Folksonomies - Collaborative Tagging

This posts explains the user-defined collaborative tagging and how it is applied to organize and share information. And it will also provide ideas around the information classification to achieve search and retrieval faster and more efficient and relevant.

Metadata by definition is "data about data", basically adding more intelligence to data and establishing better relation between pieces of information. Metadata is usually created either by professional taxonomy experts or content authors. First method is very expensive since it involves formal taxonomies and controlled vocabularies. Besides it's even impossible when you have large legacy data which is yet not tagged. Second method overloads the authors with additional tasks and requires an understanding of metadata tags. These approaches are still disconnected with the end users because it does not understand the intent and context of the end user. Though the methods help in searching the relevant information faster and easier through search and taxonomy navigations.

Third form of tagging is called user created collaborative tagging i.e. folksonomies. It is also call community classification of information another aspect of social networking. Google has used an approach of collaborative classification in page ranks using PageRank algorithm. The number of links pointing to a web page allows Google to optimize its search relevance and rank the page appropriately. It is another form of implicit user created collaborative classification of information. Amazon has used customer reviews effectively to add intelligence to catalog, another implicit form of classification.

Social Bookmarking employs explicit form of user created collaborative tagging. Sites like Del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon etc. provides ability to bookmark your urls or sites and create additional tags to the urls. These tags are created by end user in context with the intent and usefulness of the site. They also allow users to describe and organize content with any vocabulary they choose. It is completely disconnected with the owner and author of the information. In addition to automatically generated chronological ordering of bookmarks saved to the system, the tags are used to navigate the bookmarks within a user’s collection. Additionally, these tags are also used to collocate bookmarks across the entire system, so for example, looking at the page http://del.icio.us/tag/web2.0 will show all bookmarks that are tagged with “web2.0” by any user. Functionality of these social bookmarking sites varies from one another but the basic idea is the same, ability to tag the urls and be able to share across the system.

Although folksonomy is not a controlled vocabulary, and does have limitations, there have lot of advantages that bring lot of value in sharing, collaboration and social networking.

Finding the information faster - In order to find the a relevant content, one has to browse the websites or search through the web search engines. At times exploring the bookmark tags in the social bookmarking sites, one can find many recent resources from a wide variety of authors and sites that likely would never have been visited before. There is a fundamental difference in browsing the tags to find interesting content, as opposed to searching to find relevant documents in a query. The other users have found these content items or sites relevant and useful, so it is higher in relevance optimization.

User centric vocabulary - most important strength of a folksonomy is that it directly reflects the vocabulary of end users. End user can tag the information based on intent and context of the information, not based on the intent of author. In fact it is not derived from taxonomy expert or intellectual property producers or information owner, but from the consumers of the information. In this way, it directly reflects their choices in terminology and language.


Limitation of folksonomies are mostly user centric and system confined, and by no means limits the use of the system.

Uncontrolled vocabulary - Ambiguity of the tags can emerge as users apply the same tag in different ways. There are no explicit systematic guidelines and no scope notes.

Structure of tags - structure is usually single word with no spaces, sometimes makes it difficult to merge various tags. For example web2.0, web2, web20 means the same tag but would show as separate taxonomy nodes.

Semantic tags - There is a limitation of synonym words in the system as tags are user generated. For example, web and www should be classified under same tag.


Social Bookmarking sites have extended functionalities of folksonomy with social aspects like commenting, rating, community building etc. In Digg, one can start a feedback loop on tagged content and also see who all have tagged this content. In addition, communities can be build using data collected on the social bookmarking sites.

The folksonomy can be used in enterprise 2.0 to supplement existing taxonomies and provide additional access to materials by encouraging and leveraging explicit user generated tags. If enterprises begin to incorporate user-centric information management systems, the folksonomies developed by the users have great value in information sharing and retrieval systems.

What Is Enterprise Web 2.0 Software?

Interestingly someone asked this question on linkedin. This question has been asked to me by many people who have limited understanding of web 2.0 and trying to adopt web 2.0 in the enterprise environment. Some of them even ask how many softwares they need to buy or build to enable enterprise web 2.0. Then I have to explain them the basics of web 2.0 and what is required to adopt web 2.0 within the enterprise.

Before we get into enterprise web 2.0 software, we need to understand what is web 2.0. It is not just a technology, it's a trend. Web 2.0 is built on set of principles that differentiates it from legacy paradigms. The principles including using web as platform, using company data as business advantage, having apps which are device agnostic, apps with rich user experience, apps harnessing collective intelligence, and apps that are lightweight ever evolving enabling new business models. They must leverage network effect. Web 2.0 applications need to provide business value, either in additional revenue or reducing costs. If one looks at these principles, any application which is build on one of these can be classified as "Enterprise Web 2.0 Software".

For example, one of the principles is harnessing collective intelligence, it is basically team collaboration, knowledge sharing and team workspaces. Wikis are one of the most widely adopted web 2.0 collaboration technology. Its been used for knowledge sharing, project management, task management and online collaboration with team members. Wikis can be classified as "Enterprise Web 2.0 Software". Wikis such as eTouch SamePage, Confluence, MediaWiki, ClearSpace have got lot of traction from the enterprises. Another example, in search domain there are products like Baynote which enables relevance optimization on the legacy search engines. They leverage end users behavior and their clicks, to generate better relevance on search engine results. They are also classified as "Enterprise Web 2.0 Softwares".

There is no single product that claims to solve all business problems and at the same time enable web 2.0. It is how you implement and deploy these applications and bring value to your business. It all depends on your problem and the business.

Implementing Web 2.0: Practical Approach

Knowledge of web 2.0 is key for decision making and strategy building for embracing, provisioning and adopting web 2.0 within the enterprise. But knowing does not always translate into doing it. Web 2.0 is not just about technology, it is about people, processes, cultured and, change and adoption. It is about business strategy, value proposition, and competitive advantage. It is very critical for organizations to implement right and effective implementation methodology to deploy web 2.0 applications in the portfolio, measure return on investment (ROI), and build and sustain competitive advantage.

People drive the vision, commitment, change, and culture. The organizations can only create environments to realize these visions. Vision is not just aligning the thoughts with business drivers, but also introducing new ideas and new initiatives. Not all initiatives see the light, success and adoption, commitment is the black bone of all implementations. Web 2.0 is also intertwined with the change in processes and culture. It is destructive model requires realigning to newer processes, technologies and business strategies. In order to be accomplish your vision, you need a well-thought proven methodology to succeed.

Many organization have adopted web 2.0 principles not as a business strategy but more as an experiments to get on the web 2.0 technology map. These companies are plying low risks strategies and trying to gauge its adoption with respect to business model and corporate culture. Others are still in wait and watch mode, closely monitoring the web 2.0 adoption and success within the enterprise, waiting to see if the Web 2.0 bubble is bursting. If the bubble does not burst as it looks like, these organization will lag behind others who adopted it whether successfully or not.

The web 2.0 implementation methodology framework consist of six stages. It is education, strategy, planning, implementation, adoption and measure & improve. Though it is typical of any methodology to have these stages, but it is important to understand each of the stages in web 2.0 implementation.



The key activities in each of these stages are listed below:

Education

•

• Understand Web 2.0 principles
• Enterprise 2.0 Trends
• Applying Web 2.0 to your Business

Strategy

•

• Formulate Web 2.0 Vision
• Assess Competitive Advantage
• Strategise Business Transformation

Planning

• Implementation Roadmap
• Technology Selection
• Project Methodology

Implementation

•

• Software Design
• Application Development
• Deployment & Support

Adoption

•

• Community Engagement & Mgmt
• Leading Organization Change Mgmt
• Executive Management Commitment

Measure & Improve

•

• Measure Web 2.0 Maturity
• Gap Analysis & ROI
• Review & Plan

Each of the activities can further be divided into tasks with guidelines and finite deliverable.

Please feel free to comment on this posts.

Expect $4.6 Billion In Spending By 2013 As Large Companies Embrace Web 2.0

A new report released today by Forrester Research is predicting that enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technologies is going to increase dramatically over the next five years. According to the report, enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technologies will grow strongly over the next five years, reaching $4.6 billion globally by 2013, with social networking, mashups, and RSS capturing the greatest share. Enterprise web 2.0 tools will be adopted, provisioned and embraced by the enterprises over the next five years overcoming all the challenges of technology, monetary benefits, business market and corporate cultures.

Web 2.0 market place is divided into consumer and enterprise services. Consumer services includes Myspace, FaceBook, twitter etc., targeted towards consumers, monetized through ads and evaluated based on traffic. The consumer services are part of enterprise services.

Enterprise services have two aspects - Internal and External. Internal aspect is aimed at the employees, internal communication, knowledge sharing and product innovation. External aspect is geared towards customers and partners, marketing and sales, product development, customer services and retention, and new opportunities.

This reports covers some of the most compelling questions. What Is Enterprise Web 2.0 Software? Can Software Firms Make Money Selling Enterprise Web 2.0 Tools? And talks about external and internal facing markets and how it will be driven.

Overall the reports align with the trends in the market place. Enterprises are keen in adopting web 2.0 principles in both external and internal aspects. Knowledge Management is being replaced with web 2.0 collaboration and social networking applications. The executives understand the need, but knowledge of web 2.0 and how to implement is still missing. They are opting for less risky web 2.0 pilot applications instead of realigning their business strategy with web 2.0. But I am sure success of pilot applications will lead to bigger initiatives. It is just a matter of time and confidence.

There is lot of scope of ideas, technology and services for all product companies, service providers and enterprise IT teams in coming years. The web 2.0 products who have not yet seen the light would reap benefits from the enterprise adoption. Service vendors who have knowledge of web 2.0 and their challenges can take advantage of web 2.0 deployments and create a niche market for themselves. The enterprise IT team will either have to consolidate their ideas and resources or outsource the new initiatives in web 2.0. But in the end, it will be win-win situation for all players in the web 2.0 space.

Mashup - Web 2.0 with Enterprise (Part 4)

Web 2.0 is not a buzz anymore, has been widely adopted and results have been too encouraging in the consumer world to discard it as just another fad!! Business is also slowly adopting web 2.0 in both their internal and external applications. If you see, technology has taken time to mature always before it gets widely adopted. We have seen it with SOA and SaaS, it was seen as next generation application architecture by modern day architecture gurus. But it has taken time to mature and embraced by large majority of business and makes effective use of it. There have been some rumors of web 2.0 bust and also of next generation web 3.0. I do not want to comment on it yet because I think it is too early to reject web 2.0 and its potential has not yet been realized. I have seen in last six months that there has been shift in business serious dwelling in web 2.0 ideas and trying to leverage network effect of web 2.0 in their business model.

I have come up with a summary table of what web 2.0 applications are and how they can be used in the internal and external applications. Please feel free to comment.

Mashup - Web 2.0 with Enterprise (Part 3)

In the previous post, we looked the web 2.0 applications that can be deployed with the enterprise for their employees. It is a misnomer that web 2.0 applications can either be consumer applications or internal applications within the enterprise. Companies are now taking advantage of the powerful web 2.0 concepts in streamlining their business models and processes. They are realizing that web 2.0 applications can be used effectively to engage, interact and support the customers, partners and suppliers to gain an edge in their business. Companies are looking for innovative ways beyond software creation and are engaging large communities of people on the web to participate in their business that was not possible before. This may require them to change their business models, though not necessarily in a disruptive fashion, and may impact their short and long term objectives and businesses. The web 2.0 applications have already shown results for some of businesses who have taken risk and plunge into the web 2.0 hype.

Everyone would ask the same question when it comes to adopting a new technology or a new paradigm. How would my business benefit from it? And the answer would be "it will help in increasing your revenue and reducing costs". No marks for right answer please. Aren't these the only two drivers for running any business? The question is "how can web 2.0 enable it - increase revenue and reduce costs". Research companies have done numerous surveys that have given them some insight into what C-level executives think of web 2.0 and how web 2.0 can help them achieve their business goals. Some of reasons for adopting web 2.0 in their business are acquiring new customers, customer service and support, product and service innovations, customer retention, online sales, and marketing, advertising and public relations. Most of the senior executives have been struggling to answer as to how and how much time it would take to see the results. Everybody's business is unique and it will take a thorough discovery cycles to identify what processes can be enabled using web 2.0 principles and what benefit they would reap.

Let's now look at some of the web 2.0 applications that can be used within the enterprise for external audiences, including customers, partners and suppliers. We will also see how they will benefit their business in providing them with engaging, lively and interactive alternative.

Businesses in general have been collaborating and communicating with the customers, partners and supplier. They have been doing this either through offline modes of collaborations like mails, phones, faxes or online mode using simple web applications to complex large portals. The offline modes of collaboration may be more personal but at the same time more expensive. As people are becoming more web savvy, they want all interaction to happen either through web or smart phones. Companies spend a fortune in this mode of communication. The legacy online collaboration used to happen through unidirectional web i.e. business would typically provide the content or data for the customer and supplier to view. But if they had a specific request for a service, they needed to revert back to offline collaboration i.e. pick up a phone or send an email. With the advent of web 2.0, the paradigm has shifted to read-write, user driven intelligent web. The customers and partners are more than willing to collaborate over the web. In addition, they can access the content on their PCs and smart phone and that too when they want it. Wiki is best tool for collaboration now. It provides all the rich features and functionality that is required for collaboration and communication including content creation, feedback, calendar, forums, project management etc.

Another usage of wikis are in creation of company-pedias. Companies can create wikipedia like company-pedias to distribute their products and services information and also enable customers, partners, and general audience to participate. This will enable to consolidate products and services information, success stories, case studies and white papers and create a knowledge repository.

Blogging is a tool for initiating a dialogs with rest of the web and get feedback from interested audience. The conversation is started typically by individual contributor and enables others to participate in it. Lately blogs have been extended to project teams where team members can write posts on the same blog about their works. Businesses have realized that this could be another effective tool for initiating conversation with the untapped large audiences on the web. It is not just limited to the untapped audiences but can also be used effectively with the existing customers and partners. Whether they are doing this still remains a questions? Yes, there is potential in using blogs as next generation tools in engaging and interacting with last user community on the web. In my opinion, most businesses should be active in exploring business blogs to communicate and collaborate with the customers, partners and untapped web community.

Web 2.0 is synonymous with social networks. Social network applications enable individuals to establish and maintain relationship on the web. The actions and functions of social network depend on the application and its objectives. It is also targeted toward specific audiences. MySpace, Facebook and Linkedin are the most popular social networking applications and are targeted toward different type of audiences. How different are these web 2.0 social networking applications from web 1.0 groups? They probably solve the same purpose but social network applications are much richer in functionality, are extensible and provide more engaging user experience. If you look at FaceBook, it provides extensibility by add-on applications which groups have failed to provide. The social networking applications can be used effectively in businesses in creation of online customer and partner communities. Such communities will be a great forum for exchanging information, ideas, reviews, feedback, recommendations, sales opportunities and support.

There are other applications like mashups, podcast, directory services, and RSS which businesses can leverage to enhance collaboration, communication, and content distribution. Besides companies are also adopting consumer targeted social networking applications like Linkedin, FaceBook in their businesses for creating business communities.

Mashup - Web 2.0 with Enterprise (Part 2)

Continuing my discussion on web 2.0 in an enterprise from the my previous post, now lets look at the some web 2.0 applications and how they have been deployed in enterprise environment.

Web 2.0 applications can provide value to the employees in internal collaboration & communication, knowledge sharing and collective intelligence. But we still need to answer some of the questions. How are these web 2.0 applications different from legacy applications? What additional value do these apps provide which the predecessors have failed in? I would say legacy apps have been very useful and provided everything that one needs. But now employees need more in web era.

Does company provide its employees with all the information and tools that I need to perform my daily job? Are they spending their working time in finding information that they should have readily accesses to? The shift in web 2.0 paradigm is to be able to pull the information anywhere anytime and more so when is required, rather than pushing information to the employees. The focus should be to transform the company’s tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge continuously and at all the times. The focus should be able to find the right experts when you want to connect with them rather than later. The focus should be able to harness collective intelligence of employee pool rather than handful of strategist. The focus should be on leveraging company data as competitive advantage in their business model. And apps will also enable business growth and reduce redundant cost.

Lets look at some of the internal apps and how they can help organizations in achieving their goals using principles of web 2.0.

Wikis are probably most used web 2.0 application with in the enterprise environment. The very reason for its popularity could well be the meaning of the word wiki itself, which is Hawaiian for "fast". Yes, it is first version of writable web. In comparison with traditional content management systems, wiki enables everyone to be able to manage content. It does not require elaborate complex processes to create and publish content, the user can edit the content in context and publish it. Wiki is a powerful tool for internal and external collaboration & communication including discussion threads, calendars, RSS, project management, knowledge organization, document management and much more. In fact it can be classified into platform category since it provides extended capabilities of mashups, data aggregation and integration plugins. Some of the most popular commercial wikis are SamePage and Confluence. There are tons of open source wikis that corporates can deploy if they happen to have even slightly strong IT teams. Do companies need expensive and complex Content Management Systems after advent of wikis? I guess not.

Collaboration 2.0 is another offshoot of '2.0 era'. These are platforms that have been built by integrating various related technologies that either existed standalone or built over them. This 2.0 platform is very much in space of wiki but more complex and controlled. It includes workflow, business intelligence, forms and email synchronization in addition to wiki features. Microsoft Sharepoint, EMC eRoom and Vignette Collaboration most popular tools in this space.

Expert Finder or Directory 2.0 puts enterprise on the social networking technology map. If you look at the traditional directory services within the corporate,
it is more like a contact list of the outlook application. In the web 2.0 era, when we are talking about harnessing collective intelligence and finding right connection at the right time, the question is, how do you know if the required expertise exists within the organization or not. It can further be extended into a social networking application where employees can create communities and collaborate on subject of common interests. Employees can cut through the red tape and connect with each other to reduce duplication of effort and collaboration.

Blogs have made millions of journalist out of common people. Anyone who has ideas and thoughts can share it with anyone in the world and get instant feedback. There is no more dependency on print media or web sites to reach out to people. Anyone can start blogging in matter of minutes and has million of readers at his disposal. Blogging is one of great tools for harnessing collective intelligence using comments. Techcrunch is one of the most popular technology blog in the world. In the enterprise environment, it will take sometime before free employee blogging will acceptable to everyone in upper management and become part of corporate culture. I have seen executive management blogs in most of the large corporates, a channel for information distribution. Blogs have been extended where ideas get posted through audio and video media. Podcast has added another channel for information distribution and has been utilized for trainings and information sessions.

Knowledge is key when it comes making strategic decisions. Knowledge needs to be created, shared, distributed and applied continuously within the organization. In web 1.0 era, knowledge was created by few and then distributed across through multiple channels, for example, MSDN. With web 2.0, knowledge is created though collective intelligence. Take an example of wikipedia, the largest knowledge base on web, is not created by few but by everyone who has the knowledge and are willing to share. How we can replicate the success of wikipedia in the enterprise environment? Wiki is the defacto tool for creating knowledge repositories within the organization harnessing collective intelligence.

RSS has become backbone of content syndication and distribution. It is as simple as it names suggests, real simple syndication. As mentioned in my previous post, web 2.0 applications leverage the network effort. Information has limited utility if it is not shared and distributed. Information needs to be distributed across the network so that it can be utilized appropriately to achieve better results. RSS can also be used to aggregate the data from various sources to create an actionable knowledge base.

There are other popular web 2.0 apps that have made in-roads in the enterprises. Linkedin, FaceBook, Twitter, and Dopplr are some of them. I will discuss these apps in subsequent posts.

How about we integrate all the web 2.0 applications discussed above in unified connect platform. Unified Connect is a collaboration and communication platform that takes care of all business needs. It includes all the collaboration applications including instant messaging, calendar, meeting place, document management, wikis, blogs, etc... New applications can be added to the platform using mashups and SaaS. Some of the products that are available to look at are from Cisco's WebEx and Adobe.

In the next post, I will be writing on the external apps.

Mashup - Web 2.0 with Enterprise (Part 1)

Web 2.0 has been great success story with consumer products but much has still not been said or done with it in the enterprise environment. Pundits and analysts have been toying with idea of web 2.0 in the enterprise sector but surveys show very little actual adoption of web 2.0 in this area. How can the trends be optimistic if surveys show the opposite? The trends have been optimistic but actual implementation of web 2.0 is yet far away from reality. Do we know why?

What is web 2.0 in an enterprise? What do we need to know about web 2.0 that can be applied in an enterprise environment? Web 2.0 is a trend or paradigm that is shaping the next generation of world wide web. But this definition is not enough. Web 2.0 has different meaning for different audiences - technical and business. For technical community it is wikis, blogs, RSS, podcasting, folksonomy, mashups and social networking. From business prospective it is finding new business models and opportunities, marketing new innovative products, engaging large untapped user communities into the businesses and enhancing customer satisfaction and retention to name the few. Where do web 2.0 and enterprise meet (mashup)? We will only be able to answer this question if we understand underlying set of principles of web 2.0 and try to put all web 2.0 blocks together in the enterprise environment.

First lets discuss the core principles of web 2.0. According to Tim O'Reilley, web 2.0 are networked applications that leverage network effects. What is "Network Effect"? It is a situation or effect in which a product or service becomes more valuable as more people use it. It is increasingly focused towards engaging large user communities into the network with new products and services, strengthening the network with shared knowledge pool and collective intelligence, and leveraging the web into business strategies, products and services. Then what is problem with widespread adoption of web 2.0 in an enterprise? We have all its constituents; audience, web, knowledge. The fourth quadrant i.e. product and services, depend and leverage the other three constituents and enable in shaping the new business strategies and opportunities with web 2.0.

Then why are the enterprises not moving as fast as they should have been in adopting web 2.0? Web 2.0 is more than just products, people, knowledge and web, it is also about processes and culture i.e. shift in power and control. Enterprises will have to change the way they do business to take strategic advantage of the web 2.0. It will not be easy to formulate a web 2.0 strategy without changing underlying processes and power switch. It will require an enterprise widespread and dynamic changes since web 2.0 approaches will require self assessment, introspection, risk and new strategic alignment. Web 2.0 is basically a disruptive model that may derail old platforms and business models. Web 2.0 advocates moving away from command and control towards collaboration and teamwork, from push to pull model, from process-centric to people-centric business model.

Even in the presence of directives from top management for enabling this change, enterprises are still unable to implement or deploy the web 2.0 apps? My 2 cents. The single biggest challenge here seems to be the employees. The sheer numbers here present a daunting task of getting them at an equal level of understanding of the new technology and its strategic advantages. It is a challenge to educate them and for many leaders, web 2.0 shift is thus beyond their scope and mandate. Avoiding risks and taking the path of incremental improvements then becomes the easier alternative.

Many companies have therefore adopted web 2.0 principles not as a business strategy but more as an experiments to get on the web 2.0 technology map. These companies are plying low risks strategies and trying to gauge its adoption with respect to business model and corporate culture. It will be interesting to see how many companies deploy web 2.0 as business strategy and change their internal culture, because that is when they take full advantages of web 2.0 principles.

The next challenge is where exactly to apply web 2.0 principles. According to research and surveys, the biggest reasons for widespread adoption of web 2.0 are to cut costs and increase revenue. Nothing new, lets find more. About 80% of companies surveyed see the collaborative aspects of Web 2.0 as a way to increase corporate revenue and/or margins. As a cost-reducer, 30% of companies expect Web 2.0 tools to trim the most in customer-service and support costs. As for increasing revenue, 40% of companies expect web 2.0 will help in acquiring new customers and 25% in product innovations. Generally perception is that collaboration is single greatest reason for web 2.0 adoption within the corporate. So far the largest implementations of web 2.0 are wikis and blogs that have been adopted as next generation collaboration tool.

There are two facets of an enterprise - internal and external. Internal apps are for their employees, internal communication, knowledge sharing and product innovation. External apps are for their customers and partners, marketing and sales, product development, customer services and retention, and new opportunities.

I will drill more into these facets and how web 2.0 can serve them. These apps may use same technologies but differ from how they are provisioned and used. I will start with internal apps in my next post and then discuss the external apps of the organization with reference to web 2.0 in subsequent posts.

Please follow the links below for rest of the series:
Mashup - Web 2.0 with Enterprise (Part 2)
Mashup - Web 2.0 with Enterprise (Part 3)
Mashup - Web 2.0 with Enterprise (Part 4)

Knowledge Management Strategy - Web 2.0 Prespective

How web 2.0 initiatives has impacted knowledge management strategies of companies? How companies are adopting and adapting to the new KM generation options available out there from the web 2.0 world?

Initially people had rejected Web 2.0 as merely a buzz and marketing jargon. But as the new applications evolved and benefits became apparent, people started adopting web 2.0 seriously. Now CEOs and CIOs are openly advocating using web 2.0 in all spheres of their businesses and seeking new business opportunities, greater collaboration and more knowledge sharing across the enterprise. Though knowledge management talks about both explicit and tacit knowledge, traditional knowledge management was much heavily inclined in the favor of explicit knowledge as opposed the tacit knowledge. Knowledge management experts have always been trying to advocate more balance approach towards knowledge sharing and collaboration and web 2.0 has provided them with tools and technologies to press their need. Knowledge management and web 2.0 are natural partners in the new web paradigm.

Collaboration is key component of knowledge management which involves active participation of employees, partners and customers. Web 2.0 advocates collaboration and communication through giving up central control, collective intelligence, empowerment and active participation. Collaboration is extended to groups, communities and network building. There are various tools and technologies that provides opportunities and values to the business as collaboration vehicle.

Content Management (CMS) provides for effective creation, management and deployment of the enterprise content. The content published out CMS, can be accessed, repurposed and distributed in real-time. But content is created and management by handful of content writers that provides a contraint in itself. Web 2.0 advocates collective intelligence, information to be created and accesses by everyone at anytime from any device. Time is opportunity and no one has time to wait for information to be available. Everyone needs information that they want, right there, right when they need it. Wikis and Blogs are the great alternative solutions. There are used across the enterprises for both internal and external information sharing. Blogs have become effective tools for knowledge sharing and distribution. Wikis and Blogs also provide for effective feedback mechanism though commenting, rating and trackbacks. Wikipedia has replaced encyclopedia through shear collective content creation and management. The enterprises are trying to replicate the success of wikipedia by introducing enterprise wide knowledge repository using wikis. I am not surprised if you see Ciscopedia, micropedia or Oraclepedia in very near future.

Taxonomy provides effective way for organizing, searching and navigating the enterprise content. There is so much of content created every day within the enterprise and finding taxonomy place holder for the each content piece is getting harder everyday. Search engine provides taxonomy classifier which can automatically find taxonomy for the content. But it requires an enterprise wide taxonomy to start with. More so often, business do not have enterprise wide taxonomy for various reasons (outside scope of this post). Web 2.0 propose folksonomy which is collective building of taxonomy. It provides the readers the ability to create tags for content pieces so that it can be accessed faster and better.

Portals provides facade to all information available within the enterprise. It is single point of access to the entire knowledge base of the enterprise. Portal requires training to end users because of its functionality and not to intuitive interface. Web 2.0 propose intuitive rich user interface and experience. It advocates active user participation, self learning and minimal training.

Web 2.0 is not just a technology but it economic, social and technology trends for next generation of the Internet. It is any networked application that explicitly leverage network effect. The next generation of knowledge management tools aligns with new trends of Web 2.0. The enterprise technology strategist should take a look at web 2.0 principles and emerging initiatives before defining strategies for the knowledge management initiatives.

Knowledge Management Methodology Framework

Knowledge Management is a not technology, it is about people, processes and practice. Without the three main pillar of knowledge management, it is absolutely certain to fail even if you have state of art technology.

People are important from vision, commitment, change, and culture perspective. The organization needs an individual or a group to have a vision to lead the knowledge management initiative. Vision is not just aligning it with business drivers, but also thought process of taking it to a higher level. Not all initiatives see the light, success and adoption, commitment is the black bone of all implementations. It needs to come from executive management. Knowledge management is also about change in processes and culture. It is about openness and adoption from people who are part of it. Culture varies with organizations, geographical locations, and people. The success of knowledge management is heavily dependent on organization's culture as well.

Processes are policies that govern activities across the corporate. Knowledge management is set of processes by which companies organize themselves to generate value from their intellectual and knowledge based assets.

Practice is platform on which processes are designed, implemented and governed by the people for the organization. The processes managed and governed over the period of time becomes practice when it is wildly adopted.

The knowledge management methodology framework consist of four stages. It is strategy, planning, execution and improvement. Though it is typical of any methodology to have these stages, but it is important to understand each of the stages of knowledge management before starting a new initiative.

Knowledge management is about generating value, value from knowledge assets. Knowledge is actionable piece of information that one can act upon for generating value. Value is subjective and varies depending upon the business strategy. One business strategy could be generating new business from products and services or generating business from new products and services. The strategy is focused on the market and companies core business. For example, Google's main business runs out of web. It is important for Google to accumulate knowledge of user behavior and web traffic statistics. Google can plan the new products and services based on that knowledge. Another business strategy could be saving cost, enhancing predictability and quality by increasing productivity and reuse. The strategy is focused on internal resources and their productivity and knowledge reuse. For example, Cisco would want to reduce learning time and increase productivity of the employees through reuse of existing knowledge base.

I read an interesting commentary by an executive. He said he lived in a small town all his life. He went to New York for first time to see Manhattan. When he landed at the airport, he rented a car and headed toward the Manhattan. When he was driving towards it, he saw larger than life view of the Manhattan. He thought for a minute and then took the U-turn for his hotel. He realized that he has to first make a plan and then come back later. The planning is very important, be it a sightseeing or a knowledge management initiative.

Processes needs to improve all the time. We need processes to collect data on processes from quantity and quality stand point. Using the data, we can build statistics, charts and reports for further improvement. Process should be seen as constant learning vehicle, learning and improving from the data supplied within.

The key activities in each of these stages are listed below:

Strategy

• Formulate measurable business objectives
• Obtain ongoing executive sponsorship
• Find right resources for KM team
• Identify and tackle cultural resistance

Planning

• Identify target users and experts
• Conduct detail needs assessment
• Identify small and critical first phase
• Identify organization knowledge
• Design processes for collate and create knowledge content
• Design effective business processes

Execution

• Execute to a detailed project plan
• Keep user community involved at all times
• Focus of knowledge Quality
• Market Knowledge management Implementation

Improvement

• Measure qualitatively and quantitatively success of KM processes
• Continuously improve KM processes
• Provide feedback to all the above stages

Each of the activities can further be divided into tasks with guidelines and finite deliverable.

A typical knowledge management implementation model can be divided following steps:

• Aligning with Corporate Strategy
• Identifying and Capturing Knowledge
• Communicating and Organizing Knowledge
• Creating a Knowledge-Sharing Culture
• Benchmarking
• Continuous Improvement
• Leveraging Knowledge for Market Success

Please feel free to post your comments on the knowledge management methodology framework. You will see in subsequent posts, how these activities can further be split into tasks with finite deliverable.

Implementing Knowledge Management: Practical Approach

Knowledge is key for decision making and strategy building. But knowing does not always translate into doing it. It is very critical for organizations to implement right and effective tools for managing organizational knowledge to build and sustain competitive advantage.

Knowledge Management facilitates creation, consolidation, transformation, sharing, distribution, and application of knowledge. No two organization can follow same methodology to implement knowledge management. And it is not necessary, if an approach works for one organization, other organization can use it as a cookie cutter. Knowledge is very subjective by definition and varies from one organization to another. Even if organizations are in same business domain, knowledge management methodology may be same but implementation approach may be completely different.

Knowledge starts with understanding of organization's business perspective and future strategies. Organizations have not been able to implement effective knowledge management practice for very reason that they do not understand their problems, opportunities and strategies clearly. Knowledge management starts with understanding of business processes and offerings. Organization needs to understand what is knowledge for them and what is not. Initially while setting up a knowledge management program, technology should take a back seat. The focus should be on processes and people, and technology should be seen as an enabler. Many organizations make mistakes by throwing technology before understanding the organizational knowledge assets and processes.

For example, Software consulting organization should know that organizational assets are project documentation and code. They need to organize and store the assets in a way that everyone in the organization should be able to re-use it and thereby reduce the learning time. The organization gains the competitive edge by transforming the assets into knowledge and there by improving productivity and developing core competency. The tremendous growth and profitability of Indian Software Industry is attributed to an effective knowledge management programs.

Steps for implementing an effective knowledge management program or practice are:

1. Identifying knowledge - Organizations needs to identify all sources of the knowledge and information so that it can be consolidated, stored in the centralized or distributed repositories, and shared and distributed when required.

2. Organizing Knowledge - Once the knowledge sources are identified, next step is to organize and provide structure to knowledge into organizational taxonomy. It helps not only in removing unnecessary and redundant information but also provides structured navigation to the information. In this step, organization need to understand boundaries of explicit and tacit knowledge. This step requires lot of thoughtful thinking and analysis from people and organization perspective.

3. Transforming Knowledge - Knowledge needs to transformed in a way so that it facilitates in making decisions and building new strategies. The knowledge needs to internalized, socialized and externalized so that it is shared and applied in most efficient manner. Further read 'How to transform the tacit knowledge into explicit form?'.

4. Measuring knowledge benefits - No process can be improved if it it is not measured for success. The key to success of knowledge management is the ability to measure the effectiveness of the implementation and narrowing it down to returns through revenue. The monitoring and control on processes are necessary to identify opportunities for eliminating redundancy and allow for continuous improvement.

What role technology play in knowledge management? As mentioned, technology should only be seen as facilitator or enabler. Knowledge Management program can even be implemented without additional investment but it won't be as effective or productive. Organization need to understand that they would need to make investment if they have to implement any Knowledge Management program. How much, depends on existing technology infrastructure and approved budget. If the organization does not have executive sponsorship for the program, no matter how deep and wide is your vision, the initiative is bound to fail. The executive sponsorship is required from the monetary as well as commitment perspective. Most of the initiatives fails because of half hearted commitment from executive management.

Knowledge Management program should be seen as organizational change management. Despite of great implementation and technology support, knowledge management may fail due to lack of support of organizational culture and adoption. Knowledge Management has same definition of the Democracy, knowledge of people, (utilized) by people and (created and consolidated) for people.

Key Components of Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management is more about processes then products. But products and technology enable these processes and provides required tools for an effective KM program. We talked about Knowledge Management lifecycle in previous posts. Knowledge Management provides order to unstructured enterprise data and information into knowledge that is actionable and provides business value. Those who are responsible for knowledge management directly or indirectly should know the building blocks and their interaction with the processes.

What are the building blocks of Knowledge Management from technology standpoint?

Knowledge Management consists of following components:

• Collaboration
• Content Management
• Search
• Taxonomy management
• Business Process Management
• Business Intelligence
• Portal

How these components interact with Knowledge Management processes are highlighted in the following diagram:


All the components are required for knowledge management practice within the organization. There are vendors that provides all the required components in their product suite to enable organizations to implement effective Knowledge Management program.

How to transform the tacit knowledge into explicit form?

We tried to understand "Why the tacit knowledge be converted into explicit knowledge?" in the last post. We will dig into "how" part now.

It is not only important to transform tacit to explicit, but also be able to share and convert other forms of knowledge into one another.The organization will not be able to generate the value out of knowledge assets in various electronic repositories, if it is not shared across the organization specially with the key decision makers. The knowledge has a value if it is actionable, otherwise it remains just an information.

The following chart explains various forms of knowledge and their transformation matrix.



1. Tacit to Tacit - Socialization

Socialization is sharing knowledge in formal and informal manner. It could be face-to-face meetings, instant communication, emails, any groupware applications like chats, collaboration tools, and also social networking applications.

2. Explicit to Tacit - Internalization

Internalization is sharing and distribution of knowledge with in the organization. Everyone in organization can access the information that is available on intranet websites and knowledge repositories. The end user can either navigate through the repositories or search within. Search is the most effective tool to find desired and relevant information. Knowledge repositories add intelligence to content by creating categorization schema and adding metadata that make search and retrieval faster and more efficient.

3. Explicit to Explicit - Combination

This is easiest form of conversion and is already done in most of the organization. The explicit knowledge is re-purposed in form that is desired for the decision making. It can be done using any technology discussed above including emails, collaboration tools, knowledge repositories.

4. Tacit to Explicit - Externalization

Externalization is the process that transforms tacit knowledge into explicit form. This can be done using collaboration systems, online discussion database, wikis, blogs, forums. The process requires transforming the knowledge that is minds of people, into electronic forms.

All forms of knowledge are critical for business growth and decision making capabilities of the organization. The knowledge can be in tacit (in minds of individuals) or explicit (in electronic form in databases and repositories). It is important to consolidate and integrate the knowledge (in whatever form) in the organization so that people can use it to take appropriate actions.

Why tacit knowledge be converted into explicit knowlege?

Typically 20% of knowledge in average organizations is stored in paper form and about 38 % electronically and astonishing 42% is stored as tacit knowledge. The learning and knowledge is lost when people move jobs and roles within or across organizations. The need of transforming the tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge is far more bigger challenge than implementing the knowledge management practice with the organization.

The knowledge management facilitates in getting the right information to the right person in the right time. The right information means accurate and relevant information, right person is who is in need of the information and right time is when it is required and as fast as possible. The knowledge management is more about processes rather than technologies. The knowledge should reside appropriately within the organization to bring value to information and its users. If the knowledge only resides within individuals, it only provide great value to the organization till the individual is in the same role and job.

Why do we need knowledge? Usually knowledge is required to take tactical or strategic decision. These decisions are usually based on data, information found in structured form (explicit form, analytics). So it becomes more important to transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. The dangers of not converting and collecting tacit knowledge includes:

1. Inaccurate, irrelevant and limited knowledge to take decisions
2. Ineffective use of employee time to obtain right information
3. Poor judgment when when taking decisions
4. Unable to provide information when it is needed most
5. Loose customer and business opportunities because of incomplete information
6. Duplication of effort

In research organizations, lot of researchers attend conferences, seminars, interact with fellow subject matter experts in meetings and phone conversations. They gain lot of knowledge, information through their interaction with other people with similar interest. If the acquired knowledge is not explicitly captured, the organization do not have advantage of the researcher knowledge and time spent. When the individual retires or leaves the job, all the knowledge that he had gained on the organization's behalf goes with the individual. The example can be extended most of the organizations.

While we understand the significance of explicit knowledge but it is important that we emphasize the need to convert and transform the tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge.

Knowledge Management Process or Lifecycle

Knowledge Management is the methodology, tools and techniques to gather, integrate and disseminate knowledge. It involves processes involving management of knowledge creation, acquisition, storage, organization, distribution, sharing and application. These can be further classified into organization and technology components.

The organization component consists of organization-wide strategy, standard and guidelines, policies, and socio-cultural environment.

The technology component consists of tools and techniques to implement effective knowledge management practice which provides values to its business, employees, customers and partners. The tools can furthers be classified into knowledge creation, knowledge integration, knowledge sharing and knowledge utilization.




The various steps are described here:

1. Knowledge Creation - Knowledge is created either as explicit or tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is put in paper or electronic format. It is recorded and made accessible to others. Tacit knowledge is created in minds of people. This knowledge resides within individuals. This knowledge needs to be transformed into explicit knowledge so that it can recorded and shared with others in the organization.

2. Knowledge Storage - Knowledge is stored and organized in a repository. The decision on how and where lies with the organization. But the objective of this phase to enable organization to be able to contribute, organize and share knowledge with.

3. Knowledge Sharing - Knowledge is shared and accessed by people. They can either search or navigate to the knowledge items.

4. Knowledge Utilization - This is end goal of knowledge practice. The knowledge management does not have any value if knowledge created is not utilized to its potential. The more knowledge is created as knowledge is applied and utilized.

What is meant by Collaboration? How is it different from Knowledge Management?

What is Collaboration? How is it different from Knowledge Management? There are so many terms like knowledge management, wikis, blogs, project management that we use when we talk about collaboration, knowledge sharing, team engagement. The priority of terms keep changing and new business terms keep evolving that make users even more confusing. I am one of them who has been working in this area for sometime but feels that I am still a novice and a starter. I am not surprised if there are many who thinks same as me.

Till the last year wikis and blogs were hot in web 2.0 and were go to tools for collaboration. Many organization were talking about how wikis and blogs would change the way we collaborate or share over the web. In less than a year, it seems wikis and blogs fell short of expectation of the users. Now vendors are working on integrating more features like project management, activity management, instant messaging and chat rooms in wikis. The list does stop here. Now wiki products are also calling them selves as knowledge management tools.

Is Collaboration same as Knowledge Management?

I am afraid not. There are multiple vendors who provides collaboration/knowledge suites like Microsoft SharePoint, Lotus Connection, Intel SuiteTwo, Jive Clearspace etc. Every vendor has its own theme and story to explain collaboration and knowledge management. But if you see, they all follow 80-20 rule. All the products have about 80% of common components and 20% differentiating functions. The key differentiator of Microsoft SharePoint is integrating with its Outlook and Project Management tools. For Lotus Connection, it is building Community of Practice (COP). For Intel SuiteTwo, it is integrating best of breed software. For Jive Clearspace, it is providing simple to use tool and additional plugins for instant communication. But truly, none of them fit both collaboration and knowledge management space.

How does Knowledge Management fit here? What is difference between Knowledge Management and Collaboration? Who wraps whom?

My 2 cents, Knowledge Management is a process by which companies organize themselves to generate value from their intellectual and knowledge based assets. Collaboration is process by which company's employees, partners and customers create, manage and share intellectual and knowledge based assets. They are related to each other from dependency perspective. The key is that both add value to each other. Collaboration is one of the components of Knowledge Management. Knowledge Management adds value to the assets generated using Collaboration. Can Knowledge Management and Collaboration exits with one another? Yes, for sure. Knowledge Management utilizes assets not created using Collaboration and assets created using Collaboration may not used in Knowledge Management. But organizations generate more value if they are used in conjunction.

Why are these vendors confusing user community with so many terms here? Why can't we setup a forum for standardization of specification that solves and cater to all user needs and differentiate products?

My next question now is "what would you call wikis and blogs as; collaboration, knowledge management or none?". They were front runners in collaboration and knowledge management space a year back, but seems to lack in functionality to support them now. How do they plan to compete with collaboration and knowledge management tools? Are wikis and blogs going to stay or ultimately merge with other collaboration tools?

How do you classify Google Apps? Since Google provides tools for collaboration and team sharing.

Tacit and Explicit Knowledge?

In order to understand the Knowledge Management, we need to understand the two main components or pillars of knowledge, Implicit or Tacit and Explicit Knowledge.

Tacit knowledge is more commonly used term for implicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is what the expert knows, which is derived from experience and embodies beliefs and values. It is the root or base of generation of new knowledge. The most important aspect of knowledge management is ability to convert the tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge.

Explicit knowledge is represented as document, content which is created with sole purpose of sharing or communicating with another person. It is knowledge which is coded and stored in some form of repository. The most common form of explicit knowledge are documents, files, images, audios and videos.

Both forms of knowledge are important from knowledge management's perspective and effectiveness.

We will discuss key functional areas of Knowledge Management in subsequent posts. After discussing key functional areas of Knowledge Management, we will come back to the "ability to convert the tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge".

What is data, information, knowledge, wisdom?

Why do we use so many terms for same thing: data, information, knowledge etc? Do all terms have same meaning or are these semantically different terms not understood correctly by majority of people? It would be best if we understand these terms ourselves and then make a decision.

We are talking about four terms: Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom.

Data is set of records. Data represents a fact or statement of event, a raw data with no knowledge of relationship. For examples, records of customer.

Information is when we attach semantic to the data. Information wraps understanding of relation in conext of the subject. If we are able to answer on who, what, when, where questions. For example, information about current customers, information about new customers.

Knowledge is when we attach intelligence to the information. If we are able to infer "how" about the information. For example, how many customer have cancelled the accounts in current fiscal year? How many leads were converted into new customers?

Wisdom: philosophical definition says that wisdom consists of making the best use of available knowledge. Wisdom embodies more of an understanding of fundamental principles embodied within the knowledge that are essentially the basis for the knowledge being what it is.

So as we move up from data to wisdom, we go up a level of maturity. We add more semantics and intelligence to add value to raw data to make it more useful.

Then how is Data Management different from Information Management and Knowledge Management. Why are we not talking about Wisdom? Is Wisdom not required in all other aspects?

We will talk deeper into knowledge in subsequent posts and try to understand more about explict and implicit knowledge.

What is Knowledge Management?

There is no universal definition of Knowledge Management, and there isn't an specification which says what constitutes Knowledge Management (KM). It is important to understand KM in a broader context. KM is a process by which companies organize themselves to generate value from their intellectual and knowledge based assets. The intellect and knowledge that has been acquired, created and consolidated by its employees, customers and partners over the years working in the organization. Knowledge Management does not say anything about Technology. Technology only facilitates the KM Practice but does not restrict it by any means.

KM has gained momentum in last few years as millions of baby boomers are going to retire in coming years and decade. The millions of baby boomers are going to turn retiring age and soon will packing their bags for long awaited vacations. They will take along in their bags, occean of knowledge that they have acquired over their long careers. The companies need to take measures to learn from their knowledge and wisdom before they get their final paychecks.

In addition to baby boomers, outsourcing has also gained momentum to reduce cost of operations in last 5 years. The companies are re-organizing their work departments to accomodate for the outsourcing. Thousands of full-time staff are loosing jobs due to these new outsourcing agreements. There is a need to transfer the knowledge of these staff members for smooth transition to restructuring, otherwise companies will tend to loose more than gaining from outsourcing.

Knowledge Management is not technology that can solve some of the problems listed above. KM is a process, a methodology through which many such problems can be solved. The key to the KM success is ability understand needs (business), context (processes) and culture (people) of the organizations.

Welcome to Knowledge Management

What is Knowledge Management? What does it mean? Where is it used? Why has it become so important in today's world? What is difference between data, information and knowledge? Is it a new term or a term which is as old as computer science? Why is everyone talking about knowledge management so much?

We will answer some of the questions in subsequent posts. We will introduced you to some of key functional areas of Knowledge Management. So stay tuned.