Increasing Return

The phenomenon of increasing return (IR) refers to a virtuous cycle in which the output of a production system increases disproportionally than input does. For example, an already very innovative company can easily get even more innovative than a less innovative one. The more knowledgeable you are about a subject, the easier for you to learn a new knowledge. The four factors driving this phenomenon are (1) standards and network externalities, (2) customer lock-in, (3) large up-front costs, and (4) learning effect.

The importance of knowledge management for a company in pursuing sustainable competitive advantage can at least partly be explained by the concept of IR. Competitive advantage does not happen automatically. It takes commited and conscious effort to build.  The people in Nucor Steel, for example, are not complacent about their success. The social ecology already working within the entire company keeps pushing their standards higher and higher. Partners Healthcare, as another example, would find it easier to build another knowledge work-supporting system once they have had experience building one. IR usually is associated with learning, experience, capability, and skill. 

Data Hierarchy

From data to information to knowledge to wisdom, data is tedious and wisdom is abstract if they are treated like they exist by themselves. However, when placed in a specific context, a business process or other situations, data is concrete because it represents facts. The meaning of wisdom would be neatly framed and understood. This is equivalent to viewing the data hierarchy from the top down:

Wisdom is knowledge viewed from an appropriate perspective. Knowledge is information related to problems or decisions. Information is data placed in and presented for a specific context. And data is the description of reality or facts relative to a specific setting.

Wisdom is knowledge placed in 

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.