language for business executives to be able to correlate the KIM approach and effects to the business objective of the organization. The future of KIM is to identify the factors which correlate to successful adoption of KIM principles and programs by the different type of organizations (large, small, for profit, etc.) in to a KIM Acceptance Model (KIMAM) with methods for conducting knowledge worker and manager surveys, quantitative analysis methods, and analytical results that will provide critical path principles required for successful organizational adoption. This will be discussed more in discussion # 2. Due to a need to rapidly absorb knowledge, I used some social media and related sites listed below. References: http://youtu.be/Hm6IIwwT_LA http://youtu.be/gGc14ERqvxY http://youtu.be/XGRC0buTA_8 KM2011_IN 4_Lemons.pdf