The meeting was one of the best morning round-tables in the past couple of years and I want to share some of the discussion outcomes. Attendees, about ten of us, took turns sharing a workplace situation or incident that involved making a decision whether to share some knowledge we held. Each participant related an anecdote about a choice made to share knowledge or not, the reasons for the choice and the resulting outcome. Because we routinely emphasize knowledge sharing behaviors and practices, and the need for workers to collaborate in organizations, we thought this format would help us better understand sharing behaviors and decision-making.

Among the knowledge sharing opportunities that our members spoke about were:
•    Revealing to executive management the certainty of failure (with reasons) of a multi-million dollar IT project in a major consulting firm.
•    Pointing out to leadership the flaws in methodology and staffing for a large scale information architecture design effort.
•    In a service operation, unauthorized sharing of methods and practices with other groups not specifically tasked to execute them.
•    Asserting knowledge about poor practices related to project management and taking a minority position regarding methods on a team.
•    Revealing, without authorization, decisions management was making regarding unit operations that would put the unit work in a weakened and compromised business position.
•    Exposing evidence of intra-agency collaboration to suppress politically inconvenient information that rightly should have been in the public domain.
•    Balancing knowledge about negative individual performance and behaviors that could undermine the operations of the company with clients and partners, with personal responsibility to ensure best practices for clients.
•    Revealing a flaw in computing software to government authorities that had the potential for catastrophic industrial breakdowns across major institutions, national and international.

A reader might look at any of these brief descriptions and make a personal call on the “correct” course of action. Wouldn’t we all like to believe that we will always make a choice that is morally and ethically sound? We have seen interviews with people staffing the Deepwater Horizon, describing mechanical and operational hazards that they observed, some of whom claimed to share their knowledge with someone in higher authority. We also believe we know what the outcome was because critical knowledge was then deliberately suppressed or was not taken seriously.

For most of our story-tellers at the round-table, discussion focused on events of many years ago. Thus, it was with the benefit of hindsight that we could easily share our decision to share or not, and to express why we made the choice we did. Here are my observations about individual decisions and circumstances:
•    The younger the individual or the person with the most personal independence (no dependents), the more likely the knowledge was shared, even in the face of personal risk.
•    “Speaking truth to power” was calculated and calibrated quite thoughtfully by our speakers.
•    Individuals reflected before deciding on the consequences to both themselves and others when making decisions about what to say and to whom.
•    Those who shared knowledge at personal professional risk, having calibrated the consequences, would take the same or similar action again. Some suffered direct professional setbacks in the process while others did not or gained professionally.
•    Those who held their counsel, having calibrated the consequences, would do the same again, even having predicted and seen a less than positive outcome. This was because, on balance, their attempts to share and influence could not have changed the outcome but would have had a very damaging effect on people around them.
•    In none of these cases were lives or physical injury a possibility if knowledge was not shared, but personal livelihoods were at stake if it was shared.

It is difficult to project the results of this round of story-telling onto situations encountered in each of the BP accidents of the past ten years, or the thousands of instances in which institutions’ actions result in damages to individuals and property on a large scale. However, I believe that it is worth examining our own use and sharing of knowledge on a regular basis to continually refine and clarify our own ethical and moral practices within any community where we operate.

Consider the movements that have turned the tides of corrupt institutions, governments and put evil beings out of action. Leadership of single individuals, even at very low functional levels, who have been able to accrue a following through their moral authority can make a difference. Think of Gandhi, Lech Walesa, non-Jews who created safe havens during WWII, and hundreds of whistle-blowers who have risked (and often have lost) everything to right wrong-doing.

Read this article and consider what the actions of some courageous individuals might have been able to do had they shared what they knew and found ways to leverage it to turn a tide. I would like to believe that knowledge, even when it is uncomfortable, can always be turned into an asset when thoughtfully and sometimes courageously shared.

[With thanks to Laurence Chait, my friend and professional colleague, whose conclusions about what was heard and learned from our KM Forum meeting were very similar to my own.]

Update 7/22/2010 – A new article today in the NY Times, Workers on Doomed Rig Voiced Concern About Safety is a fine continuation of the discussion, how we as handle our knowledge and balance risks.

A recent article in Newsweek with the subtitle, Free markets require free minds, caught my eye; it was the “free minds” that I wanted to explore and contemplate. Since the article was based on recent decisions taken by Google regarding the use of its search engine in China, and because I am a search analyst, there was another reason to read on.

The very fact that I was free to read the article, later able to retrieve it using Google on the Internet is wonderful. Bringing to my reading of it a rich contextual background of knowledge about how search works, where content comes from, how it get created, managed and revealed to search engines was a bonus. Any lifelong learner and seeker of answers about all manner of topics can only marvel at the Internet and how we are free to roam its map of openly shared content.

As a librarian I know that there is much that is in the deep Web, content available only for subscribers, customers of enterprises, and proprietary content available only to employees or those with a clearance and “need to know.” In various work situations, as an employee or consultant for hire, I’ve had access to even more than I do now. But as a human being I find more than enough to feed my brain. I am challenged by the desire (and need) to put each new piece of content into a useful, usable or meaningful context. Sharing ideas about new information and what to do with it is both fun and interesting.

Access to tangible representations of others ideas, research results, shared facts and experiences is enriching. It is this access that enhances my ability to contemplate innovative applications of discovered content to individuals’, local and global problems. In my work and situations where deep Web access is needed to round out my research on a topic, I am confident that I can, by paying the entrance price, reach any commercially published content that I need. My experiences and the culture of my working world give me the unbounded freedom to pursue my ideas and the content that nourishes them. There are clearly boundaries to what I can access but I know enough to know when those boundaries are unlawful, unreasonable or against human interests and I am free to participate in communities to unlock them.

I am free to think the unthinkable and read what others wish I wouldn’t. A few years ago I met a Chinese student who had been schooled and lived in the West from high school through college. Being most comfortable with his Chinese language, outside of school work he accessed all content through a Chinese search engine and saw only what the Chinese Web allowed. Our discussions were disturbing because, while he had been “educated” in the West, his knowledge of the world was seriously bounded by a chosen lack of access to Western ideas and content. When asked about what non-Chinese media outlets he read, he shrugged and responded with an unconcerned “none.”

This is a point that “free minds” might consider when thinking about how far a growing Chinese economy can go. Blocking a Web of new and external ideas is the largest barrier to building a leading innovative and sustainable global presence. But only one who has experienced otherwise can truly appreciate what they are missing.

It is pretty common to have prospective client leads come from people I do know – well. Most have been clients, in a  group where we are both active or we’ve maintained a relationship through some common professional work. I don’t believe I have ever received a lead from an individual that I have never met face-to-face, although inquiries have come as a result on some online presence that contained my writing. Sometimes the latter results in work, but usually not. May-be my personal voice is not as compelling or convincing as my writing voice, or may-be the need does not match my expertise. It is clear that being introduced by someone who has direct experience with me is much more likely to be a good fit.

Reflecting on recent consulting engagements that came through marketing media exposure or introductions by a third-party made me think more about first impressions. Trying to figure out the times when a follow-up conversation over the phone did not result in business reveal how impressions can change from an initial electronic contact, followed by a phone conversation, and then a personal meeting. One thing is clear; I am almost always surprised at the shifting personal dynamic once we have met. Sometimes a positive impression turns negative but more often than not the “in-person” meeting is a pleasant and more satisfying experience.

In general, the in-person meeting is the best way to really know another person. To me, this underscores the way body language, facial expressions, demeanor and tone influence how we relate to another person and how we hear what they have to say. These things all complement conversation and the written word. I find that in business meetings, my focus is on the content. Rarely am I able to describe afterward a person’s facial attributes or clothing in any detail. However, I do remember mannerisms, the way they speak and relate to me and the content of the conversation.

Transparency and being open are typical of the way I communicate both on the phone and in person. My frankness can be disarming and probably loses me some potential relationships but I have always been pretty direct. However, I realize now that when others are that way with me on the phone before we have met, I can feel a little uncertain about how things will evolve. Those misgivings usually pass once in the presence of the individual.

This all adds up to considering a very important kind of knowledge – knowing people in a much more holistic and personal way. It makes me think about relationships built entirely through correspondence, electronic and otherwise, and how different relationships could be for the individuals in a face-to-face conversation.

Through our professional communities, we often seek referrals and experts. I am not comfortable making recommendations about anyone I have never met. Upon reflection I believe it is because I can never really say, “I know him.” At most I may honestly say, “I know his work” or “I know of him.” I want all my working relationships to be trusting and I want to have confidence in what I say about a person. Exploring this topic has me convinced that face-to-face conversation will always be the best way to relate and know each other.

Compared to today, automation moved at a snails pace, but working with it did allow for plenty of thinking. Looking back, it also allowed for certain knowledge to become cemented in one’s conscience working brain. Processing each step forward (and back) while learning a new skill was part of becoming educated. The goal of creating mailing labels, so that I could communicate with the student alumni association, would surely have been achieved more quickly the first time if I had just hand written the addresses on envelopes. But that was hardly the point, what I learned about computing and computers served me well for decades as I moved into online search systems, word processing system adaptation to producing indexing records for company documents, and finally to development of a content management system (AKA integrated library system for corporate document management).

Presently, the information technology world is divided. There are those who know a lot about the underlying technology hardware, networks and tools to do software development work or application development. Then there are those who understand a lot about how to organize content to optimize it for retrieval and how to use retrieval systems and software of all types. These two groups appear to have little knowledge of the expertise of the other and what each knows is not shared in a collaborative environment. To be honest in business we allow no time for that to happen, any more.

I saw this divide widening in the late 1980s and early 90s and wrote about it. What I wrote then brings the problem into focus for graduate library and information science programs, their faculty and students. Something similar could be presented for the computer sciences and their form of education, where business communication education seem to be lacking. Today, I ran across what I wrote for a presentation at USC Chapel Hill to students, faculty and business leaders from the surrounding area in 1993. I updated it to reflect some additional topics germane in today’s information soup.

It’s interesting that what I thought I knew in 1993 is still pretty useful knowledge today. That is why I am sharing this white paper. I hope someone else picks up the dialogue and we can get more experts graduating with knowledge in the fundamentals  of information management. To put it another way, we need to know more about what we need to know.

In the context of search, one of my areas of expertise, I have written about how anticipating the “intent” of the searcher has to influence the usefulness or usability of design in a retrieval system. In personal knowledge management, if it is something we care to take the time to reflect on, we need to consider the different kinds of knowledge we have and how we intend to use and value it before deciding how to manage any of it.

Facts, Evidence, Expertise, and Ideas form a continuum of knowledge and interact in different ways for each of us. Evaluating what our personal best practices should be for managing what we know, or what others know that we want to keep accessible for future use, is a work in progress for most of us. It is a mystery of our behavior how we evolve in terms of the patterns, mechanisms, and order of knowledge that we embrace at various stages in life. I think this has to do with our own growing body of knowledge and experiences that cause us to shift personal knowledge management as we become enlightened or aware of better or more useful techniques. I have no great insights to share in this post, just some observations and suggestions to think about.

Managing facts such as addresses, phone numbers, emails, medicines we take, properties of materials we work with, directions for performing assembly operations or building a Web site is pretty easy. These are only a few of the factual content items that surround us in our working and personal lives. They tend to fall into natural buckets and once we decide on how to manage each bucket our patterns are easily maintained.

With knowledge that I would categorize as evidence we begin to be more challenged. We observe things like the lily buds usually appearing in July and shortly after the deer making a meal of them. It is easy to make a note of missing data or parts on the instruction sheet, or to update our gardening diary with the observation about deer damage but remembering that we need to look at this information in time to make it useful is another kind of knowledge, expertise.

Expertise is knowledge we accumulate with experience and learning of facts and evidence, as well as participation in activities: physical, mental and social. Expertise is difficult to quantify and very hard to characterize; that’s one reason that hiring and placing workers is often so tricky. Applying “tags” or labels to expertise is more art than science; providing context is something few do very well in a way that is meaningful for a general audience. To the extent that we can boil expertise into useful nuggets or comprehensive volumes of content that help others, we make inroads into knowledge sharing and facilitating retrieval. Categorizing expertise for our own benefit is a lot easier.

The toughest type of knowledge to manage is ideas. These come from assembling all that accumulated factual, evidentiary, and expert knowledge, often subconsciously. Ideas are the least tangible, and codifiable. However, they are the driver of so much of what makes us advanced beings: creativity, innovation, invention, and adaptation. Ideas are the exciting product of all that other knowledge.

In our personal knowledge management of facts, evidence and expertise we need to leave a mental space for processing and digesting; this is what gestates new ideas, and new knowledge. Ideas are intensely personal, can’t be taken away or co-opted by others until we given them away. Ideas need to be encouraged and self-vested to make us more knowledgeable, valuable and satisfied as human beings.

To carry this idea about ideas one step further, I think it is worth vesting our youth with some ideas about this knowledge continuum and how they need to care for what they learn and know in their personal and professional lives. A respect for the knowledge of others is something we all need to consider and foster. Giving young people insights into the knowledge journey they will travel is surely worth some effort for those of us who have traveled the path before.

My own tag line for my consulting practice is “Dedicated to Preserving the Value in Enterprise Knowledge through Process Analysis and Implementation.” When I really think about the various cases on which I work, there is more analysis of content and the experts who produce it than the preservation process or implementation of technology to leverage content and expertise. What this comes down to is the spirit of my work, which always aims to build a better framework for leveraging knowledge, using the most appropriate tools and practices. Sometime we bring the knowledge seeker a better method for finding, technology for organizing or understanding the knowledge or expertise that is available for them to leverage. However, the pace of technology makes it an ongoing challenge for me and my clients to sustain anyone’s focus long enough to achieve a useful lasting outcome.

My new focus is to quickly audit and map content for clients with simple tagging to define the value it holds. If my classifications are targeted to business problems that are recognizable, moving to the next stage of placing it in a knowledge worker’s personal workflow for easy discovery might just be a shorter route to leveraging knowledge.