Are social networks more than social?

The hottest Web 2.0 issue is, perhaps, social network. Using web content analysis tools, one can derive much useful information about users. By targeting those who exhibit "right" personal characteristics, a business can identify a promising customer base for their products / services.

Theory and practice in knowledge management

A smart and bold entrepreneur or manager came up with a great idea and gave it a try. It worked. The idea was duplicated at other locations to produce more evidence for its value. The experiences inspired and fueled development of a new theory, which in in turn inspired practicing managers to adopt the new thinking in their department or company. This dynamic, two-way interaction process goes on until everybody seems to have taken it for granted. Then, it disappeared from the public scene. From business strategy researchers, knowledge as a strategic asset and knowledge management as a crucial value-creating activity have been taken for granted. However, a close look at their discussion quickly reveals much impact of km on most of the components in their frameworks.

This book, The new age of innovation, does not carry km in its title. Yet, km lies at the core of everything. Knowledge is the input and output of business processes. ICT infrastructure facilitates or even enables knowledge creation, dissemination, and application. Value-creating business models are driven by km activities. Innovative business strategies essentially encompasses innovative km activities.

About the online class experiment

The first experiment provides some insights for future improvement.

Students are not used to the informal nature of blogs and the fact that blogs can be edited after they are posted. Actually, they don't have to finish everything at one time. Coming back at it several times would be more fun and less burden. They should feel free to add and expand their thoughts. Lacking the spirit of freedom, blogging would not turn into anything substantial.

I wonder what'd happen if these are made clear to the students before the experiment.

Thoughts about blogging

Blogging ought to be part of daily life.

Forget about reputation. Forget about who's reading. Just concentrate on your thoughts. Not everybody is a guru about something. But everybody can write down what's in their mind. Start with a purpose. Set up as many blogs as you want. There needs to be some for school, some for work, and for life, and for anything else.

Is time a barrier? No. Passion is.
Don't know anything that you can write about? The fact is, you do know something that you can write about. At the very least, you are an intellectual, a human being that feels and thinks.

Just like with any program implementation, starting small is a good advice. Blogging is a habit worth developing.

Blogs for good and bad

Blogs spread good news and bad news at a rapid speed. While we praise their ability to deliver great benefit, we shouldn't neglected the possibility of damage the may be caused by faudulent blogs. Take a look at this story as an example. We certainly don't need this kind of blogs in the midst of global financial turmoil.

Implications of knowledge spiral

Everything, good and bad, is a cycle. The knowledge spiral cycle consists of internalization, socialization, externalization, and combination. The internalization quadrant involves one learning from assimilating - by reading, listening, observing, or other means - what's external into his knowledge base. The socialization stage brings out his understanding or insight to the sharing community. As a result, private knowledge becomes public (or shared) knowledge.

The externalization phase turns a collective insight into a visible form - prototype, formula, equation,report, meeting minute, paper, or design drawing. Tacit knowledge becomes explicit knowledge at this point. The explicit knowledge inevitably gets confirmed or challenged by other knowledge. This process leads to more understanding and deeper learning.

One may begin at the socialization quadrant or the internalization quadrant. The internalization process is stimulated by the explicit knowledge, whereas socialization requires exposure to sharing of tacit knowledge. Both exist in the real world.

The knowledge spiral model describes the necessary steps one goes through in learning. Knowledge creation and knowledge sharing are simply different points in the knowledge life cycle. Not all knowledge has great problem-solving power. Knowledge gets updated and even gets obsolete. One's knowledge spiral is really an on-going process. Intellectually, one grows along the way.

Dual roles of knowledge in knowledge economy

The two definitions of knowledge economy - economy of knowledge as products and knowledge-based economy - are actually two sides of the coin, or two related views of the same phenomenon. As the economic vitality is propelled by innovative knowledge, the knowledge itself may be packaged as a valuable product. Cloud computing provides a good example. Well-established online companies like Amazon depends on its powerful information infrastructure for everything it's doing in the online market space. They are now making their processing capabilities available to the small businesses who want to go online but lack the technological resource to do it. The cloud computing phenomenon illustrates the fact that knowledge can play dual roles in the knowledge economy point of view - knowledge as a product and knowledge as an asset. There are companies, however, that specialize in creating or gathering patents with the hope that they'll profit from their collections someday.