From Information Management to Knowledge Management

Omer Ben Yehuda
Dec 1, 2004
6 min read

Woman in a suit touches a glowing holographic screen with floating documents. Blue background, digital library. Futuristic and focused mood.

At the center of most customer service units in companies with a large customer base is an information system allowing service representatives to answer almost any customer question, from "Where is a service station?" to "What does this invoice line mean?"

The representatives answering our calls use a dedicated computerized system to provide fast, consistent, and authoritative answers without memorizing all existing information. Examples of companies using such systems include cellular companies, international communication companies, television companies, credit companies, etc.

These systems, which may contain 5,000 and 250,000 information items (and even more) of all types, are managed by a team responsible for collecting, centralizing, processing, distributing, and maintaining the information's currency. These teams use rigid tools and methodologies to manage the system, which is called knowledge management.

In the past, they were called "Information Management," and this is not just semantics. It's much more than that...

When the first information management teams were established, computer programmers who knew how to copy text into information systems in HTML, JAVA, XML, or any other programming language were initially chosen.

Knowledge management was not yet well-known, and the amount of knowledge to manage was not yet so vast.

It was purely technical work focused on keeping information in the system, regardless of where or who it was intended for.

However, immediately after establishing the first information systems and pushing information into them, it became clear that even within the same organization, headquarters staff, marketing, operations, sales, service, and field personnel speak different languages. It also became apparent that not everyone needs the same information. Sales people want to know only the sales aspect of the information, service people who are typically not professionals struggle with technical terms, and operations staff don't know how to write anything besides technical information. Gaps emerged, and with the gaps came problems, and with the problems came the need for change—reorganizing and rewriting the information.

Again, in the first stage, computer programmers in information management took on the role. They rewrote the information they received into simpler language, organized it by topics, and distributed it through the information system. Even then, the potential of information management was revealed, but still, the management was only open to those who knew programming languages.

Meanwhile, the amount of information grew.

Products and services multiplied and became more sophisticated, information became outdated and needed updating, the target audience grew and became more complex, and the need to simplify things came with all the sophistication. Information systems became the solution: a quick and efficient way to input and distribute new information to everyone quickly and uniformly. The classic information management departments soon began to collapse. Many departments wanted to input information in different areas, sometimes on topics that the management staff didn't understand. The information grew and became unfocused and disorganized. Users complained that they couldn't "find their way around," and headquarters staff were upset about the non-use of information despite it being "right in front of their eyes." In response to complaints, management replied: "We only input the information, we don't write it," and headquarters staff responded: "We are professionals, not supposed to edit information..." The gap grew wider, and user confidence decreased.

A circular problem emerged: although on the surface everything seemed fine and management staff continued to work on entering new information (indicating an active information system), people preferred other channels, and the level of use of the information system declined.

Thus, the cycle of gaps, problems, and the need for change was repeated. Working in information management during those times was no picnic.

The solution came from an unexpected place that created a positive and almost unintentional innovation:

It was clear that an information system that was easier for information management staff to operate was needed. Then, smart interfaces began to appear—automatic information editors where the information specialist wrote text as in Word, and the system converted it to the system's programming language.

An important problem was solved: there was no longer a need for an information specialist proficient in a programming language, and management could now integrate people specializing in the information fields they publish.

Management became knowledge management while receiving technical support from IT departments. This change allowed information specialists to divide into specialization areas, each responsible for a different professional field. Specialization significantly reduced the time for information distribution and understanding by the field staff, thus freeing management to also engage in other knowledge management areas: content organization, integration of search engines and templates, feature customization, adapting information to users, categorization and personalization, creating dialogue with the field, and more.

So, what does the new knowledge management do?

The classic roles:

Responsible for the organizational information system. Information specialists receive information for distribution from professional populations, edit it, and distribute it to field populations using it (service, sales, etc.).
Developing the system and improving knowledge distribution by integrating methodologies, distribution templates, linking different systems, and more.

It's important to note that even in classic roles, the challenges have become more sophisticated and complex:

The constant increase in information and the need to preserve old information as an archive create an enormous load. This situation requires optimal thinking and planning for the content tree and continued development of search engines to ensure quick access to information in real-time. Additionally, management must consider that increasing the number of items may slow down the information retrieval rate. At this stage, IT people should be highly involved in planning the way forward (after all, the information won't decrease...). The information load also requires concise writing to save time for the representative. Condensed information built intuitively for the representative speeds up the process of finding it. Perhaps it's about half a second or a second in a call for the individual representative, but it makes a difference in hours or even more at the entire unit level. We could write an entire article about this, but space is limited...

The new roles (and those with real added value):

Liaison body between departments: Management is the only body in the organization that controls both the language of the field and the language of professionals. It is also the only one capable of integrating information from all departments and turning it into a useful tool for field staff.
1. For example, the information specialist in a cellular company's information management who is asked to distribute a new promotion is the only one who receives the work instructions from marketing, the operational systems specifications, and the legal department's conditions. They identify inconsistencies, warn of problems, and become a significant factor in the promotion's success.
Ambassador of populations in planning processes: Since management has contact with almost every unit in the organization, it can serve as a body representing knowledge consumers to headquarters, and as an explanatory body from headquarters to field staff. And going back to the cellular company example: Information management can be a barrier to a marketing person dreaming of launching a promotion that cannot be supported in customer service (and as a result, the promotion will fail), and it can also represent the rationale of the marketing person to customer service who don't understand or oppose marketing moves they need to support.
Support for organization-wide training initiatives: As the body distributing information to the field, management knows best what the field knows and doesn't, where the strong points are, and where the weak ones are. Management is an important axis in planning and implementing organizational training.
Internal marketing within the organization: As the main distributor of content within the organization and having expertise in the subject, how information management publishes information greatly affects how knowledge consumers receive the information. Many bodies rely on management to publish guidelines, campaigns, and internal organizational announcements. How management distributes information to internal organizational bodies is very important for the level of interest and enthusiasm of organizational employees towards the information.
Two-way distribution gate: Since management is in contact with almost all organizational populations, it cannot only publish information top-down (from management to employees) but can also monitor management on employee feelings and customer feelings transmitted through employees (bottom-up). Mechanisms such as feedback, forums, chats, and management activities to check satisfaction levels give management information whose value is priceless.

In conclusion, since its establishment, information management (or, in its corrected name, knowledge management) has been an excellent idea that responded to a clear and existing need.

When information was scarce, computer programmers were justified in entering it into systems, but as information multiplied, management became more sophisticated and a central body. Many organizations now ask themselves, How did we manage without it?

But still, not everything is rosy: The new management has new problems: For example, as such a central body, management begins to deviate from its classic roles and begins to disperse in directions that should not necessarily be managed by it, such as project management, preparation of training, and operational issues. In addition, the multiplicity of roles and authorities causes the information specialist to forget their routine work of maintaining information, thus creating gaps that begin a new cycle of distrust in information systems.

Perhaps the "biggest" problem is that a management position can become the "hottest" position in the organization.

Suddenly, everyone wants to be in knowledge management...