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Nonprofit Knowledge Management
by Michael C. Gilbert, Feb. 2002
On March 7th, 2002, I appeared on a panel at the Grantmakers for Effective Organizations Conference. As part of that presentation, I was asked to prepare this short introduction to the principles, lessons, questions, and resources of value to people considering nonprofit knowledge management initiatives.
I. Principles
Question: Based on your experience, what do you believe are the principles, or core truths, about successful knowledge sharing communities? If you were to offer advice to someone who was responsible for strengthening information sharing and knowledge building among people in their organization or network, what kind of wisdom would you offer to help ensure that their effort succeeds?
(1) Know Thyself as an Organization
Ignorance of an organization's or community's current needs and processes is the number one contributor to poorly conceived knowledge management initiatives. It's essential to map the existing assets and communication flow, because that is where the opportunities for improvement lie and where the barriers to new initiatives will be found. This kind of knowledge is particularly important in the case of technology centric knowledge initiatives.
Sharing information actually comes quite naturally to people in their work, just not always in the ways most obviously amenable to mechanization. One of the keys to successful knowledge management is to understand the existing relationships and mechanisms of sharing and then develop ways to empower people to scale up what they are already trying to do.
A thorough grounding in the current flow of information in the organization or community will help prevent Technology Driven Solutions. Technology driven solutions are seductive distractions from the process of true innovation of infrastructure. This seductiveness must be aggressively counterbalanced through the use of organizational centered planning. In other words, don't get too excited by what the technology can do. Instead, build excitement for what your people can do, if they can scale up sharing and learning.
(2) Design from and for the Users
User centered (as opposed to content centered) design means letting user needs and behaviors determine the functionality of your new systems. If users discover, organize, and communicate their information effectively in a particular manner, then designing from that workflow will help create a powerful knowledge sharing system.
User centered design contrasts sharply with content centered design. The stereotype of the bad librarian is a meticulously organized collection of books that nobody uses. But it's not the accumulation or taxonomy of a collection of information that determines its value, but rather its use. Content is the second major seductive distraction from building a knowledge-sharing infrastructure. The focus must be on building self-sustaining dynamic systems, not pleasing accumulations of information.
(3) Treat Knowledge Management as Relationship Management
Knowledge building emerges from relationships. People learn from each other, often just in time and often by the process of co-creation. Knowledge emerges from the process of work, not from underground springs or pools. Seeing knowledge as a substance, rather than as relationships, is what I call the Tyranny of the Tangible.
These relationships are facilitated by all those less tangible parts of an organization's or community's infrastructure. These parts are interdependent. Technological initiatives must depend upon managerial support for their success. Entrenched cultures can hinder sharing of any kind. Existing human connections are powerful reinforcements for future flow of communication. All of these pieces, plus history and strategic direction, affect operations.
II. Lessons
Question: What are the most important lessons you have learned from your work in fostering successful information sharing and knowledge-building communities?
Information Ecosystem Mapping
One of the most powerful techniques for understanding the communication relationships and the flow of information is what I call Information Ecosystem Mapping. In a nutshell it works like this: (1) Place a boundary around your field of investigation (the staff, the community, or whatever). (2) Identify individuals who are representative of certain segments of this target network, in terms of their communication and information patterns. (3) By examining the behavior of those individuals, answer these questions for each segment: (a) Regarding inbound communication -- "In order for you to succeed here, what information do you currently receive, from whom, and by what media?" (b) Regarding outbound communication -- "In order for you to succeed here, what information do you currently put out, to whom, and by what media?" (4) Map these answers to generate a sense of the flow of information in the network that you are examining.
This process, when conducted properly, reliably produces a powerful instrument for organizational centered planning. It reveals the "low hanging fruit" or most immediate opportunities for the introduction of efficiencies through new tools. It dissolves resistance to new initiatives by enrolling the stakeholders and by basing planning firmly upon their self-identified needs. It lays the groundwork for more ambitious visions that are grounded in human relationships.
Email Thinking
One of the consistent messages that emerge from most information mapping projects is the importance of electronic mail. Thinking in terms of email is a critical lesson.
Web centered thinking leads to static systems that are based upon the technology or upon the content, but hardly ever on the relationships. Email, on the other hand, is inherently about the dynamics of communication.
In addition to the planning advantages, email oriented information strategies are more likely to be used, more likely to fit into people[radical]s existing workflow, give people a familiar user interface, and are more likely to build knowledge generating relationships than web-oriented strategies.
III. Critical Questions
Question: What do you think are some of the critical questions that every person undertaking a knowledge management project should evaluate, and why? In addition to a few questions, please offer a brief rationale, or explanation of what you would be looking to understand in the answer.
Why is this being done? Ok, now more specifically, without Organizational Development buzzwords, why is it being done? What specific operational objectives will it serve and how will that success be measured?
Who are the key stakeholders of the project? How do they currently use and produce information? What does their information ecosystem look like?
How are the operational objectives to be met, independent of the mechanisms and media of information sharing and transfer?
Are the common traps of technology or content driven design being avoided? This is more than paying lip service to other aspects, but rather making those other aspects (users and their communication relationships) absolutely central.
IV. Resources
Question: Please identify the resources (books, articles, etc.) that you have found to be particularly instrumental in helping you think about "knowledge management." What did you find useful about each resource?
Online Resources
Essays of Donald Norman
Donald Norman is the author of my first recommended book below. He is a tireless advocate and researcher in the area of human-centered design.
First Monday
First Monday is a peer-reviewed online journal covering all aspects of the Internet. I have found a remarkable degree of relevance to knowledge management work in the nonprofit sector.
Nonprofit Online News
I am the publisher of Nonprofit Online News. It is both a knowledge initiative itself and it often points to useful resources related to nonprofit information and communication projects. It is available by email and on a web site. You can also find links to the Nonprofit Email Manifesto and other email related resources here.
Books
None of these three books purport to be about "knowledge management" per se. By my way of thinking, that's probably one of the things that made them so powerful.
Things That Make Us Smart,
by Donald Norman.
Norman has a wonderful sarcastic saying: "It probably won an award". It's derisive and spot on, capturing the tension between genuinely empowering tools and tools that win awards, mostly for looking pretty. This is one of the seminal modern books on the subject of human relationships to technology. Anyone working in the field of the Internet and nonprofits should read it.
At Home in the Universe : The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity,
by Stuart Kaufman
I firmly believe that order can emerge from complex systems and that extraordinary coordination and large scale can happen from the bottom up, in both biological and social systems. Kaufman is one of the best thinkers about self-organizing systems and this book is a joy to read. Those of us who are trying to discover lessons for the social sector in the order emerging from the massive connectivity of the Internet would do well to understand Kaufman.
Sorting Things Out
by Geoffrey Bowker & Susan Leigh Star
Information junkies, like myself, love to classify things. This book is about the power of classification. One of the key lessons for people designing information systems for nonprofits is that the process of classification and reclassification, not just having a useful taxonomy, is itself one of the most powerful forms of knowledge building.
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