Monday, April 08, 2002

 
Posted by Anonymous 11:21 AM
Insights and Truths. Robert Frost once said, "Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it." His observation is both witty and astute. It was also written before the advent of weblogs, knowledge management and the underlying social and psychological theories and realities that define our world. I'm going to let the poet laureate's quip guide my entry today, which has a goal of supporting Linda's recent entry.

Linda and Mike have developed a model that supports the management of information technology, with an emphasis on people, process and technology. As Linda stated, one of the influences of the model is the capture, transformation and presentation of data and information. That process is in my area of expertise, which has given me an opportunity to contribute to how the model evolves - and evolve it does.

At the organizational level that Linda is currently discussing there are factors that will significantly enhance the organizational effectiveness. The following papers expose some of the major factors:

• Applying Social Psychology Theory to Problems of Group Work
• Collaboration Success Factors
• Word Groups and Information Systems
• Scorecard to Assess Enterprise Innovation Capabilities

In addition, there are fine points to be put on the application delivery process, which is discussed in Knowledge Creation for Improving Software Organizations. Creating knowledge can have drawbacks. Knowledge, like everything, comes in varying degrees of value. In order to determine the value of knowledge it must be assessed and evaluated, and a value assigned. Integrated Knowledge Assessment provides guidelines for accomplishing this.

The collection of best practices is an aspect of knowledge management, which gives a recursive quality to the document titled Best Practices in Knowledge Based Innovation. A final document that fits and supports Linda's current topic is Task/Technology Fit and Information Technology Choices in Knowledge Work. This paper is more applicable to the service and applications delivery functions in the Tarrani-Zarate Model, but also influences the foundation layer.

I'll end this with of my favorite Robert Frost poems:

We dance round in a ring and suppose.
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

I marvel at how these two simple, elegant verses say more about what knowledge management is than the pile of books I have on the subject.