KnowledgeManagement

ArchitectureDaryl Morey Knowledge Management

ArchitectureIn this age of information, knowledge is the most important factor in thelong-term
success of both an individual and an organization. In fact, PeterSenge believes that
the only source of competitive advantage in the futurewill be the knowledge that an
organization contains and an organization’sability to learn faster than the competition.With
knowledge taking on increased importance, it makes sense thatthere is an opportunity to
create competitive advantage by effectively man-aging its storage and use. An effective
knowledge management architecturecreates competitive advantage by bringing appropriate
knowledge to thepoint of action during the moment of need. Employee turnover is
alsoreduced because a large portion of the knowledge and expertise acquiredby the employee
is captured in the knowledge base.

THE ARCHITECTURE’S CHARACTERISTICS A successful knowledge management architecture

must be:• Available (if knowledge exists, it is available for retrieval)• Accurate in retrieval (if
available, knowledge is retrieved)• Effective (knowledge retrieved is useful and
correct)• Accessible (knowledge is available during the time of need)This chapter proposes a
vision for how technology could be used toimprove each of these requirements for success.

Knowledge Available for Retrieval If the knowledge an employee needs exists, it should be
available. Thisrequirement can be split into two viewpoints: knowledge that exists externalto
the organization and knowledge that exists internal to the organization:

External knowledge. This is an area that falls under the purview of tra-ditional library services.
Successful knowledge management architec-ture must leverage these services and their
lessons learned. Outsideknowledge resources must be evaluated and tapped. Regardless
ofhow external sources are tapped, the vision is to have an easy-to-usesearch engine that
queries all free and strategic fee external knowl-edge sources. The engine search then brings
back knowledge fromeach in an effective, integrated fashion. Technology can help meet
thisvision by:– Converting legacy information into a digital, searchable form.– Providing an
integrated, effective search engine.• Internal knowledge. Making the knowledge internal to
an organizationavailable is a more difficult task because the knowledge available isnot already
in the form of a finished product. Advanced technologycan make a large, positive impact in
this area. The challenge of makingknowledge that exists in the heads of individual knowledge
workersavailable to an organization is tackled by creating a pervasive sharinginfrastructure
and culture.
Pervasive Sharing Infrastructure. One approach to capturing knowledgeis to make it ridiculously
easy to share knowledge by making it part of theinfrastructure.At the source of where most
knowledge is created — the corporate wordprocessing application — replace the standard
Save command with anapplet that automatically prompts the user to see if he/she would like
toadd the document to the knowledge base. If the employee agrees, the doc-ument is saved
to both the file location of his/her choice and the knowl-edge base with the click of a button.If
other knowledge collection opportunities exist, such as slides, logfiles, or electronic mail,
capture routines should be seamlessly built intothe infrastructure. Knowledge must be
captured at the point of creation.

Sharing Culture. Knowledge workers will not jump through hoops toshare their knowledge
unless there is a benefit to them. Creating a perva-sive sharing infrastructure helps to make
the process easy; but without asharing culture, capturing knowledge will be less than
successful.The usual impetus for sharing information is prestige, recognition, andthe notion
that the individual’s thoughts and ideas might make a differ-ence. The vision is to use
technology to encourage and build on these nat-ural reasons for sharing.At the start of a new
knowledge base, employees do not want to searchthe knowledge base because there is very
little information to obtain.

Of course, if no one searches the knowledge base, the impetus for addingknowledge to the
knowledge base is decreased because the perception isthat no recognition will come from
populating the knowledge base. Toovercome this chicken-and-egg problem, the vision is to
seed the knowl-edge base with external knowledge sources.The vision for seeding the
knowledge base is very simple: create an inte-grated knowledge query engine that returns
information from both theinternal knowledge base and external knowledge sources in an
easy-to-useand effective split-screen view. The same keywords or phrases used tosearch the
knowledge base are also sent to external knowledge sources.The results are displayed in a
hypertext format with a clear demarcationbetween the links as either internal- or external-
based.With everyone searching the internal knowledge base, a critical mass ofknowledge and
perception will develop to create a virtuous cycle (seeExhibit 53-1). Successful searches of the
knowledge base will increase theimpetus for adding knowledge. The more knowledge in the
knowledgebase, the higher the chance for a successful search.

“Memes” the Word. To further cement the idea that adding knowledge tothe knowledge base
will make a difference, a strong vision for the power ofinformation and ideas is communicated
through the notion of a meme. Thevision is to create a systemic metaphor between the power
of knowledgeentered into the knowledge base and the evolutionary power of genes.Thinking
of knowledge in the context of gene theory is called meme the-ory or memetics. Meme theory
is a relatively new way of thinking about knowledge. The initial idea came at the end of an
essay in the 1976 publica-tion The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press) by writer-zoologist
RichardDawkins. In his book, Dawkins takes the reader through the different stagesof
evolution and makes a powerful argument that every stage is driven bythe survival instincts of
the basic unit for all organic life: the gene. Viewedin Dawkins’ sense, all life is merely in a
Darwinistic struggle for the successof one gene over another.Darwin came up with his
theories by looking at the success of a species;Dawkins looks at the success of the genes that
wholly encode the makeupof the species. In Dawkins’ model, all life simply becomes a host for
thegenes they contain. A given gene — that is, a particular pattern of aminoacids in a DNA
chain — may survive for millions of years, while the survivalmachine — the body — wears out
and is replaced frequently.Dawkins goes on to explain that while gene theory largely describes
evo-lution up to this point in history, human evolution is occurring rapidly notin genes, which
take far too long to propagate, but memes. Memes areknowledge that is transmitted through
communication, not procreation.Dawkins wrote:For a biologist it is tempting to draw a parallel
between the evolution ofideas and that of the biosphere … [Ideas retain] some of the propertiesof
organisms. [They] tend to perpetuate their structure and to breed;[ideas] … can fuse, recombine,
segregate their content; indeed they …can evolve, and in this evolution selection must surely play an
impor-tant role. I shall not hazard a theory of the selection of ideas. But onemay at least try to define
some of the principal factors involved in it.This selection must necessarily operate at two levels: that of
the minditself and that of performance.Molecular biologist Jacques Monod, in the last chapter
of Chance andNecessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology began
toexplore the evolution of ideas. Monod describes two properties of memes:performance and
spreading power.The performance of a meme depends on the change it brings to thebehavior
of the person or group that adopts it. Monod had trouble describ-ing spreading power, or
infectivity, but makes note that good jokes have avery strong spreading power in that they are
passed along quickly fromperson to person. The meme about memes, which you are reading
now, hasproven in the past to have both high performance and spreading power.

Knowledge Performance and Spreading Power. What does this have to dowith the vision for a
knowledge management technology architecture? Theknowledge base will use a meme
metaphor to demonstrate the power ofknowledge and encourage knowledge entry into the
system. After knowledge is read from the knowledge base, the employee is sur-veyed to
determine the probable performance and spreading power of theknowledge he/she has just
obtained. The survey results are used to createmetadata about entries in the knowledge base.
From this metadata, the cre-ator of a knowledge entry can check to see how his/her entries
are doing interms of hits, performance, and spreading power. A list of the most
activeknowledge entries in terms of hits, performance, and spreading power arealso available
for query from the knowledge base. Entering informationinto the knowledge base is then not
only a way to gain recognition and pres-tige, but also an automatic method for receiving
feedback.

Accurate in RetrievalAccurate retrieval of documents is critical to the success of any

knowledgearchitecture. If a search for knowledge comes up consistently empty or
notrelevant, the user will usually look for another method to find information.The vision is to
leverage traditional information retrieval techniques(e.g., keyword, relevancy rating) for
searching, while adding effective meta-data at both the time of knowledge deposit and the
time of retrieval toimprove accuracy.The problems encountered while searching a knowledge
base can beseen using the Web as an example. During the infancy of the Web, simplekeyword
search engines were very effective. But, as the knowledge base ofthe World Wide Web grows,
the ability of search engines to return relevanthits to a query is being challenged. Finding
relevant information hasbecome a long process of searching through the numerous junk
“hits”returned, causing user time to be wasted and valuable information to
bemissed.Currently, search engines on the Web use complex techniques to over-come the
limitations of keyword search by trying to understand the con-text of the query and
document. No matter how far these techniquesadvance, however, they will never be more
effective than the followingridiculous scenario.Imagine forwarding every search query on the
Web to the creator of theparticular page. The creator would then quickly respond “relevant”
forsearch queries that were pertinent to his/her site, or “not relevant” for que-ries that were
not pertinent. This technique would be far more accuratethan any algorithm in use today and
probably in the future.

Adding Metadata to the Knowledge Base. While carrying this scenario outwould be impossible,
one can simulate it by having the knowledge creatoradd metadata that helps classify the
deposited knowledge. In the Web case,a simple HTML classification code would suffice.
Queries of the knowledgebase could then be conducted, not only by keyword but also by
classification.
The ability to search by keyword and classification would filter outknowledge that just
happens to contain the words in the query, but containno relevance to the intended
information. There would be an impetus forthe knowledge creator to add the metadata
information because it wouldincrease the chance that his/her knowledge object is seen be
someone whocan use the information.To make adding the metadata an easy process, the
knowledge base willmake an initial guess at the classification by examining the keywords
andother information in the object. This initial guess would take the creatorclose to the
correct classification area, making the addition of the metadatarequire, at most, a few mouse
clicks.

Effective Knowledge The knowledge available in a knowledge base must be of a high

qualityfor the knowledge base to be successful. If the quality of the knowledge inthe
knowledge base degrades, employees will stop using it as a source ofknowledge.To ensure the
quality of the knowledge in the knowledge base, the visionis to use the same natural selection
process that ensures quality outsidethe knowledge base — namely, the aggregation of
opinions and critiques.After an object from the knowledge base is reviewed, the reviewer will
havethe opportunity to add metadata to the overall quality of the object. Que-ries to the
knowledge base will then be able to set a minimum filter on theaverage quality rating for
objects retrieved.

Accessible Knowledge The knowledge in an effective knowledge management

architectureshould be available during the time of need. By basing the client side of
thearchitecture on open Web technologies, the architecture will be able toleverage the
mobile capabilities of IP-based Web technology.

SUMMARY Exhibit 53-2 pulls together much of the vision just proposed. An inte-grated search
engine based on open Web technologies allows an employeeto search both internal and
external knowledge sources with the samequery: filtering by quality, classification,
performance, and power. Theresults are returned in a split-screen, hypertext view that
provides one-click access to the knowledge. Knowledge deposits to the internal knowl-edge
base are encouraged through a pervasive knowledge infrastructurethat captures knowledge at
the point of creation. The quality of informationin the knowledge base is ensured through a
rating process based on theaggregation of opinions of those who have evaluated the object.
The use of an effective knowledge architecture enables an organizationto start on the path to
becoming a learning organization. Effective knowl-edge propagates rapidly throughout the
organization. The impact of theloss of a knowledge worker is lessened. Employees begin to
see that theirideas are important, and a virtuous cycle of innovation and empowermentresults