44.493 Issues in Criminal Justice Technology & Security

home > unit 6: knowledge management

Here's the problem, folks: we've got more information than we can handle. How can we turn information into usable knowledge?

There's a new discipline that can help us get a handle on the information explosion: Knowledge Management

--Karl Erik Sveiby

Total knowledge within the corporation, formerly isolated in file cabinets, memos, white papers, data bases, peoples' heads -- can now be coordinated. It becomes a valuable asset. Must determine what your knowledge base is, how to effectively distribute it.... Knowledge management involves the identification and analysis of available and required knowledge, and the subsequent planning and control of actions to develop knowledge assets so as to fulfill organizational objectives.

--Position Paper on Knowledge Asset Management

"It's the art of creating value by leveraging the intangible assets. To be able to do that, you have to be able to visualize your organization as consisting of nothing but knowledge and knowledge flows. This is a different mind set from the industrial era paradigm."

--Karl Erik Sveiby

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• Growing appreciation of its role
  • 94% of companies consider knowledge management strategic to their business or IT processes.
  • Companies capture only about 45% of their intellectual capital
  • Only 36% of companies have formal policies for sharing knowledge assets--fewer have formal policies for capturing such assets.

--survey by Information Week Research

• Questions about Knowledge Management initiatives:
  • How broad is it?
  • Is it simply about turning tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge?
  • Is it about the discovery and creation of knowledge?
  • Is it about the communicating of knowledge on an enterprise scale? Or, does it include the process by which knowledge is created and used collaboratively across the enterprise?
  • Is it information mining?
  • Is it a corporate "Yahoo"?
  • Is it work process management?
  • Is it advanced document management?
  • Is it a "smart" Web site?
  • Is it a really good search engine or a blue-haired librarian?
  • Is it a practice, a technology, an infrastructure, a culture or an application? (Or a mix?)

--David Weinberger, editor, Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization)

Largest obstacle facing Knowledge Management isn't technology, but human nature:

• Long-held belief that knowledge should be hoarded. Must change incentives within company, so people are rewarded for sharing.
• Acid test is whether it's actually used, not just whether it's available. Have to guide people on use.
  
• Issues:
  • Often, informal, grassroots efforts will be more successful, because they are user-driven, address users' real needs.
  • 'Managing knowledge is not a matter of choosing software vs. wetware, classroom vs. hands-on, formal vs. informal, technical vs. social. Effective knowledge management uses them all -- and motivated employees will find unexpected new ways to put knowledge to work. Success depends on recognizing that all of these need each other. "

Thomas A. Stewart, "The Case Against Knowledge Management"

how police forces are using knowledge management tools

Product:
Economics:
cost?
cost savings?
funding sources?
would it qualify for DHS funding?
could it reduce manpower needs?
could it automate manual processes?
Public perception:
would it make people feel safer
would it make people feel civil liberties were at risk?
would it make people feel it encouraged discrimination?
would it make people feel there was less risk of lethal consequences?
Police perception
would police feel it made them safer?
would police feel it was easy to use?
would police feel intimidated by training it required?
would police feel it complicated their jobs?
would policefeel it endangered them?
Would it increase potential liability?
Is it too cutting-edge to be reliable at this point?
Operations:
would life-cycle costs be too high?
would it require significant disruption to daily routines?
would it allow us to do things we can't today?
would it facilitate collaboration with other jurisdictions and agencies?
Is it approved by the CIJ?
would it interface easily with legacy technology?
is it likely to become obsolete rapidly?

Alaska is using XML to get a handle on all of information, make it usable