WEB 2.0 Technologies

RSS[Really Simple Syndication] in Plain English


Twitter in Plain English


Social Networking in Plain English


Blogs in Plain English


Social Bookmarking [Tagging] in Plain English


Podcasting in Plain English


Online Photo Sharing in Plain English


What is LinkedIn?


Wetpaint Wikis in Plain English


PR Web In Plain English


Note: This Blog is not another YOUTUBE. Its about Social Networkin, WEB 2.0 Technologies

Reference
CommonCraft

WEB 2.0 Technologies in Organisations using Knowledge Management

    In today's market competition is on peak every product you see would have a competitors on the other hand, companies need to understand the importance of effectively managing their knowledge to gain competitive advantage. Years ago, employees would stay with a company for many years before moving on while many planned upon a lifetime of dedication to their organisation. But in today industries, it is not uncommon to find employees who stay no more than 3 to 4 year without looking for a change. Indirectly company is losing the intellectual capital.

    Web 2.0 emerged in 2004 by O'Reilly Media as a way to explain the revolution that was being observed in the web since its start. "Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an "architecture of participation," and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences." O'Reilly, T., (2004)

    In my opinion Web2.0 technology in a business background will be more accepted by knowledge management systems, as employee will be already is comfortable using these tools in their personal time. So it won't be a new technology for employees to use in their companies. Web has become a universal platform for all to develop. If business could create interactive networking sites for the employees like Facebook, It would reduce the gap between employee's interaction, communication and knowledge sharing across organisation would increase.

    Implementing web2.0 in an organisation is termed as Enterprise 2.0. It enables the internet technologies to work within the organisation which is termed as Intranet. There are several technologies used in enterprise 2.0 where knowledge management is just a part of it. Knowledge management is compared with Web2.0 in four aspects; they are Conceptual, Principles, Functional abilities of tools and applications and Organisational Culture. Levy, M., (2009)

    Following are the few technologies compared to knowledge management attribute,

Web 2.0		Knowledge Management attribute
WIKI		Web content management tools are part of the knowledge management toolbox. Following are the other known tools CMS, Stellent and Interwoven
Blog		It can be used for sharing new knowledge or posting articles which can be of any incident occurring can help others to avoid the problems.
Tagging [Folksonomy]		Tags narrow downs the searching context which help consume time.
Social Computing		Communities of Practice

Note: Ideas for table taken from Levy, M., (2009)

    Web2.0 would bring revolution in the organisation on the KM area where if implemented successfully will definitely help companies to gain value and gain competitive edge. For an example one of the call centre company where employees were not staying for long, it's due to the culture and pressure of work which had created problems. After implementing knowledge management and adding web2.0 technologies it helped the company to create good cultures which keep employees satisfy and by the means of Social Computing an employee was also able to be a part of a community which would help further growth or self development of an employee.

Reference

O'Reilly, T., "Web 2.0: Compact Definition?" O'Reilly Radar blog, Available at (http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/10/web_20_compact_definition.html, 01/04/2009, 2009)

Levy, M., (2009), "Web 2.0 implications on knowledge management", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol 13 No. 1 2009, pp 120-134, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1367-3270

Classification of Knowledge Management System....?

Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) refers to a class of systems developed to support the processes of knowledge creation, storage/retrieval, transfer and application (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). Knowledge Management idea in organisation is becoming important and firms are making significant IT investments in deploying knowledge management systems.

 

There are several authors and there are several standpoints on there classification of KMS. In 2004, Becerra- Fernandez, et al. KM systems can be classified into four kinds they are,

1. Knowledge Discovery Systems
   

       It supports the development of new tacit or explicit knowledge from data and information or from the mixture of prior knowledge. Knowledge discovery systems rely on mechanisms and technologies that can support the combination and the socialization processes.    
   

2. Knowledge Capture Systems
   

       It supports the process of retrieving either explicit or tacit knowledge that resides within people, artefacts, or organisational entities. Knowledge capture systems rely on Mechanisms and Technologies that support Externalization and Internalization.
   

3. Knowledge Sharing Systems
   

       It supports the process through which explicit or implicit knowledge is communicated to other individuals. Knowledge sharing systems rely on Mechanisms and Technologies that support socialisation.
   

4. Knowledge Applications Systems
   

        It supports the process through which some individuals utilize knowledge possessed by other individuals without actually acquiring or learning that knowledge. Mechanisms and Technologies support knowledge application systems by facilitation routines and direction

According to Alavi and Leidner (2001) there are three common applications of IT to organisational knowledge management initiatives:

1. Knowledge Creation
   

       This model views organizational knowledge creation as continuous interaction between the tacit and explicit dimensions of knowledge and the flow of knowledge passes through individual, group, and organizational levels.
   

2. Knowledge Storage / Retrieval
   

       This organisational memory resides in various forms, including written documentation, structured information stored in electronic databases.
   

3. Knowledge Transfer
   

       Its being an important process in knowledge management where transfer occurs at various levels, transfer of knowledge between individuals, from individuals to explicit sources, from individuals to groups, between groups, across groups and from the group to the organisation.
   

4. Knowledge Application
   

       Technology can support knowledge application by embedding knowledge into organizational routines. Procedures that are culture-bound can be embedded into IT
   

    After comparing both the author's views, it seems that they both have similar classification but moulded differently, lets consider Knowledge Discovery systems and Knowledge Creation which to an extend have a similar meaning of newly knowledge creation. In knowledge capture systems and knowledge storage /retrieval process have the same objective of capturing knowledge and storing it for further process. In knowledge sharing systems and Knowledge Transfer there is one disparity where in knowledge sharing systems, knowledge is shared with one another whereas in knowledge transfer knowledge is passed from one person to another. Last but not least knowledge applications systems and knowledge application have similar understanding

    A knowledge management system captures a view of the person's knowledge representation. Then further knowledge representation is passed onto others by means of a verbal view or In case of a computer program, it resides in a database that may be utilized by others. It is only a view as further experiences and learning's within the creator may change the knowledge representation, while the views remain the same. Others may make use of the knowledge representation views by using into the KM system and then combining it with their prior knowledge. This in turn forms a new or modified knowledge representation. This knowledge representation is then applied to solve a personal or business need, or explain a phenomenon. [Clark, D (2004)]

Reference

Alavi, Maryam and Dorothy Leidner, "Review: Knowledge management and knowledge management systems: Conceptual foundations and research issues" In MIS Quarterly, March 2001. Volume 25 (3)

Becerra-Fernandez, I., Gonzalez, A., and Sabherwal, R. 2004. Knowledge Management – Challenges, Solutions and Technologies. Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Clark, D., 2004, Knowledge Management, Available at [http://www.skagitwatershed.org/~donclark/knowledge/km.html, 27/03/09, 2009]

Knowledge Management in a Business Environment..?

A knowledge organisation is been defined as "…an entity that realizes the importance of its knowledge, internal and external, to the organisation, and applies techniques to maximize the use of this knowledge to its employees, shareholders and customers." [Liebowitz and Beckman, 1998]

In today's modern world organisations mainly depends on decision makers to make "mission-critical" decisions based on the inputs from multiple sources. In an ideal scenario where decision makers are making decision on the basis of either others conclusions or from its own lengthy experience which allow them to act quickly and decisively on the information. Further going in depth of organisation the most vital resource is Collective Knowledge which resides in the minds of an organisation's employees, customers and vendors. If the organisation knows how to manage this knowledge they can have many benefits in terms of business competencies, accelerating innovation and time to market, improving cycle times and decision making, strengthening organisational commitment and building sustainable competitive advantage [Davenport and Prusak, 1998]

An organisation contains widespread hierarchy structure. There are several departments which may be interlinked with each others, where knowledge sharing is taking place. In my view organisational structure is underpinned by knowledge management. According to Becerra- Fernandez, et al., (2004), Organisation impacts of Knowledge Management are categorized with four P's i.e. People, Processes, Products and Performance which is shown in Fig 1.0 and classified in the following points.

Impacts on People –

KM can help develop employees to learn and give exposure to upgrade their knowledge with the updating market, In addition with upgrading knowledge or adopting shared information, if employees are well aware of ongoing and future changes they are less likely to get surprised or in other words employees would be better prepared for change. Job Satisfaction impacts on people where knowledge acquisition and skill enhancement and also enhance the market value compare to the other organisation. KM also provides employees with solution to problems they face in case somebody else would have faced and would have solution to it, which can be shared to consume valuable time and effective piece of work.

Impacts on Processes –

Processes are the step by step guide for performing a task or action, where KM enables improvements in organisational process in all the departments by providing suitable effective process for decision making with fewer errors. It also enables process to complete early with low cost and generate efficient values which directly links to Cost Savings and Improved Productivity, Innovating new process for either improving the existing process or creating a new step for a certain process which would result in better use of new ideas and improved brainstorming.

Impacts on Products –

Organisation Products are also impacted by KM where the impact is seen in two ways value-added products and knowledge-based products, The Value-added products are the products which are already exist in the market but added offers, it's either a new products or improved product which add value as compared with earlier products. Due to organisational process innovation value added products get benefited from KM. Knowledge Based products are basically gained by naturally or with lengthy experienced knowledge for example Consulting and Software Development Industries, Lets consider an auto consultant who goes for a car bid and quickly access and combine the best knowledge and bid on proposal. In such industries, knowledge management is necessary for survivals.

Impacts on Organisational Performance –

KM in an organisation could also cause either direct or indirect impact on organisational performance. Direct impact of KM on organisational performance occurs when knowledge is properly used in an organisation where revenue is generated from the implemented KM and where KM strategy is aligned with Business strategy. Indirect KM on organisational performance would impact on the activities which are not linked with strategy, revenue and cost. For example, by using KM if the bank customer executives convince the customer who would in turn gives the customer loyalty, therefore these activities cannot be measured easily.

The above diagram explains about the knowledge management in an organisation which is directly linked to People, Process, Products and Performance which is interlinked in some or the other form where knowledge gain by the people is result in good products and efficient process results in high performance.

The process of sharing knowledge or transfer of knowledge within the organisation brings the self development within the employees as well increase the capital of the company in term of Intellectual Wealth. Organisational knowledge assets are a major component of these intangible assets which is also known as intellectual capital. In one of the magazine a collective view of many CEOs who agree that their most competitive advantage is their "Brainware" or their "Human Capital". According to Liebowitz, j. (1999)

"Knowledge Management deals with the process of creating value from an organisation's intangible assets….."

Some companies, like Caterpillar, got a problem where one third of their employees will retire in the next five years. Caterpillar is looking at knowledge management strategies to best collect their knowledge and make it available in an interactive mode to those at Caterpillar who could benefit from their knowledge.

Reference:

Liebowitz, J. and Beckman, T. 1998. Knowledge Organizations: What Every Manager Should Know. Boca Raton, Florida: St. Lucie Press.

Davenport, T.H., and Prusak, L. 1998. Working Knowledge: How Organisations Manage What They Know. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Becerra-Fernandez, I., Gonzalez, A., and Sabherwal, R. 2004. Knowledge Management – Challenges, Solutions and Technologies. Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Liebowitz, j. (Ed.) (1999), The Knowledge Management Handbook, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.

Knowledge Management Schools....!

What is Schools….?

At first when I read this term "Schools" I came to a conclusion by relating it to the past where I have studied, But after doing a bit of research on it, I came to know that Schools of Knowledge Management is different subject; Where Schools are the classification or typology of knowledge management.

Schools of Knowledge Management....?

In 2001, Michael Earl has come up with 7 Schools of knowledge management which was known as "Earl's 7 Schools". The first three schools were considered as "Technocratic" because they are based on management technologies, which support the day to day task of employers.

The First schools in the technocratic group consist of "Systems". The fundamental idea of this school is a computer system capture, store, organize and display knowledge derived from expertise and experience. Gist of this school as Knowledge Repository

The Second school is "Cartographic". It's mainly about mapping the organisational knowledge. The good example here is having a Knowledge Base. Where knowledge sharing and retrieving of knowledge can take place from a central place in an organisation. Gist of this school as Knowledge Map

The Third school is "Engineering". Its origin is business process reengineering. If you give knowledge workers access to knowledge and information, performance and adaptation of management processes are likely to improve Gist of this school as Knowledge Sharing

The Fourth school is labelled as "Economic". This fourth school in Economic group is known as "Commercial". It mainly considers knowledge as an asset. It is also considered as higher level of classification because it consists of protecting internal knowledge and intellectual knowledge to generate revenue income Gist of this school as Knowledge Exploitation

The Fifth school is labelled as "Behavioural". This fifth school in the Behavioural group is known as "Organisational". It's mainly forming a network, sharing or pooling knowledge. This is known as Knowledge Communities.

The Sixth school is "Spatial". The spatial school is more a design for emergence philosophy of knowledge management. In particular, it centres on the use of space to facilitate. Knowledge exchange

The Seventh school is "Strategic". The strategic school sees knowledge management as a dimension of competitive strategy.

Reference
Earl, M. (2001), Journal of Management Information Systems/summer 2001, Vol 18, No 1. Pg. 215-233. Available at (http://staffweb.ncnu.edu.tw/hyshih/download/KM/Paper/KM%20strategy%20taxonomy.pdf, 02/18/09, 2009)

Sayings of Sant Kabir

Him whom I went out to seek,

I found just where I was:

He now has become myself

Whom before I called `Another'!

[Sayings of Sant Kabir]

Look at you, you madman!
Screaming you are thirsty
And dying in a desert,
When all around you
There is nothing but water

Man is but a doll made from five elements,
To whom a human's name is given ...
We are but guest of four days,
Yet we take up so much room!

Reference
1) Rajendran, A. (2008), Sayings of Sant Kabir, Hindu Blog

Knowledge Management Strategy: what do we mean by strategy?

In early decade there was a discussion on the subject Knowledge Management. The outcome of this discussion was, if the organisation has to survive in the modern Knowledge Era they have to have strategy for managing and leveraging value from their intellectual assets, and many KM lifecycles and strategies were projected. (Haggie and Kingston, 2003)

A KM strategy is a general, issue-based approach to defining operational strategy and objectives with specialized KM principles and approaches (Srikantajah and Koenig, 2000)

Strategy is all these—it is perspective, position, plan, and pattern. Strategy is the bridge between policy or high-order goals on the one hand and tactics or concrete actions on the other. Strategy and tactics together straddle the gap between ends and means. In short, strategy is a term that refers to a complex web of thoughts, ideas, insights, experiences, goals, expertise, memories, perceptions, and expectations that provides general guidance for specific actions in pursuit of particular ends(Nickols, F., 2000)

To my view Knowledge Management Strategy is a way to identifying process in the organisation, which can best influence its knowledge resource. In an organisations point of view, if they define an appropriate definition to Knowledge Management Strategy they will have a clear picture ahead. This can further help in knowing the organisation in better way and prioritize the knowledge management tools and its approaches in order to support long term plans.

Further going ahead with the topic, Kimiz Dalkir (2005) explains the road map of knowledge management strategies by considering the following points,

1) Knowledge Audit
My perception behind knowledge audit after going through the authors book is Knowledge Inventory within an individual or a group need to be audit as to be on the right track, He considered the view of Skyrme who says,
“A knowledge audit is often carried out in conjunction with a knowledge management
assessment, which provides a baseline on which one can develop a knowledge management
strategy”(Skyrme, (2001))
After studying on Audit Knowledge, I think it is a serious study of Knowledge Management in the organization. Audit of knowledge helps to clarify the needs of businesses in knowledge and skills, strengths and weaknesses of the company in organizing the flow of knowledge, threats and risks of loss of knowledge, as well as new ways to improve knowledge management.

2) Gap Analysis
“The Strategy is used to define a plan of action by undertaking a gap analysis”. Kimiz Dalkir (2005)
But my view on Gap Analysis is, it is a part of Knowledge Mapping Process where I agree on the facts from KM WIKI say’s “Knowledge mapping is data gathering, survey, exploring, discovery, conversation, disagreement, gap analysis, education and synthesis.”(kmwiki, knowledge mapping)

Failure of KM Strategies (Andrusenko, T. (2007))

According to Andrusenko, T. (2007) following are the reasons due to which there is an failure of KM strategies and I completely support this failures,

1) Lack of support for top management of the company.
Effective implementation of CM requires much more than mere information technology. The first necessary change in corporate culture, starting with the leaders of the enterprise. That is, they must first begin to implement KM in their practice.

2) Underestimating the potential benefits and costs.
How much will it cost and what return on investment? - They should be asking at the outset. High expectations as well as the lack of methods for estimating project costs may lead disappointment. Although this requirement at the level of common sense, many companies neglect these estimates.

3) Inadequate technology support.
Consultants advise companies to protect their investment in KM projects also through the careful choice of supporting information technology based on proven standards and software.

4) Bad planning and lack of clear criteria for assessing effectiveness.
We recommend that you devote sufficient time to determine the points of the plan and all the necessary requirements for its security, including the identification of business goals, return on investment, technological requirements, development of a pilot project, and evaluation of results.

Note: The above Article of (Andrusenko, T. (2007)) is not in English format so I have publish his ideas by translating.

Reference
1) Haggie, K., and Kingston, J. (2003). Choosing Your Knowledge Management Strategy. Journal of Knowledge Management Practice, June 2003. Available: http://www.tlainc.com/articl51.htm [2/10/2009,2009]
2) Srikantajah, T., and Koenig, M. (2000). Knowledge management for the information professional. Medford, NJ: Information Today.
3) Nickols, F., 2000, strategy: definitions and meaning. Available: http://home.att.net/~nickols/strategy_definition.htm [2/11/2009, 2009]
4) Skyrme, D. (2001). Capitalizing on knowledge: from e-business to k-business. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.
5) Kimiz, D. (2005). Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice, Pg No. 247-259.
6) Kmwiki, knowledge mapping. Available: http://kmwiki.wikispaces.com/Knowledge+mapping [2/11/2009, 2009].
7) Andrusenko, T. (2007). KM Strategy in Organisation. Available: http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/2849/pg_dtl_art_news/pg_hdr_art/pg_ftr_art [2/11/2009,2009]

Use and Misuse of Terms - Knowledge, Information and Data (KID)

There is a bond between data, information and knowledge so it's often depicted as pyramid or a linear form. By keeping data at the base and converting data to information and further information is converted to knowledge.

According to my view Fig. 1.0 shows the structure of the KID (Knowledge, Information and Data) in a cyclic manner.

Fig. 1.0

I believe that knowledge helps use create a set of facts and figure which is data and then further data converts in to information and the cycle keeps on going. Also Shawn (2007) has similar kind of view where he say's

"Knowledge acts as an interpretant to turn data into information. The information we notice (we don't notice all information channelled toward us), might create some level of dissonance (its surprises us or we ask ourselves, "What's the story here?") and if we care about resolving this dissonance we create knowledge."(Shawn, (2007))

As I understand that a specific set of facts are relevant to someone else's information. For example, But data to one person is someone else's information. A commodities trader might stare at a computer screen of numbers which would look to most people as raw data. To the commodity trader, however, slight changes in the numbers convey messages which act as information they might convert to knowledge and take action. Consequently, context is a key ingredient acting as an underlay to all three concepts of data, information and knowledge. (Shawn, (2007))

But data to one person is someone else's information. A commodities trader might stare at a computer screen of numbers which would look to most people as raw data. To the commodity trader, however, slight changes in the numbers conveys messages which act as information they might convert to knowledge and take action. Consequently, context is a key ingredient acting as an underlay to all three concepts of data, information and knowledge.

According to Tuomi (1999) view, there is no "raw" data, since every measurable or collectable piece of fact has already been affected by the very knowledge process that made it measurable and collectable in the first place. Knowledge, embedded in our minds, is thus a prerequisite. We can instantiate some of this knowledge as information, which is explicit and processable. By examining the structure of this information, we may finally codify it into pure data, which, from an IS/IT perspective, is the most valuable of the three. Since only data can effectively be processed by computers, the value hierarchy should thus be turned around and have data on top (Tuomi, 1999).

Reference

1. Shawn, (2007), anecdote: data, information, knowledge: a sensemaking perspective. Available: http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2007/06/data_informatio_2.html [2/12/2009, 2009}.
   
2. Tuomi, I. (1999a), "Data is More Than Knowledge: Implications of the Reversed Knowledge Hierarchy for Knowledge Management and Organizational Memory", Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 107-121

eSSENCE of Organisations, Social/Business Networks, Communities of Practice (Cops) and its dISPARITY..?

Organisations, what is it and what i believe…?

Organisation, Is a well known term and there are various definition and views on it. But my view towards organisation is bit different. To me Organisation has to do something with systematize a business or activity with a group of people working together. As the definition state it's a group of people working together for a particular objective/activity/goals, It means that I am talking about organisation which is not only the business organisation, It can be found in schools, colleges, welfares, etc. where ever a group of people getting collected to attain certain goals.

But I believe organisation drive in the theory of incompetence. By contrast, the idea of competence support flat organisation. The characteristic theory of incompetence is controls and directives, rules and procedures, layers of management and pyramids of power. Incompetence is a quite important but minimally explored variable in organisation. (Ott and Shafritz, 1994)

Further, incompetence just is not what it used to be. Traditionally one person could be fully responsible for a major failure in business. Although it is still possible to properly credit one individual for a major instance of mission failure, the far more likely explanation is that an organisation's structure, culture, or policies are at fault. Still it is far more emotionally satisfying to lay blame on a single individual. But this attitude does not take into account the nature of modern organisations.(Handy, C.)

Social/Business Networks, What is it..?

Social/Business Network is a social structure which consists of standalone nodes which are connected to each others by some means. These means are the purpose or needs of each another which brings them to form a group or called as networks. Nodes are basically Individuals or Organisation.(Anklam and Hoppe, 2005)

Social Network is nothing new for us, We are already part of one of the social network for an example as we look within ourselves we have relationship in the family. When all of our relatives come together for certain occasion we form a social network. And if one new member is entered in the family the size of the network increases because of the existing relationship get merged with the new relationships and so on and on..

Now a days there are lots of internet application playing role in connecting different people with each other. So these internet applications become means for forming network. As there is a saying "World is become small place to live". It has been tested by Stanley Milgram's in Six Degrees of Separation.

Communities of Practice (Cops)...?

According to Mr. Fred Nickols (2000) "Communities of Practice are the group that form to share what they know and to learn from one another regarding some aspects of their work". Further Mr Etienne Wenger (1998) had a unique explanation; he said "Communities of practice are everywhere". With these definition and many others I believe Communities of Practice can be simply explained as a groups of people working together to share work-related knowledge and experience.

After the research on Cops I believe that we are linked with many of Cops in the form of School, work, home or in our hobbies. You might have joined an online community or might be a part of sports club. No matter what forms of involvement is there, but most of us have experienced the belonging in community of practice (Wenger, E. (1998) a)

While reading about CoP I recollect one of the incidents in my past organisation where my profile was of System Administrator and also I have possess knowledge in programming so I use to work parallell with programmer for certain automation on AD and Exchange. Automation of a process took quite some time but till it was in process of being completed I had to work with them so I had to meet them two days in a week. This was a kind of CoP where there is a purpose to achieve within certain group of people over a period of time.

There is one better example for COP; it's about the Technicians at Xerox Corporation.

Organisations, Social/Business Networks, Communities of Practice (Cops), its dISPARITY…?

There are many different opinions and view on the above topic, as I went on looking views of different experts and ActKM members what I found was

According Steve Denning's book, The Leader's Guide to Storytelling, in chapter 7 Steve makes a clear distinction between CoPs and Networks as shown in the Table 7.1 (from the authors book, Click on the link to view the table) also he makes a mark by saying

"Communities are often confused with networks. Networks are collection of people who maintain contact with each other because of a mutually perceived benefit of staying in touch for purposes that may or may not be explicit" (Denning, S. 2005)

Further to his saying I looked over a view from Communities of Practice, by Etienne Wenger.

"Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly." (Wenger, E. b)

I would like to comment that, it entirely depends on people's perception to consider a COP as a network or Network as a COP. Because Etienne Wenger also said in his earlier article that COP is found every where which mean for example, ActKM, is a network or a community of practice. According to Steve Denning's book

"I see ActKM as a CoP. I'm also a member of CP Square but I don't know that group's stories and consequently I see it more as a network than a community. I would like to change my perception in that case."(Denning, S. 2005)

To elaborate more about the disparity between the group types see Table 1.0 dISPARITY between Organisation, Social/Business Network and Communities of Practise.

Table 1.0 – dISPARITY between Organisation, Social/Business Network and Communities of Practise.

Note: Due to lack of space, Table 1.0 is saved as image to view the table please click on the link.

Reference

1. Ott, J., and Shafritz, Jay. 1994. toward a definition of organizational incompetence: A neglected variable in organization theory. Available: http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=5000218958 [2/7/2009, 2009].
   
2. Handy, C., managing the dream -- learning organization article. Available: http://www.ourfuture.com/arts02.htm [2/7/2009, 2009].
   
3. Anklam, P. and Hoppe, B. 2005, social network - wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Available: http://p2pfoundation.net/Social_Network_Analysis [2/7/2009, 2009].
   
4. Wenger, E. 1998 a, CoP: best practices. Available: http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml [2/7/2009, 2009].
   
5. Denning, S. 2005. "The Leader's Guide to Storytelling". Page No. 150, Available: Google Book Search: http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&id=wuorz5X0KsIC&dq=The+Leader%27s+Guide+to+Storytelling&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=lNgnguUzkl&sig=yhFgQh2oIKjIgzqtLFCWa16cVc4&ei=QH6RSfTgG-TSjAe2sdmoCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPP9,M1 [2/10/2009, 2009].
   
6. Wenger, E. b, Communities of Practice : A brief introduction. Available: http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm [2/7/2009, 2009].
   
7. Nickols, F. 2000, Communities of Practice (CoP): Definition, Indicators and Identifying Characteristics. Available: http://home.att.net/~discon/KM/CoPCharacteristics.htm [2/7/2009, 2009]

Knowledge Management

What is Knowledge..?

Why do we have to manage knowledge..?

These are few questions which arise when I think about Knowledge Management.

After researching on this topic I found out that. Knowledge is a set of information within an individual; this knowledge is gain to an individual in the form of education and experience.

After stretching knowledge with management, it reminds me about a saying “Too Many Cook Spoils the Broth.” When we have many individuals brain working towards one objective with there kind of knowledge creates a mess without an administration. So here knowledge management comes in picture where many individuals knowledge are managed under a supervision to attain an objective.

Similarly I think that not all fingers are same which means every individual is got a unique brain but different intellectual because of which not much of our thoughts are similar. So the need of knowledge management arises here when processes are defined to attain the objective by analysing, accepting and testing.

While researching about the topic I found out interesting facts from different authors. Which I feel is quite relevant to my thoughts, they are

“Knowledge management is about understanding how knowledge is created, developed and used for value creation and also understanding how to facilitate this process”. (Poyhonen, A.)

More to be added...!

References
1) Poyhonen A., What is Knowledge Management? , A collection of short video interviews that pose the question "What is KM?" (Gurteen Knowledge). Available: http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/wiskm [2009, 2/4/2009] .