Knowledge-at-work

Understanding knowledge

To my way of thinking there is a continuum between highly tacit stuff and clearly explicit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge is closely related to intuition, gut feelings, compiled experiences and skills. This tacit stuff is very hard to explain, it comes from exposure, arises out of repeated learnings, consists of deeply held feelings and beliefs. Tacit knowledge allows us to reason without logic, to act without reflection and to make sense of new situations.

Implicit knowledge sits in the middle. Here we are able to model, explain, draw, surface, share insights and explicate beliefs. This often requires time, deep reflection, dialog, introspection and mulling around.

Explicit knowledge is documented, illustrated, captured, stored and retrievable. It takes many forms from transcripts, to business rules, from detailed definitions to evolving scripts e.g. such as we see in wikipedia or video sequences.

Not everyone will impute the same meaning to explicit knowledge,personal or group interpretations are context and time dependent and biased by each individuals own tacit knowledge.

The key is not finding a clear definition of explicit or tacit but wrestling with the meaning, exploring examples, situating knowledge along the continuum. For what is tacit now may become explicit tomorrow and what is implicit can easily return to the tacit well or source

Knowing Knowledge

I've been given the opportunity to review George Siemens new book KnowingKnowledge this last month and have found new inspiration with every reading.

This is a very different book - it will be available on-line for download, in wiki format to stimulate a conversation and in hardcopy to reflect upon away from the computer. Full of deep questions, bold statements and insightful prose, this work collects ideas, thoughts, diagrams, insights, intuition, feelings, awareness and profundity.  I liked the lack of structure, appreciated the awakening of new connections, felt the power of learning and experienced regrets that I had not made those same associations.

George is right - in some ways knowledge has and is changing. It flows faster, reaches more widely, resides in many more distributed spaces, is more closely tied to the individual, comes at us from a far richer ecology and requires new orientations. I wonder though, if the fundamental nature of knowledge has changed at all?. It still requires social validation, needs an appreciation of context, resides in mainly in tacit form and emerges in dialog.

• Yes we need to become conduits not containers.
• Yes individuals rather than external agents (newspapers, teachers, preachers) are doing the filtering.
• Yes we are moving more and more toward the 'now' rather than engaging in reflection.
• Yes access to knowledge is fast becoming more important than mere possession.
• Yes we need to foster, sustain, grow, nurture those knowledge spaces rather than classify, construct, decree, ordain in advance.

Take my advice join the conversation

Synergy - Cmaps and web2.0

Web2.0 is all about participation, community, knowledge sharing and web services - at least that is my take.

Look anywhere on the web and you will find references to blogs, wikis, mashups, VoIP?, podcasts, remixing, web platforms, AJAX, open APIs and more..... What is missing, is visual knowledge creation such as we see in concept maps. To my way of thinking this is a serious oversight.

Concept maps (Cmaps) are a key player in knowledge creation, learning, improving understanding, making links or connections and sharing insights. Joe Novak tells it all in this key article. There would seem to be a natural connection between Cmaps and web2.0 based on their many shared themes.

My partner Patrick Hindert first made the connection between web2.0 (mashups) and concept maps for me and has encouraged others to share and build on this insight. Barbara Bowen explores this relationship in her recent post. She mentions the visual affordances, cognitive help and utility of propositions connecting concept nodes when it comes to improving knowledge. This is illustrated with a well-defined knowledge model that walks one through the links between web2.0 and lawyers.

I would encourage you to explore her work, open the sub-maps, take the links and use this tool to increase your own sense-making and deepen your appreciation for what concept maps can do. Did you know you can use a free Cmapping tool to collaboratively construct your own concept maps?. There is no easier or deeper way to elicit tacit knowledge, capture evolving insights, and record relationships that contribute to a stronger shared understanding.

If web2.0 and lawyers make it onto your interest landscape, wander through our weblaw20 wiki, steal our filtered resources, visit our selection of technologies, apply to join the wiki and add to our  collective thinking and writing.

Do you have insights to share about the synergy that is concept mapping and web2.0?