Gavin’s Digital Diner

In theory, knowledge management is easy. Then again, in theory, lots of things are easy. In practice, things are never quite as easy as they sound. Nevertheless, lightly armed, I set out to put a few of my theories into practice.

There are three essential theoretical elements to effective knowledge management. I call these “Gavin’s Three Essential Theoretical Elements To Effective Knowledge Management.” Unfortunately, “GTETETEKM” does not lend itself to a memorable mnemonic, so let’s just call these the “KM-3.”

As I said, in theory, Knowledge Management is easy. In practice, organizations usually ignore the first element (especially the garbage part), do a half-assed job on the second, and muck up the third totally.

Moreover, the whole thing gets usually gets derailed when someone brings up the dreaded “T-Word” — Taxonomy. When you hear that word, it’s time to run screaming from the room. It’s a sure sign that you’re going to spend the next year in meetings trying to figure out how to “accurately” classify socks, or rocks, or ethnicity, or nationality, or chumps. The trouble is the world does not fall easily into logical groupings. For example, is Russia part of Europe or Asia? [It's a trick question. The answer is "yes."]

If you must, when in doubt — if you need one — use an existing taxonomy. You’ll save yourself a truckload of heartache. Trust me here — I know trucks and I know heartache. In fact, be daring, live life on the edge and don’t use a taxonomy at all!

Wait. Stop… Before you beat me about the head and ears with a leather-bound copy of the Library of Congress Classification System (or worse, the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities), let me explain:

You see, there’s been a war going on for the last 5,000 years, give or take a Tuesday or two. It probably started with the first scribes in Sumer, as they struggled to do something with their ever-multiplying cuneiform tablets. Some, no doubt, wanted to keep them all stacked on their desks, while others wanted to file them away, sorted and organized, all the stuff in one place, all the stuff in another, and all the other stuff in a third. Never mind that no one had invented file cabinets yet.

Anyway, thus was born the first controlled vocabulary, the first taxonomy. There was no doubt a memo stating, unequivocally, that all clay tablets should be filed either as , , or as, upon pain of death or promotion.

[There was also all the stuff , but, I suppose it's best not to mention that, at least not in polite company.]

Thus began the war between those who file and these who pile — the filers and the pilers. I’ve been on the wrong side, it seems, since the beginning. I’m a filer, tried and true; a card-carrying member of Filer’s Anonymous. I even organize my paperbacks, first by genre and then by author. Nevertheless, my proclivities aside, the pilers have won; hands-down. So, ever pragmatic, I switched sides. No, I’ve not started just piling up my books, but I’ve embraced the “pile it on” approach. “Bring it on,” I say, “I’m no chump; Nuh-uh, not anymore.”

Technology [written language, clay tablets cuneiform, that kind of stuff] started the war, and now technology [fast full-text machine indexing, smart digital filing systems, and natural language query] has ended it. With today’s tools, you can just dump things into a nice digital pile o’stuff and let the machines sort it out. Our tools have ended the conflict, by ending the need for the conflict. As such, they’ve also eliminated much of the need for a formal, controlled vocabulary (the T-word). Instead, a simple one will do, if you need one at all.

How to Build a Simple Knowledgebase

Let me show you how I built a simple “knowledgebase” — using simple tools and a simplistic approach — what I call simple minded knowledge management (or is that knowledge management for the simple minded …).

It’s an approach that lets me just put things in piles. Moreover, there is no taxonomy — ok maybe a small one — but all the filing is done by the machine. It works; it’s easy to feed, stuff is easy to find, everybody’s happy. And, it’s out of sight, neatly self-organized, so it doesn’t irritate me at my core.

So, welcome to the machine — welcome to SharePoint’s “mail-enabled” document libraries — a world where the machine does all the heavy lifting, from submission, to organizing, to search and retrieval. It’s a piler’s dream, and a filer’s delight. One caveat: knowledge creation and synthesis still takes work. That’s an essential human process, one of creativity and editorial heavy lifting. Machines don’t do that.

First some rules. Remember “GTETETEKM”… err… the “KM-Three.” Remember those and you should ahead of the game; forget them and you’ll likely discover that “knowledge management” is an oxymoron. Moreover, you’ll probably end up either in management or looking for a new job, or [shudder] both. Rules in hand, let’s add a dash of required simplicity:

• Keep things simple. I like simple things, simple tools, and simple approaches. Tools that aren’t simple won’t be used. Simplicity wins, period. Complicated systems fail — usually because they’re too complicated. Complicated approaches fail for the same reasons. It must be easy to use and easy to find stuff again; easy, and I mean “Eee-Zee” with a capital EASY, else it’s a wasted exercise.
• Beware, you must feed the beast. Any knowledgebase must be fed. They live on a diet of — you guessed it — knowledge. If you create a beast, you must feed it. So, while you’re at it, don’t make the beast so impossibly complicated that you won’t, don’t or can’t feed it. It needs high quality chow, lest it bite your hand.

In summary: an effective knowledge management system starts with knowing what you want to keep, and knowing what you don’t want to keep. After that, it’s all about the tools, and your tools must: A) be simple in design, B) be some-what self-organizing, C) meet your security needs, D) be easy to feed, and F) easy to search.

[Don't miss the exciting sequel: "Cracking the Cuneiform Code — The KM Supremacy" – coming soon to a blog near you.]

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