de-intellectualising knowledge work

Since I started my studies, it has been my personal goal to de-intellectualise matters whenever possible. For the field of knowledge management, so far this resulted in the birth of the 'knowledge animal'. Let me start with revealing to you about the basics. Please show your ideas about knowledge animals.

I believe that behaviour of knowledge workers can be described in terms of straightforward activities and at the same time address the complexity and dynamics of people dealing with information and knowledge within their organisation (i.e. the larger system).

To put it simply, I say that ‘information’ can be compared with ‘food’, and that ‘knowledge’ is similar to a ‘territory’. Information is something ‘there outside’; there is a lot, and people have to search for it and select what best fits their information diet (their job function, interests etc.) in order to survive (e.g. to perform one’s job). Knowledge is something personal, people have to work for it, and people either defend or share it in order to survive. Searching for information is well described by the existing information foraging theory (IFT) of Pirolli and Card (e.g. Pirolli & Card1999; Nielsen, 2003). However, it doesn't describe two other activities: informing others about one’s knowledge and sharing knowledge with them. To explain these activities I propose a metaphor of ‘knowledge territories’.

The knowledge territories metaphor (KTM) I propose refers to the ways that animals leave traces and protect or show-off with their territory. In short, the notion of knowledge territories emphasises the aspect of ‘ownership’ and is used to describe how people let other people know about their knowledge and how people share knowledge. In addition the metaphor shed light on reasons why people notify others of their knowledge or not and why they share or do not share knowledge. Similar to information foraging theory, the metaphor of knowledge territories assumes that people are selfish, lazy and want maximal output with minimal effort. But also that people are caring for their territory and offspring and that people are proud and have an enormous drive to survive.

Central in KTM are the concepts ‘territories’ and ‘traces’. When people work, they leave knowledge traces by doing things, writing things and saying things. People may either intentionally (‘smell flags’) or unintentionally (‘foot prints’) leave strong and clear (i.e. precise place) traces or weak and vague (i.e. place and is not completely clear like boundaries of territory) traces. People may intentionally or unintentionally leave as little traces as possible or try to remove their traces. Strong and clear traces inform other people about someone’s knowledge territory, weak and vague traces leave other people in the dark about one’s knowledge territory. In other words, people either hide their knowledge territory or show-off with their knowledge territory by the strength and clearness of the traces they leave. Leaving traces so people know your territory is not the same as letting people into your territory. Letting people into your territory and going into and investing in territories of others’ describes knowledge sharing, helping others to find answers.

Leaving traces is informing other people about the knowledge you have. The ‘traces’ a person leaves are the ‘information scents’ for the person who seeks information and knowledge. In sum, IFT and KTM combined discern the following needs: the need to recognise and find other people’s territories by following the information scent in the traces that others left, especially those most relevant to one’s own (i.e. fitting one’s diet, job); the need to mark one’s own territory by leaving traces; and the need to hide traces one doesn’t want others to be aware of.

Comments

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