Knowledge Management and
Technical Communication: A
Convergence of Ideas and Skills
“We are entering (or have entered) the knowledge
society in which the basic economic resource . . .
is knowledge . . . and where the knowledge worker
will play a central role.”
–Peter Drucker, 1993
What am I arguing?

We are witnessing an unusual convergence.
Knowledge management 1993-2003
Technical communication 1993-2003
Convergence—coming together in a common interest or
focus
Confluence—a flowing or coming together
Concurrence—the simultaneous occurrence of events
Coincidence—the occurrence of events that happen by
the same time by accident but seem to have some
connection
What am I arguing?
Knowledge management/
technical communication
1. While knowledge management has
emerged as a new discipline over the past
decade, we have redefined ourselves over
the same decade (and are continuing to
redefine ourselves).
What am I arguing?
Workplace—research—teaching
2. Now more than ever before we can
contribute meaningfully to knowledge
management in the workplace as well as in
our research and our teaching.
What am I arguing?
Other opportunities
3. We are well positioned now to take
advantage of many other opportunities in
addition to knowledge management.
Overview

What is knowledge management and why now?

What’s in it for us?

How do recent efforts to redefine ourselves help us?


What are some key research opportunities in
knowledge management for us?
What’s ahead for us?
What is knowledge
management and
why now?
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 Knowledge
management is a new
discipline
Ikujiro Nonaka. “The Knowledge Creating Company.”
Harvard Business Review. 1991
Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi. The KnowledgeCreating Company: How Japanese Companies
Create the Dynamics of Innovation. 1995
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 Knowledge
management is also now an
established discipline


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
Explosive growth of KM literature in academic
books and journals
Growth of conferences, seminars devoted to
KM
Abundance of KM articles and books in
popular management outlets
KM as big business
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 Roots
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in other disciplines:
Management
Information systems
Information technology
Business theory
Social psychology
Organizational behavior
Organizational learning
Communication
What is knowledge management
and why now?

Knowledge management is “the process of
revealing and mapping the work activities,
behaviors, and knowledge sources within an
organization.”
Susan Conway and Char Sligar, Unlocking Knowledge Assets
What is knowledge management
and why now?
“knowledge management is concerned with
identifying, sharing and leveraging
organizational knowledge for competitive
advantage.”
Steffen Raub and Charles-Clemens Ruling
What is knowledge management
and why now?
“Knowledge management is the transfer of
experience.”
Managing Partner of KPMG--Canada
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 Explicit


knowledge and tacit knowledge
Explicit knowledge—knowledge that we know
we know. Can be articulated, codified, stored,
transferred through documents
Tacit knowledge—knowledge that we do not
know we know. Difficult to articulate and
generally expressible only through action
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 Four
modes of knowledge conversion
Socialization—from tacit to tacit
Externalization—from tacit to explicit
Combination—from explicit to explicit
Internalization—from explicit to tacit
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 “Why
all this sudden interest in
knowledge?”—Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge


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
New global competition
Trend toward leaner organizations
Realization that technology cannot replace human
knowledge or provide its equivalent
Realization that knowledge is the chief asset of
organizations
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 New

global competition
Japanese companies have been successful
because of their ability “to create new
knowledge, disseminate it throughout the
organization, and embody it in products,
services, and systems.”
Nonaka Takeuchi--The Knowledge-Creating Company
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 New
global competition
Learning how to identify, manage, and
foster knowledge is vital for companies
who hope to compete in today's fastmoving global economy.
Davenport and Prusak Working Knowledge
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 Trend
toward leaner organizations
“The trend toward leaner organizations has also
contributed to heightened interest in knowledge,
on the principle that you really understand the
value of something once its gone.”
Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge


Aerospace engineers example
Original Ford Taurus design team example
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 Realization
that technology cannot replace
human knowledge
“The assumption that technology can replace
human knowledge or create its equivalent has
proven false time and again. Developments in
technology, on the other hand, are among the
positive factors fueling interest in knowledge
and its management.”
Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 Realization
that technology cannot replace
human knowledge:
The information that comes from computer
systems may be considerably less
valuable to managers than information that
flows in from a variety of other sources.
Davenport and Prusak Information Ecology
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 Realization
that technology cannot replace
human knowledge
“Technology is the enabler of all forms of
knowledge management. . . . It allows the
knowledge-based company to collect, codify,
publish, share, and innovate through the
reuse of knowledge. But technology alone
cannot manage knowledge for a company.”
Conway and Sligar, Unlocking Knowledge Assets
What is knowledge management
and why now?
 Realization
that knowledge is the chief
asset of organizations
“The metaphysics of global power has
changed. Markets are now more valuable
than territory, information more powerful
than military hardware.”
Lance Morrow, Time, Jan 1,1990
What is knowledge management
and why now?

Knowledge management in practice:
1996—teams of leading heart surgeons from
five New England medical centers observed one
another’s operating-room practices
Result—a 24 percent drop in their overall
mortality rate for coronary bypass surgery, or 74
fewer deaths than predicted
What is knowledge management
and why now?

Knowledge management in practice


2002—Bermuda-based law firm Appleby, Spurling &
Kempe needed a better way to find, manage, and
share information
Now has one-stop access to more than 1.5 million
content elements including Microsoft Office
documents and presentations, Portable Document
Format files (PDFs), research articles, intranet and
Internet links, records, and people in the firm’s
specialized legal databases
What’s in it for us?
What’s in it for us?
“On reflection, there is actually considerable
logic behind the idea that technical writers would
be able to understand certain forms of
knowledge—particularly technical knowledge—
and contribute to an electronic repository.”
Davenport and Prusak Working Knowledge
What’s in it for us?
 On
the value of KM for technical
communicators

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Judy Glick-Smith (1998, 2001)
David Leonard (1999)
Cory Wick (2000)
J.D. Applen (2002)
Michael Hughes (2002)
What’s in it for us?

Glick-Smith: introduces KM concepts and how
KM should be implemented

Leonard: “our discipline is inextricably
intertwined with the knowledge management
revolution.”

Wick: technical communicators are contenders
for leadership roles in knowledge management
What’s in it for us?

Applen: “technical communicators . . . are at the
center of an organization’s knowledge”

Hughes: technical communicators add value “by
creating organization (internal) knowledge”
What’s in it for us?
 Corey
Wick’s article “Knowledge
Management and Leadership
Opportunities for Technical
Communicators.”
What’s in it for us?

Wick argues that Technical Communicators have three
core competencies:
They have a thorough understanding of the
complexities of knowledge, language, and
communication.
They are exceptionally talented in working across
functions, departments, and all disciplines.
Most, importantly, they are expert communicators.
What’s in it for us?
 Some



positives
Recognition—recognition for “the value of capturing,
synthesizing, distributing, and reusing knowledge on
a broad scale, a value on which the field of technical
communication was built” (Wick 521).
Opportunities—more opportunities for technical
communicators to employ their talents and
competencies in new areas
Perceptions—KM now perceived as vital driver of
business
What’s in it for us?
 Some
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negatives
Technical communicators are among the last
to be identified as potential contributors
Technical communicators are filling supporting
roles, not leading ones
Technical communication is “in danger of
perpetuating its history of under
empowerment and obscurity”
What’s in it for us?

A call for a paradigm shift:
“If knowledge management represents a
paradigm shift in the way business is perceived
and conducted, then technical communicators
must also change paradigms to meet the needs
of an evolving business climate. We must move
beyond demanding adequate recognition and
compensation for our contributions.”
Corey Wick
How do recent efforts to
redefine ourselves help us?
How do recent efforts to
redefine ourselves help us?

The past—the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s

Technical writing is different

Technical communication has its roots in rhetoric

Technical writing has humanistic value

Technical communication has an image problem
How do recent efforts to
redefine ourselves help us?
 The



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
past decade
Janice Redish and Judith Ramey (1995)
Ann Rockley (2001)
William Hart-Davidson (2001)
Saul Carliner (2001)
Muriel Zimmerman (2001)
Marjorie Davis (2001)
Michael Hughes (2002)
How do recent efforts to
redefine ourselves help us?

Redish and Ramey—we add value in measurable ways

Redish—we need to be involved in the planning of
single-sourcing systems

Rockley—we may want to become information
technologists

Hart-Davidson—we have a central role to play in
information technology systems
How do recent efforts to
redefine ourselves help us?

Carliner—we are information designers

Zimmerman—we will play different roles in user
support

Davis—we must move from craftsperson to
professional

Hughes—we must see ourselves as knowledge
creators
How do recent efforts to
redefine ourselves help us?

Michael Hughes’ article “Moving From
Information Transfer to Knowledge Creation: A
New Value Proposition for Technical
Communicators”
Hughes is president and founder of Working Knowledge,
Inc.
How do recent efforts to
redefine ourselves help us?
 Hughes
argues that we must move
beyond seeing ourselves as information
packagers to seeing ourselves as
knowledge creators.
 We
make three important contributions as
knowledge creators.
How do recent efforts to
redefine ourselves help us?
1. Technical communicators are knowledge
specialists who help SMEs make explicit
what has become tacit:
Probing interviews
Critical reverse engineering
How do recent efforts to
redefine ourselves help us?
2. Technical communicators help design teams
arrive at consensus (group knowledge) about
what the product is or does:
Usability tests
Document review process
How do recent efforts to
redefine ourselves help us?
3. Technical communicators create knowledge
assets:
Creators of knowledge think beyond the concept of
documentation and think in terms of knowledge
management systems.
The more technical communicators do to create
systems that make the knowledge within the
documentation searchable or otherwise accessible, the
more value they add.
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
 Some
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potential research areas:
Metaphors and analogies
Vocabularies
Taxonomies
Narratives
Environments
Pedagogies
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?

Metaphors and analogies
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1978 example of Honda City, a different kind of
automobile.
“Let’s gamble”
“Automobile Evolution”—If the automobile were an
organism, how should it evolve?
“man-maximum, machine-minimum”
Image of a sphere
“Tall Boy”
Nonaka and Takeuchi, The Knowledge-Creating Company
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
 Metaphors
and analogies
“Externalization is . . . often driven by
metaphor and/or analogy. Using an attractive
metaphor and/or analogy is highly effective in
fostering direct commitment to the creative
process.”
–Nonaka and Takeuchi, The Knowledge-Creating Company
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
 Metaphors

and analogies
Sample research questions:
• What are the best success stories of metaphors
and analogies leading to corporate innovation?
• Why are metaphors and analogies so effective for
motivating groups to create and produce?
• What kinds of metaphors and analogies work best
and why?
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?

Vocabularies
A recent conference at MIT for scientists and
Buddhist monks
“Before I got into this, I thought we should be openminded, but I didn’t think it was likely we would be able
to have a useful exchange.” Now “I feel like there is a
common language, a common engagement of ideas.
We’ve only scratched the surface.”
Nancy Kanwisher, MIT psychologist
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
 Vocabularies:
“Research shows time and again that a shared
language is essential to productive knowledge
transfer.” Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge
Example: BP employs consultants to translate
observations made by “roughnecks” on North
Sea oil rigs into language and concepts that
executives in London can better understand.
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
 Vocabularies:
“. . . multiple and sometimes contradictory
meanings for fundamental terms exist in many
organizations and create barriers to
consolidating information and knowledge.”
Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge
Example: Meanings of “customer,” “product,” and
“material” at Monsanto
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?

Vocabularies

Sample research questions:
• Why is it important to establish a common language to foster
knowledge creation?
• How does a common language help create trust and
knowledge?
• What are the best ways for quickly establishing a common
language within an organization and between organizations?
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
 Taxonomies
(any classified collections of
elements)
“As content grows in the electronic world, it is apparent
that simply turning a search engine loose on a collection
of information will not give the hoped for improvements
in productivity and profits promised by e-business.
Taxonomies are the missing link.”
Mike Crandall, former Knowledge Architect Manager,
Microsoft Corporation
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
 Taxonomies

Sample research questions
• How do you match the taxonomy to knowledge
workers’ information seeking behavior?
• If a search fails (appropriate content is not
available), how do you structure a taxonomy to
give feedback to taxonomy administrators?
• How can a KM system not only inform the
knowledge worker of the existence of content but
also begin to inform of the lack of content?
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?

Narratives



Videos sent to branch offices that tell the story of an
important business event, such as how a key sale
was made
Messages in the form of stories sent by a securities
firm to its brokerage agents providing info about a
sale, an upcoming event, or customer feedback
Stories of desirable business behavior circulated
electronically under the banner “Excellence in Action”
by a subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard
Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?

Narratives
“research shows that knowledge is
communicated most effectively through a
convincing narrative that is delivered with
formal elegance and passion.”
Davenport and Prusak, Working Knowledge
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?

Narratives

Sample research questions:
• Why are narratives one of the best ways for
capturing tacit knowledge?
• What are the best examples of narratives for
capturing tacit knowledge?
• What are the best ways for relaying these
narratives—video, multimedia, retreats?
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
 Environments
(technical communicators in
the workplace):
“We demonstrate why we work with teams to
capture their knowledge in seed documents, and
then discuss how seed documents lead to
document prototypes and drafts.”
Stephen Bernhardt and George A. McCulley
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?

Environments:
Three major questions concerning six student interns:
1. What are some of the specific means by which these newcomers
gained access to knowledge in this workplace?
2. What role did disciplinary or organizational language practices
play in the students’ learning?
3. Did the newcomers contribute to the generation of new
knowledge?
Deborah Winsor
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
 Environments

Sample research questions:
• What roles are technical communicators currently
playing in the knowledge management boom?
• Are these roles successful or significant? Why or
why not?
• If not, what will it take to involve technical
communicators in KM in major ways?
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
 Pedagogies:
“Creators of knowledge must also be skilled
facilitators and shrewd interviewers (similar to
anthropologists and sociologists). Degree
programs in technical communication should
include courses to develop these skills.
Michael Hughes
What are some key research
opportunities in KM for us?
 Pedagogies

Sample research questions:
• How can we include more knowledge
management theory into our courses?
• How can we best put together multidisciplinary
courses to teach knowledge management?
• How can we put more emphasis on knowledge
management tools without sacrificing emphasis on
theory?
What’s ahead for us?
What’s ahead for us?

“It does seem safe to predict that in five years,
there will still be human professionals doing the
work presently done by technical
communicators, though the skills required for
technical communicators in the next computer
revolution will change at least as much in the
next five years as they have in the past five
years.”
Muriel Zimmerman, 2001
What’s ahead for us?
 “We
define an information ecology to be a
system of people, practices, values, and
technologies in a particular environment.
In information ecologies, the spotlight is
not on technology, but on human activities
that are served by technology.”
Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O’Day, Information Ecologies: Using
Technology With Heart
What’s ahead for us?
 In
2006 we will be known by even more
job titles but we will also be:



knowledge creators
information designers
information ecologists
In Closing . . .
In Closing . . .
Knowledge Management 1993-2003
Technical Communication 1993-2003
A convergence (confluence, concurrence,
coincidence) of some kind has occurred (is
occurring).
 Shared interests and skills
 Shared values
 Shared present and future