WEB 2.0 and its Implications for Organizational Knowledge Management
- Dr. Moria Levy
- May 1, 2007
- 29 min read
As an ordinary person, I've recently encountered the term WEB 2.0 quite often. As someone who has been involved in knowledge management for many years (nearly a decade), I find this phenomenon extremely intriguing. Have they succeeded on the internet in cracking the code that we, knowledge managers, labor so hard to decipher daily? How is there such active participation from people who share knowledge and contribute in writing from their experience (and often daily)? What is WEB 2.0 about, and how does it affect us in organizational knowledge management? Should we do something to help this phenomenon help us, too? Is there a revolution here, or is it just a buzz that will soon pass, and we shouldn't place excessive hopes on it?
As has been my habit for a year when researching new topics, I began searching for a book that comprehensively describes the subject. A book never has all the answers, but by its nature, it includes broad, rich, and detailed information. Such information stimulates thought and provides a good foundation for further development of thinking and learning.
Needless to say, despite considerable efforts, I did not find such a book. I turned to one of the WEB 2.0 experts in Israel[1] (more precisely, already an expert on WEB 3.0), but here, too, I was unsuccessful. The reason is that this is a relatively new phenomenon (two and a half years), and the development process of the topic is relatively new. The time required to write and edit a book also takes its due course; therefore, the shelves are empty. Casually, I was directed to information databases. I approached with disappointment. I found a few articles in management databases (knowledge management journals appearing as written press). I found almost nothing in academic databases, but a surprise awaited me when I reached the internet. The internet proved to be an unfailing source. I replaced the book with a collection of about forty articles and information pieces (of quality), most written in 2007 or late 2006. This article is based on reading and analyzing them. By the way, there is a significant statement here about the importance of the internet and its being a substitute for classical literature.
This article consists of three main chapters:
WEB 2.0 - what is behind the concept?
Enterprise 2.0 - the WEB 2.0 phenomenon within organizations.
KM 2.0 - how knowledge management will or should look in light of the WEB 2.0 phenomenon.
[1] Dr. Alon Hasgal, Bar-Ilan University
WEB 2.0 - What's Behind the Concept?
WEB 2.0 is a phenomenon that developed from the combination of internet maturity and development, along with the attempt to build something new and positive in its conception after licking the wounds of the burst high-tech bubble. Naturally, there was a feeling at the end of 2001 that along with the water, the baby was thrown out and that there are many positive things in high-tech in general, and on the internet in particular, that we are missing. The companies that survived the bubble burst seemed to have something in common. Based on these, the definition of the next generation of the internet world began – namely, the WEB 2.0 generation. The term WEB 2.0 was invented by Tim O'Reilly, CEO of O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International, a conference production company, at the end of 2004 when they were looking for a name for a series of conferences they managed. The market welcomed the name, and the rest is history.
Although it may seem so, not all of today's internet world is 2.0. Most of it is not. However, slowly and gradually, components of the WEB 2.0 concept are being integrated into more solutions and dictating the Internet agenda.
So what is WEB 2.0?
In retrospect, at the end of 2006, O'Reilly defined WEB 2.0 as "a business revolution in the computer industry resulting from a shift in perspective on the internet (the internet as a platform) and from understanding the rules that lead to success in such a world. The central principle is: build applications that harness network effects and make the applications better and more successful as they are used more by people."
This principle of people's influence sounds seemingly unclear, as does the essence of the concept of "the internet as a platform." Still, we will explain them along with the other organizing principles, with examples.
Before that, let's recall three additional definitions, completely different from each other, and yet each remarkably precise:
Singel (2005) quotes Mayfield, CEO of a company dealing with WIKI solutions: "WEB 1.0 was about commerce; WEB 2.0 is about people."
McLean (2007) offers another definition: "WEB 2.0 is a general descriptor that captures anything that can be defined as much more dynamic internet computing."
Weinberger (2007) defines the phenomenon as establishing open architecture, removing barriers to publishing, and easing the way people can share ideas in an era of increased computing and broadband. By the way, Weinberger argues that there is no revolution here (contrary to O'Reilly) but a continuous development of ideas we knew in the past.
So, What Are the Principles of WEB 2.0?
The WEB 2.0 principles that impact the entire internet industry, from product development to marketing, content development, and ongoing operations, include:
The WEB as a platform
The WEB (internet) should be treated as a platform, not a central application. When we talk on the phone, the conversation is the main thing, and the phone is just the tool, so should 2.0 developments regard themselves as a channel and not as an independent application around which everything revolves? According to O'Reilly, Netscape tried to connect browser users and control standards, products, and servers transmitted through them. On the other hand, with its search engine, Google sells a service where users pay (directly or indirectly) only for the service. They provide a channel of access to information and do not control it. Additional examples of companies that treat the internet as a platform and sell services through it as a channel are Amazon, Napster (which has since closed for known reasons), and even eBay. The internet is also not the only channel. One should consider integrating software with additional media, such as mobile phones, handheld computers, and more.
Development of services
As a derivative of defining the internet as a channel, another principle emerges that deserves to stand on its own: developing services rather than independent applications. The innovation is that anyone can develop one service, assemble it over other services (detailed in principle six below), and provide new added value. This principle can also be called "Innovation in Assembly."
Active participation of users
Users are active. Until now, both in the WEB world and in the world of organizational knowledge management, we were accustomed to content experts responsible for writing, collecting, organizing, and/or processing content, and users, indeed, just used it. This perception changes in the WEB 2.0 world: the user is active and adds value to the content. By the way, even WEB 2.0 advocates recognize the difficulty in operating users. The level of user activity can vary. Solobak, describing one of the panels at the KM Chicago conference held in January 2007, which he and Elfving moderated, presents an interesting distinction by Elfving of the different possible levels of participation:
Passive participants: Their activity history creates added value despite not intending to influence at all. An example is displaying a list of books to a user entering a site based on books that previous users with similar profiles were interested in or purchased.
Minimally active participants: Users who add references to other content, such as Tagging (cataloging others' content according to tags relevant to the user) or, alternatively, create content themselves, but in a personal and independent manner, such as Blogs (personal journals - to be detailed later).
Jointly active users: Users who work together on the network and add integrated content. A central example is using Wikis (structured content collectively creating a unified site/application).
The service improves automatically as it is used more
According to the previous principle, users are active, and participation is part of the architecture on which services are based. User participation creates network effects. The service is designed so that the more users use it, the better it becomes. How? Let's take Google's ranking model as an example. To a significant extent, the ranking is determined by the number of people's access to different information items. The more people use the engine, statistically, the higher the quality of this ranking. At Amazon, one of the advantages (compared to many other companies trying to sell books via the internet) is user-generated reviews. The more reviews there are, the richer the service becomes. The same applies to eBay, Napster, and all others. If we consider it, this principle has existed for years in academia. A person is evaluated based on the number of articles they've written and their success. The success metric is often based on the times they've been cited in others' articles (Citation).
Collective intelligence
First, examine the Long Tail law to understand this principle. Chris Anderson coined the term at the end of 2004, based on the concept from statistical theory (in the context of statistical distribution). Anderson argued that too many organizations and products operate according to Pareto's 80:20 law, investing their energy in the top 20% of customers/products. We ignore 80% of the population that constitutes the long tail. This population is significant and should not be ignored; on the contrary. Products sold individually in small quantities collectively constitute a significant unified force. The business future is in selling a little to many.
Hyperlinks
Form the foundation of the WEB. This element provides the infrastructure for creating an enormous sequence of content based on individual information from each person separately. Two other interesting and familiar examples are the Blog and Wikipedia. The Blog is a personal journal written by a single author. The power of Blogs is in their combination (the Blogosphere, as it is commonly called). Today, Wikipedia is the most comprehensive encyclopedia in many fields and the most up-to-date. It is composed entirely of the wisdom of crowds and their collective knowledge.
The key to controlling markets in the WEB 2.0 era is the network effects resulting from user contributions, each contributing a little bit and forming collective intelligence.
The core - content repository
The core of new services in WEB 2.0 is the content repository on which they are based: Data is the Next Intel Inside. Development, operation, and maintenance of the repository are part of the core capabilities of WEB 2.0 developments, although not necessarily in the classic accepted way: there are services with regular repositories; Google maintains a huge repository of indexes (for the search engine); Napster maintained a repository that sat in a distributed manner in each of our computers; Amazon manages an enriched repository: they started with a book catalog that is a uniform source and not theirs, but enriched it with much additional complementary information, the main part of which was built by users. Google Maps and maps.yahoo.com were built on the same infrastructure as TeleAtlas map images and hold complementary content. Service enrichment can also be done over another service and not directly over the data, such as a house rental service sitting over one of the map services, etc. This phenomenon is called Mashup in the WEB 2.0 world, originally a term from African English that was borrowed into the music world. Mashup is a site, application, or service combining content from multiple sources to create new added value. This concept, where content is so central, allows for the creation of a competitive advantage of services based on two main parameters: quality and primacy. The earlier a service is launched, the more it succeeds in accumulating users and usage volume that enrich its content and make it difficult for competitors to undermine it. By the way, using and enriching content is not exempt from copyright issues on the network.
The perpetual beta
The WEB 2.0 concept advocates services and not independent applications, as we defined in principle number 1. Services are developed in small modules, released constantly, and almost continuously to users. Users do not become quality reviewers who can release untested functions, but they certainly become commenters and hidden partners in development. An example, perhaps extreme even in WEB 2.0 terms, is the release of updates by Flickr, sometimes every half hour. For those unfamiliar with software development secrets, the term beta refers to the early versions of new software releases.
Rich development in lightweight models
The development is all done in protocols and programming languages for rich development (Rich User Experience) and lightweight services (SOAP, AJAX, REST). Since this article focuses on the connection to knowledge management, we will not dwell on this principle, which is primarily computational.
The Categorization of WEB 2.0 Applications
The categorization of WEB 2.0 applications is not simple since some of the existing developments in the market include only part of the aspects (developmental, marketing, and/or operational) and may include only some of the WEB 2.0 principles. O'Reilly, as also quoted by Wikipedia (and organized by them with greater clarity), refers to four possible levels of applications:
Level 3 applications ("The most Web 2.0") that can exist only on the internet receive their power and strength from human connections and network effects created in the WEB 2.0 era. These applications increase efficiency as more people use them (for example, eBay).
Level 2 applications can also be operated Offline (disconnected from the network) but have a significant advantage from network effects (for example, Flickr).
Level 1 applications can also be operated offline but have added network capabilities (for example, iTunes—there's an online store).
Level 0 applications can also be operated offline (for example, MapQuest).
Of course, there are non-Web applications for connectivity, such as telephone, email, and instant messaging.
When referring to WEB 2.0, it's worth considering several important popular application types in this world:
WIKI - A WIKI is a type of structured site (i.e., a collection of pages with a uniform structure based on templates) where users can, with relative ease, be participants: edit content, add content, and even influence the definition of templates. Democracy incarnate! The first WIKI was created in 1994 (WIKIWIKIWEB), and the term means "quick" in Hawaiian. Most WIKIs are textual, but those with extensions for images, videos, and even sound certainly exist. WIKI embodies the ability to collaboratively create and work together. The templates guide the writing style, and the ease of implementation distinguishes this tool from WCM tools (Web Content Management tools we were accustomed to in the past). WIKI engines (which enable the creation of such sites) can be downloaded free from the web. The WIKIPEDIA encyclopedia is the most famous example of the most successful WIKI site implementation. Many scoffed and claimed that users couldn't compete with professors writing traditional encyclopedias. Despite this, it was proven that WIKIPEDIA competes respectably against traditional encyclopedias, despite the possible amateurism of its writers, and certainly surpasses any possible encyclopedia in its ability to stay current. WIKI engines can easily create links between different terms/pages/headings within them, extending the sharing capabilities in an additional dimension.
Blogs - As mentioned while describing WEB 2.0 principles, blogs are personal journals, pages written by users, creating a sequence, sometimes topic-focused, sometimes focused only on the writer and their experiences (personal Blog). The Blog is always dated. Seemingly, there's nothing new here. We were already accustomed to the idea of personal pages in the WEB 1.0 era and were familiar with various journals in the past. But there are several innovations:
In the writing sequence (not a static page, but a collection of pages updated as time progresses).
The power is derived from the surprisingly large quantity. By the end of 2006 alone, 57 million Blogs were counted!!!
In the high attribution, blogs receive information separately from all other items. Users seek to update themselves on content while noting Blog content separately; users create an environment of Blog writers with shared experience and connections beyond the links that might stem from the content; various search engines, providing regular weekly alerts on new content, dedicate a separate section to Blogs; the reference to Blog content as having higher value, sometimes more than the same content if stored differently. Blog people refer to themselves even as a separate environment, an independent and complete world, namely the Blogosphere. A blog is an abbreviation of the term WEB-Log, and its roots are relatively old (1995 as an independent concept, similar examples even earlier). The heyday came with people's maturity to contribute knowledge and write about themselves and by themselves, which wasn't mature in the past. Analysts note that we are approaching a peak. The number of new Blogs beginning in 2007 will already be lower than 2006. Time will tell. Meanwhile, RSS (which will be described below) is one of the key factors in the success of the Blog.
RSS - RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a relatively "new" invention - from 2000. The content writer (site/information page/Blog) subscribes to certain Feeds related to the content included in it or the format in which it is written (for example - Blog). Through an appropriate standard interface, the reader enters and reviews what's new in the content/formats that interest them. They are updated via RSS (the aggregator) with pages of the type requested, whose content has changed, or that have been added to the list. In this way, it's easy to build personalized reader sites. For example, users can define that they are interested in sports and economic news, and through RSS, they can regularly view only news in this field. The RSS aggregates what was requested while filtering and sifting the rest of the WEB world. Similar protocols, such as ATOM, are all based on the same principle.
TAGGING - Users, as well as content writers, can mark pages using tags. These tags, whether public, shared, or personal, form the basis for creating links between different contents based on the shared tags between them. Unlike the familiar tagging world - Taxonomy, in which the list of tags was a closed collection of values based on content experts' defined and orderly work, in the WEB 2.0 world, it's about tags created associatively and freely by the users. There are no lists of permitted values. Everyone determines for themselves, according to their context, the tags that seem appropriate to them. This collection of tags is called Folksonomy (a wordplay on Taxonomy). A beautiful example of tag implementation is the Flickr site. This site is a huge photo album where everyone tags their photos (open to the public or personally) using tags. According to the tags, people enter the site and "peek" at the photos. The site has become a portal in its own right, allowing viewing of new photos, interesting photos, popular photos, photos in focus, comments on photos, photo distribution, photo organization, and more.
SOCIAL NETWORKING - It's possible to describe all the above applications as contributing to one large social network. However, the term Social Networking, in the WEB 2.0 world, refers to applications whose purpose is to enable the creation of a social network. The network founders invite their colleagues to join. Those who indeed do so can continue to invite their colleagues to join as well, and slowly, gradually, the social network expands. This serves operational purposes (managing an up-to-date phone book), business purposes (locating people with certain knowledge), and social purposes (dating of people with a specific profile). LinkedIn software, perhaps the best known in the field, is business-operational and has about 9 million members.
On the other hand, Orkut (by Google) has a social orientation (dating). Myspace is an example of an extended social network (a kind of friends portal) with a social orientation, including photos, videos, blogs, forums, events, and more. An average of about 40,000 items are uploaded to this site every day!
How did we get here? What led the internet to such far-reaching developments?
Musser and O'Reilly refer to the enabling technology: a billion people connected to the Internet, more than half of the USA connected through broadband, and much communication through additional parallel channels (such as mobile phones), above all of these, human nature.
WEB 3.0 applications are already on their way. These deal with a more advanced concept: the transition on the Internet from an unstructured world to a structured world (of data). Relevant software examples include automatic Tagging, business intelligence, and more. They move beyond the classic computing world of separation between display, logic, and data. Will they succeed? Let's wait and see. Meanwhile, WEB 4.0 is also marching here from afar but steadily.
Enterprise 2.0: WEB 2.0 in Organizations
The term Enterprise 2.0 symbolizes the implementation of WEB 2.0 infrastructures and tools within organizations. Just as the intranet concept was developed based on the internet nearly a decade ago, Enterprise 2.0 is based on WEB 2.0.
Examining WIKIPEDIA and some analysts (see, for example, Spanbauer) focuses on the knowledge management world as the main beneficiary of integrating WEB 2.0 in organizations. However, I believe it's appropriate to divide the interest into two different layers:
Adoption of technological infrastructures: development of lightweight modules, use of SOA concept and even more SOAP, writing AJAX, eternal beta, and other infrastructural technological aspects.
Adoption of WEB 2.0 applications: blogs, Wiki (and also Twiki - which allows linking different Wiki sites under an integrated environment), RSS, and TAGGING (of course, Folksonomy type, not Taxonomy). Some refer to implementing instant messaging and organizational search engines for unstructured information, such as WEB 2.0 applications, which I doubt.
In this article, we'll try to focus on the second layer. In some cases, it's difficult to separate (when organizations, for example, declare they're implementing WEB 2.0 in their organization but don't clearly state what they're referring to).
Another important separation to make is between using WEB 2.0 tools by organizations internally for employees (similar to intranet) or externally, facing customers, partners, and suppliers (similar to extranet accordingly). Some organizations use WEB 2.0 as a marketing tool for their customers (for instance, the CEO or one of the executives shares behind-the-scenes thoughts with the wider audience through a Blog). Although this phenomenon of marketing use indicates a cultural change that could help knowledge management in the future, it does not indicate actual knowledge management in practice. In this article, we'll focus on applications with an internal organizational orientation as much as possible.
The facts are clear. There are already organizations implementing Enterprise 2.0. The most prominent among them are IBM and Motorola (see Scarff's 2006 article in Knowledge Management Review), which mentions, among other things, 2,000 WIKI sites at Motorola and 2,700 Blogs! But they are not alone. Leading companies like Northwestern Mutual, Procter & Gamble, Ziba, Ford Motors Co, Nike, Milestone Group, Pepsi, GM, XM Radio, and many others are also implementing it.
Hinchcliffe, an expert on Enterprise 2.0 and a blogger on the subject, surveyed in early April 2007 the various analysts' references to the phenomenon, particularly regarding the aspect of organizational collective intelligence:
Gartner refers to the hype and believes it will take 5-10 years to implement the concept of collective intelligence in organizations.
McKinsey recently conducted a survey in which about half of organizations adopt a collective intelligence approach.
Framington quotes a survey also conducted in 2007 by Forrester Research, according to which an overwhelming majority of more than 90% of leading organizations use WEB 2.0 applications (WIKI, Blog, and RSS).
Hoover speaks based on his research about lower data (about 50%) but does not rule out that the phenomenon is broader than thought.
Research among IT managers shows reluctance towards the new wave of tools, with the main concern being information security issues. One cannot dismiss outright that there is still a disguised concern about multiple field installations, causing tool redundancy, lack of maintenance, and loss of control at the configuration level.
Analysts do not agree on the extent to which this is hype or a real phenomenon. Even for organizations that have adopted the tools, it's unclear how much they are being used. In my assessment, this phenomenon is still being used in a stuttering manner. First, younger people adopt it faster than older ones. Second, it's adopted in the field more than headquarters and management know. In most organizations where it's entering, they begin to "play" with it, but it doesn't serve as part of the central tool environment of organizations. According to Hinchcliffe, organizations in early 2007 started to come down from the carrot we saw them sitting on in 2006. Nevertheless, the implementation of tools and concepts takes time.
In my assessment, the implementation of tools will be much faster than the implementation of the concept. Therefore, both Gartner and those claiming its hype (such as Charles King, an analyst quoted by McLean) are right. The implementation of the concept will be driven, in my assessment, by several key factors:
Actual use educates us about culture, even when we are less aware.
External organizational trends - the success of WEB 2.0.
Knowledge management trends in organizations have gradually but steadily implemented the concept of sharing for years.
Knowledge Management 2.0: Knowledge Management in Light of WEB 2.0
As knowledge management professionals, we look somewhat perplexed at the WEB 2.0 phenomenon. For years, we have struggled within organizations seeking to manage knowledge, whether at the management level or the employee level, but encounter significant passivity from large groups of users, mainly due to lack of time (nowadays, awareness and understanding of the need already exist). Is it precisely now, when work life is taking over all hours of the day (due to laptops, home communication, cell phones, and emails), that people have more time at home and are beginning to share? Perhaps sharing stems precisely from the fact that it's not about work content, and if so, by introducing WEB 2.0 into the organization, we won't gain anything. Is there something in WEB 2.0 tools that we lack in traditional knowledge management tools, which facilitates sharing?
What's important for us, as knowledge managers, to understand is - what stands behind WEB 2.0 and how we can exploit it, if at all, to leverage organizational knowledge management.
Let's compare the concepts across four layers:
At the conceptual-ideological level.
At the level of organizing principles.
At the functional level.
At the cultural-organizational level.
Conceptual-Ideological
Dave Snowden, known to all of us as one of the senior knowledge management figures in Europe and in general, argues that WEB 2.0 is primarily concerned with technology. This is in contrast to knowledge management. WEB 2.0 advocates, in his opinion, ignore the fact that people and organizations are complex systems, not flat ones, and therefore tend to attribute to themselves a greater ability for change than is possible. If one tries to influence, he says, rather than planning evolution, one can achieve much better results than if trying to directly plan the ideal solution.
He adds that social computing is not choosing one tool, as good as it may be, based on optimal criteria for sharing. Social Computing is created by allowing different tools to develop with each other, people, and the environment. In this way, new patterns of interaction stabilize and break apart, as needed, until reaching the optimal path.
I'll note that not all those involved in knowledge management agree with this approach. Many of us characterize solutions, assuming that good initial characterization is necessary for creating, sharing, and starting on the right foot. However, the solution will develop over time and continuously. This concept is made possible today in portal environments and knowledge sites where small and gradual changes can be made simultaneously (unlike software versions we were accustomed to in classic information systems). It will be even more possible if the tools are based on WEB 2.0 technology, where software change is so frequent that it can be viewed as continuous change over time.
In any case, Snowden's position is stated loudly and clearly. WEB 2.0 stands in a different place from knowledge management. It is more complex, with more layers, and therefore has better potential to influence organizations.
There are analysts whose starting point for comparison comes precisely from the distress in which knowledge management finds itself. Knowledge management and knowledge management tools suffer from the worst public relations. According to Gartner, both IT administrators and users simply hate them. Against this background, it's clear why there's excitement about something else. Let's qualify our statement. Not all knowledge management tools are similar; some are large and cumbersome. There are also more user-friendly ones, but the general impression is not good enough. One can even find articles titled "Is Knowledge Management Dead?" Into this vacuum, enter WEB 2.0 tools. They attract the audience because they are small, lightweight, and inexpensive (see Spanbauer). Some article writers refer to WEB 2.0 favorably as a savior for knowledge management (Cleaver) or as an auxiliary tool (Yeo, Spanbauer, Tebbutt).
Some sit on the fence and are concerned (McLean, Dale, Young, Carr). If WEB 2.0 is Hype, why rush to adopt it into organizational knowledge management and sharing? Why the comparison at all? Well, in their assessment, nothing good can come of it. The connection will only harm knowledge management.
From comparison at the ideological conceptual level, let's move to comparisons at slightly more practical levels:
Organizing Principles
At the beginning of the article, we laid out eight organizing principles of WEB 2.0. Let's compare these principles to the principles of organizational knowledge management:
WEB 2.0 principle | A Parallel Principle in Knowledge Management |
The WEB as a Platform | Technology as a platform. The world of knowledge management is based on four complementary components: culture, process, computing (technology), and content. None of these components is independent. Moreover, Prusak and Davenport are known for their statement on the subject (in their book "Working Knowledge") that technology is necessary, but an organization that invests in knowledge management activities, more than one-third of its resources for technology, is not managing a knowledge management activity, but rather a technological project.. |
Services Development | WEB SERVICES is the accepted way to share contextual data and information in portal windows and professional workspaces. In the world of knowledge management, we are not interested in the development method (for ideological reasons), but rather in the way we use the applications that were developed - through services. |
Active user participation | Active User Participation. Knowledge management deals with sharing knowledge and preserving it over time. Without active participation from users, we will not succeed in this activity. Nevertheless, unlike the WEB 2.0 world, where participation advocates decentralization to the edges, the knowledge management world advocates controlled sharing: management and planning of solutions and their control from the center, establishing a layer of users functioning as content experts responsible for ensuring regular content updates and in some cases also controlling content added by users. |
The service automatically improves as you use it more often | Partially correct. It is understood that if there is active participation in knowledge management, there will be more and richer content, and the service offered will generally improve. However, this does not indicate the same level as in WEB 2.0, where the software itself is based at its core on the feature of automatic improvement as a product of quantity. |
The Collective Mind (and the Long Tail Principle) | Collective intelligence. The world of knowledge management is based on collective intelligence. The first to describe this were Nonaka and Takeuchi in their book "The Knowledge Creating Company" in which they described the success of Japanese culture in developing knowledge, where the central basis is the culture of sharing that creates organizational collective intelligence. However, the foundations of knowledge management do not sanctify the principle of the long tail. Always, everyone's opinions are heard. But, the concept is not built on this and solutions are not built on the extremes. On the contrary, in content sites and many other knowledge management solution implementations, importance is given to the central core, the 20%, who provide the critical mass. This, in the hope that others will participate as well. |
The Core – The Content Database | Content is one of the four core components of knowledge management. It does not stand independently, though it is certainly central, together with culture, processes, and even computing (called: a necessary but not sufficient condition). In the early years of knowledge management, less focus was placed on the content aspect, but over the years, there has been growing understanding of how central content is. Its centrality is reflected in the efforts invested in many aspects related to content organization, accessibility, processing and filtering content, and more. There is a well-known saying that the difference between three clicks to access information versus five clicks is the difference between using or not using knowledge. Content is the core, and making it accessible is critical in most knowledge management solutions implemented in practice. |
Eternal Beta | On the surface, it seems not relevant to the world of knowledge management. Knowledge management doesn't deal with technology. However, as already mentioned above, in knowledge sites, communities, and portals, a concept is implemented of developing a first version, followed by continuous ongoing development of additions. The basis for this stems from the gradual maturation of users' desire to manage knowledge, as well as the gradual maturation of understanding the need and potential inherent in knowledge sharing. In the sense of "appetite comes with eating." |
Rich development of lightweight models | Not relevant to knowledge management. Knowledge management does not deal with the technological aspect, and therefore there is no basis for comparison in this dimension. |
In my opinion, looking at the table as a whole teaches that the conceptual gaps between WEB 2.0 and knowledge management are not substantial. There are gaps, mainly in the centralization-decentralization issue, but most aspects of WEB 2.0 are part of the traditional knowledge management concept.
Functional capabilities
WEB 2.0 tools can be used within organizations without modification. Moreover, many of them can be found for free or at relatively low prices. However, several dedicated tools have been developed in the past year that adapt WEB 2.0 tools to the internal organizational environment: security levels, capabilities to attach files, and connections to various organizational systems. Examples of these tools include Koral, Illumio, and iUpload (see Spanbauer's article on the subject).
Below is a functional comparison examining the sharing components in common WEB 2.0 applications and the equivalent (partial or full) in traditional knowledge management tools. The comparison is functional and does not address infrastructure or price aspects.
Gaps | Component with a similar feature in traditional knowledge management tools | Feature | WEB 2.0 Component |
WIKI is considered user-friendly, both at the content level and at the structure level (free updating at the structure level can also be a disadvantage); WIKI contains a good relationship building option; ostensibly, there is a disadvantage to WIKI: WIKI applicationsthat are homogeneous (for each site), but this deficiency is eliminated by using a twikior by linking to an html page that links multiple sites together | WCM - Web Content Management tools.Tools used to manage content-rich websites (internal and external). [2] | Built-in Knowledge Sheets | WIKI |
The main innovation in blogs is not in the implementation method, but in the idea. Therefore, it is not surprising that the actual implementation can be done in any tool. The main success of blogs, in my assessment, is in the blogosphere - creating a sub-world where its members give priority to content items of their peers over other content, in search engines and RSS applications. | Can be implemented in several classic knowledge management tools, whether content management tools, WCM tools, or portals. A non-virtual knowledge management solution that very much resembles a journal in its characteristics: Story telling | Personal journal/diary, with the ability to access the journal as a complete journal (not just individual pages of a specific date) allowing one to see the new contents each time, followed by the rest of the contents. | Blog |
Alerts in content management tools and portals; Permanent searches in search engines; Panels of messages, innovations, and updates in different portal pages. | Alerts about new content items and changes to existing content items - by categories | RSS | |
There are several gaps: a. Whether everyone tags the same page (in WEB 2.0), or only the author tags (in knowledge management tools). b. The essence of tagging - personal subjective (WEB 2.0) or organizational uniform (knowledge management) c. The nature of documentation - completely open in WEB 2.0 (continuing the previous gap point) or against closed lists in knowledge management. | In portals - menus; In search engines - search attributes (advanced); In content management tools - menus + attributes. All of these are based on Taxonomy (uniform attributes at the organizational/departmental level). | Ability to tag content items in a personal subjective manner. | TAGGING (Folksonomy) |
WEB 2.0 communities are mostly based on hobbies and personal interests (examples - del.icio.us for sharing tags and favorites; YouTube for sharing video clips; Flickr for sharing photos). Knowledge communities, in contrast, are usually professionally based. Both tools provide a framework for conversation and file sharing + organization of content according to structured categories. | Knowledge Communities | Creating Shared Communities | SOCIAL COMPUTING |
Since, as we've seen, the principles of WEB 2.0 are knowledge management principles, it's not surprising to see that despite partially different applications between the different worlds, traces of most application features can be found in traditional knowledge management tools. But this alone is not enough to succeed. As Snowden wrote, an environment with various complementary tools that, together with environmental and people parameters, enable knowledge management is preferable. Therefore, tools with similar features but different emphases add value rather than detract from it. If WEB 2.0 had included completely different tools from those we were accustomed to, it wouldn't have been clear if they would integrate with the knowledge management concept. But since it's a complementary addition - it has its place.
[2] Common tools in this field are CMS, Scepia, and others.
Cultural Organizational Comparison: We'll start with Carswell's words. We've talked a lot about users, but we should also pay attention to their age. Young people are the main adopters of WEB 2.0. Carswell takes this to mean that their expectation (of these young people) is that the same tools will be available to them in the organization. In my assessment, this can be taken in another direction: perhaps we can learn from this that organizational knowledge management can embrace and attract the younger generation, who find it easier to adopt cultural changes and technological innovations, and others will follow them.
Solobak argues that, as in knowledge management and WEB 2.0, it's not enough for the tools to exist to attract people and ensure they come. One must create an emotional investment in the supporting framework, which will lead to use. There's a reason people use tools, and one must create trust and interest so they will use them and make them useful. A primary condition is to have a network of people who want to participate.
His words teach us that the same cultural organizational challenges of knowledge management also exist in WEB 2.0: the need for trust, interest, and, from there, use and partnership.
The question is whether they succeeded in learning how to create trust and networks of participants thanks to WEB 2.0. And how strong must this trust and the connection between participants be for them to agree to share even under problematic time constraints?
Cleaver points to a significant difference that can provide an answer to this question: in knowledge management, we focus on the organization. Managing those knowledge topics whose sharing and preservation will improve the achievement of organizational goals. However, WEB 2.0 has a different purpose. It doesn't deal with the organization. It deals with people. Suppose we succeed in knowledge management by letting people share what they want and focusing knowledge management on the people themselves (and not at the VP level). In that case, we will also succeed in knowledge management by gaining their trust, time, and active participation.
And Tebutt continues with a similar line of thought. We've become accustomed to forcing people to share knowledge in organizations. We haven't succeeded. Let's move to volunteering. The organization becomes social. Tools for social sharing have proven themselves. If we adopt these popular tools, we'll advance knowledge management to another level, a process we've already become accustomed to when knowledge management changed its form time after time. The essence of the required change - moving to a voluntary state. No longer forcing people to share knowledge but allowing them to follow their will. When people integrate socially, they are happy to share, also in work matters. Tebutt also repeats the people motif - dealing with systems that support people. After all, knowledge is embedded in people, and from there, the added value to the organization will also come.
Summary
There's something in the air. WEB 2.0 brings innovations to the world of knowledge management, whether in focusing on people, decentralization to the edges, or the tools themselves. We should adopt these tools. In my assessment, some will succeed more (WIKI) and should be adopted quickly, while others will succeed to a lesser extent (Blog) and should be adopted cautiously. However, as Snowden said, social computing is created by allowing different tools to develop with each other, together with people and the environment. In my assessment, it's worthwhile for these tools to be in the environment also because they have their own emphases (although they are not innovative in the area of sharing) because people will expect to find them in the organization (especially the young, as Carswell says), and also because a new positive spirit blows from them. There's nothing wrong with refreshing and adhering to new things with a positive image.
However, we should be careful. Success will not come from adopting the tools. We should also be careful in how we adopt the principles. I don't think the world of knowledge management is ready for the decentralization to the edges that we see in WEB 2.0; it's not clear if knowledge management can operate without control and without organizational direction and allow people only to share where they want, and knowledge management will already arrive. We've already been there in the early days of knowledge management (a decade and more ago), and we haven't succeeded. We must also remember that mass is a critical factor in the success of WEB 2.0. When there are so many people in the world, it's enough that the minority shares, and we will feel that the whole world is sharing all the time. Folksonomy can succeed in a place with so many taggers that no matter how we tag, enough people will share our thinking, and we'll find good information and knowledge with identical tagging from others. The organizational world behaves differently from the world of the internet. We learned this already in WEB 1.0 when we understood that forums (which are so successful online) cannot be established and see success in an organization. In the organizational world, we don't have that mass; therefore, the long tail principle doesn't seem to be realized in most places. In places where it can, it should be adopted happily.
There's something in the air. It's not just about buzz. Let's adopt it intelligently, with clear eyes, without ignoring it (Semple), and without excessive enthusiasm (Snowden). At the tool level, as an expansion of our existing toolbox, and at the conceptual level, we decentralize control where we identify maturity and fit (especially of users ready to share). We will all benefit.
Bibliography
Carswell S. (2007) The 100% guaranteed easiest way to enterprise 2.0?- Talkback Retrieved March 15, 2007 (link isn't available)
Cleaver M. (2006b) Knowledge management is dead. Long live Knowledge Management. Retrieved March 13, 2007/
Cleaver M. (2007) Knowledge Management revisited: Enterprise 2.0. Retrieved March 13, 2007
Dennison R. (2006) Using wikis for collaboration and KM at BT. Knowledge Management Review. Chicago: 2006.Vol.9, Iss. 5
Framington H. H. (2007) CIOs use Web 2.0 to keep up with competition: study (Electronic version). Computer World March 26, 2007
Hinchcliffe D. (2005) 10 Issues Facing Web 2.0 Going Into 2006. Retrieved March 11, 2007
Hinchcliffe D. (2006) Thinking in Web2.0: sixteen ways. Retrieved March 11, 2007
Hinchcliffe D. (2007a) Leveraging the convergence of IT and the next generation of the Web. Retrieved March 15, 2007
Hinchcliffe D. (2007b) More results on use of Web 2.0 in business emerge. Retrieved April 8, 2007
Kainy O. (2007). Enterprise Wiki: An Emerging Technology to be Considered by the AEC Industry. Retrieved March 27, 2007
Markoff J. (2006) Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense (Electronic version). The New-York Time 2006, Nov. 11
McLean D. (2007) The new web: rewards and risks for businesses (Electronic version). PCWORLD January 25, 2007.
Musser J. & Oreilly T. (2006) Web2.0 principles and best practices (Electronic version). Oreily radar, Fall 2006.
Oreilly T. (2006) Web 2.0 compact definition: Trying again. Retrieved March 4, 2007
Scarff A. (2006) Advanced knowledge sharing with Intranet 2.0. Knowledge Management Review. Sep/Oct 2006 ; 9, 4.
Semple E. (2007) The 100% guaranteed easiest way to enterprise 2.0? Retrieved March 15, 2007
Singel R. (2005) Are you ready for Web 2.0? Retrieved March 10, 2007
Snowden D. (2007) Weltanschauung for social computing. Retrieved March 15, 2007
Sobolak B. (2007) Web 2.0 and Knowledge Management at KM Chicago. Retrieved March 15, 2007
Spanbauer S. (2006) Knowledge Management 2.0: New focused. Lightweight applications rewrite the rule about KM (Electronic version). CIO. Dec 1, 2006 Vol. 20, Iss. 5; 1
Tebbutt D. (2007) Breathing new life into KM. Retrieved March 15, 2007
Weinberger D. (2007) The real difference between the two 2.0s. KM World, Feb 2007, 16, 2
Yeo L. (2006) Ideas for knowledge management in Web 2.0 world. Retrieved March 15, 2007
Comments