KM Artifacts Integrated Around Processes

Should the Enterprise Integrate Learning Management Systems with Knowledge Management Systems?

I have recently researched how firms are implementing Learning Management Systems and how those solutions integrate with their Knowledge Management Systems.  Each firm invested heavily in their portal LMS & KMS solutions and notably extended those solutions beyond their feature sets.  Instead of integrating the solutions or purchasing an integrated solution, content is duplicated throughout both of their firms’ specific solutions.  Not only are there duplications within the LMS & KMS, but significant Intranet content and tools are incorporated within the solutions.  Notice, I use the word incorporated not integrated.  Documents belonging on the Intranet are in the LMS, full training PDF’s are in the KMS, and no links from the KMS solution page for an inquiry links back to formal training in the LMS.

One would think my research aspirations to incorporate corporate knowledge within the users’ business workspace would endorse such solutions.  However, the Intranet, KMS, nor LMS are the users’ business workspace.  An example of a business workspace is a billing system for customers who call in for questions about their accounts.  Incorporating corporate knowledge to provide consistent and accurate responses to customer inquiries is an example of integrating corporate knowledge repositories within the business process or business workspace.

Simple description of what is a Leaning Management System?
A Learning Management System enables the management and delivery of corporate knowledge skills development.  It allows gap skills curriculum building, learner registration, delivery of learning modules, testing & assessment, certification compliance, etc. 

Simple description of what is a Knowledge Management System?
A Knowledge Management System is a system for supporting the creation, capturing, storage, and dissemination of expertise throughout the enterprise.

Simple description of what is an Intranet?
An Intranet is a communication medium for internal employees to share organization’s information or operations content.  Intranets increase collaboration and are a platform for deploying web applications to support business operations and decisions across the internal enterprise.

Accenture recommends, a tightly integrated Learning and Knowledge solution (see figure-1).  I am having trouble wrapping my IT and business brain around such a concept.  We use the KMS for short answers to thousands of customer questions.  Without tagging every paragraph within our hundreds of training documents that change everyday, a search engine could not display the correct answers for Customer Service Representatives (CSR’s).  Our CSR’s need answers in seconds and cannot traverse through pages of content, which is how traditional LMS’s store training material.

For me, the only logical solution is to provide separate KMS and LMS.  Provide simple answers in the KMS with contextual links to the LMS artifacts, complex training materials in the LMS, and everything else on the Intranet.  Feel free to shoot me an email regarding the subject or the architecture your firm utilized to integrate the KMS and LMS.

Did Knowledge Management Originate from King Solomon? Part-I

During my mother in-laws last three-week visit, the visit where I started smoking again, went from three beers a week to thirty, and the visit where I packed my suitcase planning to spend her final three days at my co-workers (Dan Attis – The SharePoint Guru) house, she bought me a book.  She heard about the book while watching her religious channel louder than I thought my Boss speakers could possibly produce.  She needed to hear the program while taking a shower on a separate floor than my entertainment system.

I did not put much thought into the gift since I was sure it was some radical Christian book, which reinforces my worldly behaviors.  One insomniac weekend, due to my body’s inability to handle drinking beer again, I decided to crack the introduction section since I knew Hosapple was out of my comprehension range.  Interestingly enough the author (Steven Scott) is a millionaire responsible for billion-plus in marketing advertisements.  Scott details how his failures and successes in life easily map back to the teachings of King Solomon.  The book was not religious in nature but a management guide to worker diligence, succeeding with mentors, workforce partnering, conflict resolution, etc.  I read the complete book that weekend.  I then went through the book again with a highlighter and a pen.  I am now reading it for a third time and actually duplicating the end of chapter activities.

Within the book, “The Richest Man Who Ever Lived, King Solomon’s Secret to Success, Wealth, and Happiness” I learned a plethora of business applicable advice based upon lessons of King Solomon.  Scott’s #1 advice recommended reading a Proverb each morning before work and taking notes on the wisdom documented.  I took the advice and the first action item I perform on arrival to work, is taking 5 minutes and reading the Proverb of the day.  I could not believe the number of times within the thirty-one Proverbs that Salomon uses the word “Knowledge”.

While I will never create a religious post, I cannot help but reiterate the wisdom presented within King Solomon’s teachings.  I believe it is safe since three of the four major religions believe in Solomon’s teachings and every historian believes in Solomon’s legacy.  While reading those teachings, the wisdom of managing knowledge inundated me with its present applicability.  The second half of this post will detail some of the Knowledge Management wisdom presented within the Proverbs.

Did Knowledge Management Originate from King Solomon? Part-II

The Proverbs is a compilation of didactic poetry to teach wisdom directed to the young and inexperienced and to those who desire advanced training in wisdom.  The first two-thirds of the book offer numerous purely secular advices around counsel, training, knowledge and wisdom.  I believe different authors wrote the later chapters.  My non-scientific research entailed keyword searches on “Wisdom” and “Knowledge”, which had 48 “Wisdom” hits and 36 “Knowledge” hits.  Dozen more hits were plausible with terms like “Wise”, “Intelligence”, and “Counsel”.  The following are a key versus that stood out as applicable within knowledge intense organizations.  The versus are copied so grammatically they are not accurate to today’s writing standards.  As you read through them, ponder on their applicability to knowledge repositories, tacit experiences from your corporations’ knowledge experts, and general collaboration & forums with corporate expertise.

1:5
A wise man by hearing them will advance in learning, an intelligent man will gain sound guidance

1:30
They ignored my counsel, they spurned all my reproof; And in their arrogance they preferred arrogance, and like fools they hated knowledge

2:10-11
For wisdom will enter your heart, knowledge will please your soul, discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you

3:13-17
Happy the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding! For her profit is better than profit in silver, and better than gold is her revenue; She is more precious than corals, and none of your choice possessions can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand, in her left are riches and honor; Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace.

4:5-13
Get wisdom, get understanding! Do not forget or turn aside from the words I utter. Forsake her not, and she will preserve you; love her, and she will safeguard you; The beginning of wisdom is: get wisdom; at the cost of all you have, get understanding. Extol her, and she will exalt you; she will bring you honors if you embrace her; She will put on your head a graceful diadem; a glorious crown will she bestow on you." Receive my words, and the years of your life shall be many. On the way of wisdom I direct you, I lead you on straightforward paths. When you walk, your step will not be impeded, and should you run, you will not stumble. Hold fast to instruction, never let her go; keep her, for she is your life

5:1-2
My son, to my wisdom be attentive, to my knowledge incline your ear, that discretion may watch over you, and understanding may guard you

8:9-12
All of them are plain to the man of intelligence, and right to those who attain knowledge. Receive my instruction in preference to silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold. (For Wisdom is better than corals, and no choice possessions can compare with her.) "I, Wisdom, dwell with experience, and judicious knowledge I attain

8:32-33
listen to me; instruction and wisdom do not reject!

9:12
If you are wise, it is to your own advantage; and if you are arrogant, you alone shall bear it.

10:14
Wise men store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool is imminent ruin

12:1
He who loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid

13:10,20
But with those who take counsel is wisdom. Walk with wise men and you will become wise, but the companion of fools will fare badly

14:6,8
The senseless man seeks in vain for wisdom, but knowledge is easy to the man of intelligence. The shrewd man's wisdom gives him knowledge of his way, but the folly of fools is their deception

15:2,7,14
The tongue of the wise pours out knowledge. The lips of the wise disseminate knowledge. The mind of the intelligent man seeks knowledge

15:22
Plans fail when there is no counsel, but they succeed when counselors are many

15:31-32
He who listens to salutary reproof will abide among the wise. He who rejects admonition despises his own soul, but he who heeds reproof gains understanding

16:21-23
The wise man is esteemed for his discernment, yet pleasing speech increases his persuasiveness. Good sense is a fountain of life to its possessor, but folly brings chastisement on fools. The mind of the wise man makes him eloquent, and augments the persuasiveness of his lips

17:24
The man of intelligence fixes his gaze on wisdom

18:15
The mind of the intelligent gains knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge

19:2,20
Without knowledge even zeal is not good; and he who acts hastily, blunders. Listen to counsel and receive instruction, that you may eventually become wise

20:18
Plans made after advice succeed; so with wise guidance wage your war

21:11
When the wise man is instructed, he gains knowledge

22:20-21
With counsels and knowledge, to teach you truly how to give a dependable report to one who sends you

23:12,23
Apply your heart to instruction, and your ears to words of knowledge. Get the truth, and sell it not-- wisdom, instruction and understanding

24:5-6
A wise man is more powerful than a strong man, and a man of knowledge than a man of might; For it is by wise guidance that you wage your war, and the victory is due to a wealth of counselors

26:12
You see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

28:26
He who trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom is safe

Integrating Knowledge Repository within Silo Applications

The latest application integration issue I experienced deals with a heavily utilized client server billing application.  Several thousand Customer Service Representatives utilize a VB 6.0 application with no integration means to the Knowledge Repositories.

The challenge is the need to present information in the billing system based upon the context of the users’ actions and customer data, without re-writing the billing system.  One solution is to utilize the Resource Description Framework based upon data accessed and decision trees to populate data within a browser window.  The browser window is a separate ASP.net application.  Within the billing-applications business tier as data is requested and retrieved for the presentation layer, logic quickly, runs through a library of RDF based XML files.  When data elements match the RDF “Subject” value, more logic processing allows the display of knowledge artifacts (best practices and processes) based upon the customer, the data accessed, and data values.  RDF provides a quick option to extend and integrate proprietary and older enterprise applications with knowledge repositories.  The main challenge is maintenance of the subject taxonomy to match the corporate taxonomy and objects within the knowledge repository.

What is RDR?
RDF is a W3C standard to process metadata on the web.  RDF is a framework to create statements about resources and is based on the idea of identifying things and describing resources in terms of simple properties and property values (Raisinghani & Sahoo, 2004).  RDF was designed around network retrievable resources for the Internet, but has extended to describe any resource within a domain structure.  This enhances web based functionality through enabling more processable information for Internet-based applications and portals (Bray, 2001). 

An RDF is a collection that represents statements about modeled properties of resources.  It contains three distinct parts, the ‘subject’ signifies the resource described; the ‘predicate’ signifies a property of the subject; and the ‘object’ indicates a value of that property for the specified resource (Brickley, 2001).  The structure allows objects to contain a describer, based on parameters, allowing pointers and relationships to other objects.

Bray, T. What is RDF?, 2001.
Brickley, D. RDF: Understanding the striped RDF/XML syntax, 2001.
Raisinghani, M.S. and Sahoo, T., The emergent semantic web: Managing data efficiently. in Tenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, (New York, NY, 2004), 14-19.

http://www.w3.org/RDF/