Knowledge Animal

Knowledge sharing: altruistic or selfish

In response to the idea of knowledge animals, many tell me that knowledge sharing is an example of altruistic behaviour. Therefore knowledge sharing could not be explained well by the selfishness and drive to survive of knowledge animals. But is knowledge sharing altruistic? And can knowledge sharing not also be explained by selfishness and drive to survive?

Altruistic behaviour helps others and is harmful for yourself (compare with so-called ‘courteous behaviour’ helps others and has no effect on yourself; see also Desmond Morris, 1978). Quite some times knowledge sharing helps others and also helps yourself: I’ll-scratch-your-back-if-you’ll-scratch-mine (see also Desmond Morris, 1978). We make knowledge deals, knowledge transactions. Many times the reward is delayed and many times the reward may be abstract/symbolic. So it is about anticipation of social rewards (like status) or intellectual rewards instead of direct getting money or food. As Desmond Morris (1978), in his intriguing Manwatching, puts it “Anticipation of a delayed reward of this kind is often the hidden motive for a great deal of what is claimed to be purely altruistic behaviour” (p. 155).

But why then do we take the risk of this delayed symbolic reward and help others with giving away knowledge? Our selfishness and our drive to survive is not personal but genetic, and we are naturally inclined to helps others of our species or tribe to survive. And human animals have the capacity to abstract and see others as part of their tribe. As Desmond Morris (1978) says “The process of symbolizing, of seeing one thing as a metaphorical equivalent of another, is a powerful tendency of the human animal and it accounts for a great deal of the spread of helpfulness across the human environment”(p. 154).

To conclude, knowledge sharing (e.g. by top experts in organisations) is not necessarily altruistic. It can also be explained by selfishness and drive to survive (e.g. of the organisation the top expert is part of) in combination with man’s ability to symbolize, and by anticipation of delayed rewards. Of course, this does not make knowledge sharing any less valuable or laudable, it merely gives another explanation of the motives involved.

Invisible effects of blogging

Though I am -a not very active- beginner, blogging does change my life (well, some aspects of it). I have this imaginary audience in the back of my mind since I started my blog. When I read a book or paper, I do this just a bit more reflective and I articulate my ideas a bit more elaborate than before. Nobody notices, as I do this while thinking for myself. These private reflections and articulations feel good and seem even useful to me. So far, in many instances I do not take the time to write down things in a post. Maybe some day, some of those ideas appear in my weblog, maybe not.

Experienced bloggers, do you recognize above? And do you know of other invisible effects of blogging?

Social animals

Knowledge animals may seem anti-social. We are not. Knowledge animals are programmed to seek company of others. Let me explain why I think so.

The selfishness and proud of knowledge animals do not prevent them from socialising. The care for off-spring, drive for survival can explain quite well why people are actually social animals. Like animals lived in groups and cooperated to protect their members to predators, people and their organisations —through cooperation— develop a competitive edge against other people and organisations. Socializing, being in (virtual) neighborhood of one another eases cooperation and is therefore beneficial for survival.

So we, knowledge animals are actually programmed to seek company of colleagues, friends, peers. Let's have a drink toghether ;-)

Knowledge maps to visualise knowledge traces

If centralised knowledge bases do not align with the 'natural' knowledge behaviour of people, say our knowledge animal behaviour, what does? I and my colleagues believe knowledge maps do. However, I/we see not just the positive side of knowledge maps. What do you think?

In the work I do with my colleagues, ‘knowledge maps’ are aggregations and visualisations of information and communication aimed to provide easier access to the information and knowledge that is available within an organisation. Knowledge maps are automatically generated from the existing systems.

As my colleague Wolf puts it: "In terms of the information-foraging jungle, knowledge-mapping technology cuts away the bushes and the undergrowth, exposing traces and territories more clearly than they were before."

It makes individual traces more clearly visible, and it can also make people’s territories easier to recognise. An interesting research question is how this change in visibility triggers changes in people’s behaviour. The extent to which knowledge mapping exposes traces and territories depends on the focus of the knowledge-mapping system in question. Different systems may have different focuses and will thereby trigger different changes in behaviour. From an individual’s point-of-view, making traces more visible is on the one hand positive because it can be used to raise the individual’s awareness of other people’s knowledge and to ease information and knowledge seeking in organisations. In addition, it provides the opportunity to display one’s own traces and territory more prominently, so others are able to find you or the documents you write better. On the other hand, it is also negative in the sense that it becomes much harder to hide the traces one does not want to be seen. Also traces may mislead people who search for information and knowledge, in case traces are followed at times they are not relevant anymore.

To conclude knowledge maps have the potential to make knowledge traces that people leave visible and this in turn may facilitate searching for information and knowledge. Currently however, the visibility of knowledge traces has an unknown impact on the information and knowledge behaviour of people.

For me it is an intriguing questions how we /humans will change our 'knowledge animal' behaviour when traces are more visible. And what will organisations do with that, for the better and the worse (big brother)?

Why centralised knowledge bases do not work

I am aware that the metaphor of knowledge animals is not a theory, it is just a 'wild idea'. Nevertheless, it helps me and my colleagues (among others Lilia )to come up with explanations for several successes and -so to say- less fortunate KM-interventions. The following explanations resulted from a short discussion on why centralised knowledge bases do not work (i.e. have limited value). Please feel free to add to this list of explantions or to add your examples of (un)successful KM-interventions.

Knowledge bases do not take into account that:
- people consult people even for documents as long as this is faster, easier (k-animals are lazy and want maximum output with minimal effort)
- people consult people even for documents, as quality and relvance etsimates are useful, and for this you need knowledge, thus people
- people mostly like snacking, and only sometimes nutritious meals like reports
- people need pure 'information scent' not made up traces
- people leave valuable traces anyway, but in their own territories, not somewhere else
- people people are proud and cherish their own spaces -territories- and the cost of shared spaces
- re-using knowledge of others (i.e., other territories) is hard, it is like battles in the frontier areas of territories; k-bases are not sufficient to support knowledge re-use
- ......

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.

Disclaimer

The views expressed here are my personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.

© Copyright 2004-2005 Janine Swaak.