Information Management Taxonomy, a teaser

Here is a snapshot of Alberta Agriculture's draft of what taxonomy would look like for the corporate support processes in information management. This is only a partial picture of this category.

But in terms of the structure of a functional taxonomy, "Information Management" would be considered a FUNCTION. "Information Access Management" would be considered a Sub-Function and "Information Request" would be considered an activity.

So in the Government of Alberta model there are three levels. Nominally there is a fourth level, tasks. But for the most part information will be classified with enough granularity with three levels.

The (Hopeful) State of Information Management

To Hope: Look with expectation and desire (Concise Oxford Dictionary).

Information management (IM) is at a hopeful state. And just in time. Finally, enterprise document management systems are getting sophisticated enough to support the emergent systems of information classification and information metadata. With that hopeful, emergent development, information management will bring enough structure to unstructured information so that it can be managed.

Information management is a fundamental support to knowledge management. Most organizations find that organized enterprise information is as essential as a library is to a university. In the early days of knowledge management, there was a rush by software companies to proclaim that their e-filing systems could be leveraged into knowledge libraries. Unfortunately, in the early days, most of the software companies and many early knowledge management gurus journeyed into the information jungle without ..... librarians.

Librarians and libraries get no respect. Witness the page ripping from priceless historical documents and the upending of book racks in the movie "Angels and Demons". Bad, bad Robert Langdon. But with names like the Dewey Decimal Classification system, it's no surprise that eyes glaze over when information classification is discussed.

Nor do records managers get respect. There was a time when nobody touched the business and working files of an organization except administrative assistants who were trained in the arcane rules of records management. Staff or managers who had the audacity file their own files were taught through the dreaded "the file the manager put away and never could be found again" experience. But when personal computers arrived on staffs' desktops, administrative assistants were downsized and information chaos arrived unfettered. Every new information sharing technology (e-mail, instant messaging, websites, blogs and wikis) came without information organizing rules and tools .

To cope, businesses created information duplication, which became mislabeled "information overload". Information storage was cheap. Search engines promised easy retrieval.

Librarians and records managers became Cassandras, warning of apocalyptic melt-down. Pick your poison: system crash, e-Discovery, information security breaches. Only on business critical information (websites, legal documents, executive correspondence and advice to executives) did the organization make any effort to manage the information. But that happened behind the scenes and usually with the bare minimum of staff training.

So, of course, knowledge libraries failed.

And of course, the real message of early knowledge management got lost. There is critical information, how to do work and business intelligence, that all in the organization needs to be able post, find and discuss. Today, we expect to find this information on the business' intranet portal.

The hopeful state is the emergence of generic and now practical metadata standards. Metadata is data about data. Much of this experience is coming from the web content management systems. Metadata is necessary in web content management because content owners (authors) need to be reminded when their articles becomes stale and need revision or removal. Metadata is needed for the publishing process (and it can help in findability, mashups and value adding information).

Information classification systems for corporate business processes are now reaching the generic state. My last project before leaving the Government of Alberta was to look at an information classification system for corporate processes. The revelation, slowly being digested particularly by the records management community, is that if you want staff to take ownership of their information, you have to approach it from their perspective of corporate and business processes.

In "functional classification" taxonomy, the word "function" is (nearly) a synonym for "business process". With that revelation, the reasons for a enterprise content management system start to make sense. There are business processes. Map the business process; define where information comes into and out of the business process; build the information classification system and the enterprise content management software to support the business process. So focusing on corporate support services processes (human resources, finance, IT, IM and yes, knowledge management) has led the Government of Alberta to a generic information classification system. It's about 80% of the way there.

In the words of Gerard Vaillancourt, Acting Director for Information Management, Alberta Agriculture, "This is found knowledge. We can take this as tablets of stone and not reinvent the wheel". So the hard work of Teresa Richey, Director of Information Management, Alberta Employment and Immigration, the training and promotional skills of Karina Guy, g2 Management Consulting and the Service Alberta IM crew have gotten information management to the hopeful state.

Of course, you could take this as a promotion for the ARMA National conference next week (May 31 to June 3) in Edmonton. You will find some of the historical issues of information management on the agenda but you also find a hands-on session process mapping. See the detailed program.

Finally after a decade, the promise that led Tom Davenport to collaborate with Larry Prusak on "Working Knowledge" is within sight. Davenport's field is business process management. The alignment of information management software and information architecture to support business processes is getting near. It will finally make knowledge libraries and the corporate intranet provide the support for business intelligence and how to do work that Davenport anticipated.

Social Media, Mack Male and knowledge sharing

At the end of Mack Male's presentation to the Edmonton KM Network on April 2, I gave him high praise. I told him he was a different kind of animal.

Mack D. Male is a software developer in Edmonton. But he is also a knowledge connector in Edmonton's start-up community. One of the organizers and presenters at DemoCamp6, Mack D. Male has been a guide to Twitter (Edmonton Journal article, Mar. 7). Mack is both a leader in promotion of social media tools and someone building social media tools. ShareEdmonton is his version of how to aggregate and share events going on in Festival City.

People like Mack are quite rare. It is his ability to work behind the scenes and then to advocate publicly that combined with his skills as a software guru make him a different kind of animal. He is someone to follow (on his blog, via Twitter, via DemoCamp).

Here is his April 24 interview about Twitter on CityTV

Mack gave one of the most insightful presentations on social media and particularly Twitter that the Edmonton KM Network has heard.

His Twitter 101 slides are available at:
http://blog.mastermaq.ca/2009/03/09/twitter-101/

To view his presentation to the Edmonton KM Network Click --> Social Media 101

As a person interested in really good information sharing, I can learn from Mack.

Mack and Cam Linke are pioneering new ways of succinct knowledge sharing and networking. See the Gateway article on IDEAfest and DemoCamp6 on the way they get succint knowledge sharing to happen in a 15 minute presentation/question period.

And if you are interested in seeing this process in action, attend a DemoCamp. Next one is n May 13th at 6:30 at the University of Alberta ETLC Room E1-017.

Wisdom is personal

Ron Weisenburger says wisdom is personal.

This is not the normal reaction of a dog to an intruder at his dinner bowl.

Could this dog teach this behaviour to another dog? Not unless the other dog was a little bit wise to the intruder too. Not unless the other dog trusted the wisdom of the "wise old dog".

Wisdom cannot be taught to the unexperienced. You have to be a little bit wise to want to listen to wise people's stories. But wisdom is shared through stories.

So, if we want to learn wisdom, we listen to wise people's stories.

There is some acceptance that knowledge organizations that employ knowledge workers exist. Consulting engineering, accounting firms and law offices could legitimately argue that they are knowledge organizations.

And there are some that argue that wise organizations need to emerge (See "From learning organization to practically wise organization"). With every collapse of the American stock market, there are calls for more ethical banks, stock brokerages, etc.

I am venturing into philosophical territory that I am not competent to talk about.

So, I offer a practical observation. I have only ever seen one wise organization.

If a wise organization has a well defined path of learning and service for its members, a clear set of operational principles for the organization, mentorship, a clear, simple (hard work to get to simple) purpose, then you might to look at Alcoholics Anonymous as a model of a wise organization.

Surprised? Take a look at the Twelve Steps, the Twelve Traditions, the role of the sponsor and "The Big Book". And purpose? Check this out: Information on A.A.

I think that if you are thinking of a wise organization, your challenge is to model A.A.

Common Myths About Knowledge That Hold Us Back

At the end of our Edmonton Km Network meeting last week, Stu Muir, Tri-Global Solutions, asked a really good question. "What are the common myths (about knowledge management) that are holding us back?"

Some in the earlier posts in this blog address some of the misconceptions that get in the way of encouraging and coaching really good information and know-how sharing. But the diagram above offers up a simplistic and ultimately dangerous model, The Knowledge Hierarchy.

David Snowden challenges this model in his blog "Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement". And bless his soul, I have seen where Larry Prusack referenced this hierachy.

Every time I have a conversation about knowledge management, this model usually shows up. I have heard Deputy Ministers and CEOs reference it. It is popular because it is simple and it is dangerous because it is too simplistic. When Peter Drucker introduced the concept of a "knowledge worker", he wasn't thinking that the organization also would move up this hierarchy to become a "Wise Organization".

Data is translated into information. Information moves up to knowledge. Knowledge coupled with experience becomes wisdom.

To see the fallacy of the model, add "management" to the end of each of these words and then ask the question: "Can you actually manage it?"

Data management, yes and for most organizations, absolutely essential. Information management, certainly some information and not easy. Knowledge management, critical knowledge and hard to do. Wisdom Management, who wants the title "Director of Wisdom Management"??

Let's cut to the chase. All your customers and clients are interested in is really good information (that they can use for making a decision). They don't care about your know-how or what you know about. Really the only person who does is your supervisor. But your customers and clients rate your expertise on whether you provide really good information.

Really good information requires the sieve of the expert's know-how. Understand this and then you will start to see where you can help staff and the organization generate and share important information.

Please leave The Knowledge Hierarchy outside the door when you talk to your Executive about knowledge management to improve critical information sharing. While this hierarchy may seem to be helpful in arguing for a knowledge management strategy, remember this. All they are truly interested in is how your initiative will help the organization generate and then share critical, strategic information.

If we must discuss knowledge, recall what we know and don't know. "We don't know what we need to know until we need to know it." That is the challenge for individuals and organizations and no amount of data to information to knowledge to wisdom is going to solve that.

When We Don't See the Baobob Tree

This is the picture I never took the first time I was in south central Africa.

The Baobob Tree is pretty unique (and strange) but relatively common in the southern Rift Valley of Malawi. You would think that seeing a tree this unique would require taking a picture. But this became a classic "can't see the tree because of the forest" story. Within in a month of working in Malawi, baobob trees just became part of the landscape. In spite of some outstanding specimens in Nsanje, I never took a picture. They were unique to a newcomer but part of the savanah for the locals. And while they were certainly noticeable, I even took for granted their importance as a local food.

A couple of meetings last week flagged that organizations are at risk of not seeing the "baobob trees" in their midst. As the recession digs deeper, the pressure is on to justify existing projects, collaborations and training. Even more important is to move onto the new and innovative that will position the organization to stay competitive during tough times.

Organizations are at risk of not seeing their core cultural and competitive strengths because they are taken for granted; simply assumed to "happen" and in some cases, something to be discarded in the rush to downsize and trim budgets.

Organizational learning, knowledge sharing and other corporate supports are easily at most risk. They are hard to explain; focus on behaviour rather than outcomes and require regular coaching.

But they also guarantee the highest levels of performance for organizations. When a team or corporation is not able to repeat their performance levels from the previous years (for example the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 2008), you first have to look to changes in behaviour if there hasn't been significant changes in personnel.

Knowledge sharing is a behaviour. It is easy to have a slump and difficult to recover once the slide has begun.

Organizations looking at their competitive advantages for the future have to be careful to avoid the practice of not seeing the baobob trees. They are the competitve advantages that are taken for granted and if properly leveraged will be the platform for the next level of innovation in the organization.

It's about the social

"It’s not about the media, but the social. We crave to be social." Dean Shareski.

The Edmonton Knowledge Management Network is getting going again on Thursday, April 2, noon, Boardroom 5L, 5th floor of the Commerce Building. The reason I am talking about an event that those outside the Edmonton area (Alberta, Canada) can't get to will make sense if you persist in reading.

Mack D. Male (his blog is MasterMaq) is talking to the Edmonton KM Network about "Social Media: What to pay attention to?"

Mack is a high end user, advocate for Twitter. And the reaction to Twitter has been the same as we experienced 14 years ago with the Internet: "A time-wasting play toy and worse an information channel we can't control". Welcome to the 21st Century.

I can't make the case for Twitter and other social media tools for enabling conversations. Mack Male will do that two weeks from now. So look for some posts after his presentation. In the meantime, I will direct you to Dean Shareski's blog for some insights.

Dean Shareski is a digital learning specialist in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. His website ideasandthoughts.org is a treasure trove for those trying to navigate their way through organizational learning and technology. Framed with an uniquely prairie perspective, his observations bemuse and incite me (hopefully you as well).

"In Praise of the Pop-In" is Dean's commentary on the need for the social in our life and how it has eroded as we have gotten more organized and busier. His comment is that Twitter has become the ultimate "pop-in". And the Internet enables connectivity so that we can "pop-in" with folks that perhaps we never or rarely see face-to-face. He then goes on to describe how he sees schools using these tools for learning. You can generalize those to organizational learning as well.

Dean finishes talking about serendipity. My version is that it is the opportunities created in having conversations that creates serendipity.

Serendipity does not happen by chance.