Knowledge Networks (Social Networks, Communities of practice)

In this blog, first I will define social networks and communities of practice separately then I will describe how they are different from each other and then I will give an example from my organization to prove my theory on them.

Social Networks:

Social Networks has great significance in knowledge management and plays an important role in sharing the knowledge [1]. The word social stands for society (human, people) and it is the association of people with each other [3] and word networks mean connecting one or more then one things together to share the characteristics of interconnected things.
The word “Network” means one source of interconnecting but when we use “Networks” it means different sources or ways of interconnecting something.

So my definition of Social Networks will be “interconnecting people (from one or different societies) by different ways to share their knowledge, ideas or interests (regardless of common or uncommon interests) calls social networks.”

According to my definition of social networks it’s not necessary that the people should be from the same society, they may belong to different societies. For example in my organization (hotel) people come to stay in there from all over the world (they belongs to different societies as their geographical location is different) and in the evening most of them get together in the bar and share their ideas or interests.
There are always more then one ways to do something similarly there is more than one source to interconnect people for example internet, intranet, telephone, getting together face to face etc.
It’s also not necessary for people to have common interests in social network they may have different interests.


Social network diagram
A: Society1; B: Society2; C: Society3; D: Society4

In social network diagram, the individuals with A representing Society1 so we can see that there are three individuals from the same society who are interconnected with each other and at the same time an individual from Society1 also interconnected with an individual from Society3.
In social networks people interact with other from the same society who have the same interests and also with those who do not have the common interests or anything common in them.

Communities of Practice:
According to the World Wide Web the definition of community is “A group of people having common interests: the scientific community; the international business community.”[2]
The meaning of practice is to do something on continuous basis to achieve something.
My definition will be “A group of people who practice their common interests to share their knowledge or experiences to achieve their common goal calls communities of practice.”

In an organisation employees form formal or informal networks of relationship based on work requirements and personal interactions etc, which helps them to carry out their daily task quickly and more effectively.
These networks can be formal or informal. There may be a scenario where an organisation asks their employees from a certain department to get together on regular basis to share their ideas to enhance to quality of their work which is a form of formal network. This type of formal networks dependent on the management of an organisation that how do they enforce their employees to get together.
The other form of network is informal which is very common in organisations. In this type of network, employees get together (without management enforcement) from same field, department, interests and personal attractions etc. to achieve a common goal.
Employees can be from different departments in informal networks but they always have something common in them which bring them together.
For example, in my organisation (hotel) we have a formal and informal community of practice. Our management arrange a meeting once in every month in which all of the employees get together from different departments (house keeping, front desk & restaurant) to share their ideas, this meeting is form of a formal network.
Hotel employees also get together informally to share their knowledge in-between them. For example, restaurant people have nothing to do with front desk people but in a case if some of the guest makes any trouble in the restaurant, the restaurant staff comes to front desk if they think they have something common with that particular person who is present at reception by that time and share their problem about that particular guest. This kind of informal interactions in between two employees from different departments helps a lot to prevent any problem occurring at front desk.

Example:

Following diagram is an example of communities of practice in a hotel type industry. There are different departments in my hotel and each department has a community of practice in which employees share their ideas and common problems to improve business. Employees in a department interact with each other to improve the services and they also interact with employees who are in other departments to share the over all knowledge about hotel.
In hotel type organisation there are different communities of practices in which employees interact with in their own department community of practice and also across the department community.


Communities of practice diagram (Hotel industry)

Social Network Vs Communities of Practice:
From the above definitions of social networks and communities of practices it’s clear that both involve the human interaction but this interaction is differ in both of them.
The term social network use in broader concept where people interact with each other with out having a common task or goal and there is no limitation of no. of people getting involved in this kind of knowledge network.
This is an IT era where technology boosted over the couple of years time period and the term social network is becoming popular day by day (face book, orkut, hi5 etc) with the use of IT as people coming across from all over the world onto these networks.
On the other hand the communities of practice works in kind of a bound environment where only those people get together who have something in common in them and the no. of people is also limited to a certain extent. Usually employees in an organisation develop this kind of environment to facilitate themselves and the size depends on how big the organisation is and how many employees participating in that practice.
Communities of practices can be very tight (employees from one organisation can interact with each other and no one is allowed from outside) and weak as well (in this type of practice people from other organisations who have something common in them are also allowed to participate).

Example:
In my organisation we have a forum which is on intranet where we discuss our work related problems and also share our ideas about a daily life routine.
It’s been advised to all the employees to seek a help from that forum in case of any work related problem if someone is not available near to you. For that purpose we have to make a new forum name with the problem we are facing and then employees from other branches who have an experience leave their answer which is an example of communities of practices.
The main forum on intranet is open to all of the employees to discuss anything so employees go to the forum in their free times (especially night staff) and find any interesting topic and starts discussing about it. For example one night I logged into the forum and there was about more then 50 topics and some of them seemed to me very interested so I participated in there which is kind of a Social network.
Though the forum is not open to everyone apart from the hotel employees but they can discuss anything social in there.

In my conclusion I would say the social networks terms is used in a much broader and open environment where people from any back ground are welcomed and some time people develop a community of practice inside the social networks and communities of practices is usually operates on a small level which usually works inside the boundaries of an organisation.

References:

[1] Rob Cross, Andrew Parker, Laurence Prusak, Stephen P. Borgatti, November 2001, Knowing What We Know: Supporting Knowledge Creation and Sharing in Social Networks, Retrieved March 01, 2008 from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6W6S-451DFP2-2-K&_cdi=6606&_user=6703465&_orig=search&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F2001&_sk=999699997&view=c&wchp=dGLbVlb-zSkzk&md5=c0d7ee0e70b8a6768c5d653d7b5c3558&ie=/sdarticle.pdf

[2] Online Dictionary: Die.net, Retrieved March 01, 2008 from http://dictionary.die.net/society

[3] Retrieved February 25, 2008, from http://www.answers.com/community?cat=technology

Bibliography:
1. Retrieved February 25, 2008, from http://www.tfriend.com/cop-lit.htm
2. Retrieved February 25, 2008, from http://www.answers.com/
3. Retrieved February 25, 2008, from http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2006/07/the_difference.html
4. Retrieved February 25, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network
5. Retrieved February 25, 2008, from http://www.elearningpost.com/articles/archives/communities_of_practice_at_the_core/

Knowledge Management (Data, Information and Knowledge), Reply back to Prof. Mark Woodman comments.

This is a reply to the comments given by Professor Mark Woodman on my blog Knowledge management (Data, Information and Knowledge).

So far replying back to the comments has become very interesting, and in this blog I am really surprised to see the comments, as the comments size seems to me bigger then my actual topic on this blog which is quite interesting.
Here I m confused in making my mind how shall I move forward. I have two options either to justify my position first about the examples I have given in my blog or to give an explanation to the comments.
I would like to justify myself first in the context of comments given by Mr. Mark and then I will come up to my conclusion.

I start with my very first example which is “35”, “Television”, “Colour”
In this example I said these three words individually represent data and according to Data definition which I have described in my blog “It is just symbols which don’t make any sense or meanings itself”. Here according to this definition I didn’t mean that these words have no meanings at all as there hardly be anything in an organisation which has no meaning to someone or anyone because if something do not have a meaning then what would be a purpose to having that specific thing in an organisation. “35” could be anything, similarly everyone know what is the purpose of television but when someone talk about the it on an organisation level then it can be used in many terminologies like as, if you want to watch a football match you can go to the cafeteria or I am going on a video conference so television can also be used for video conferencing and television may also be used as a decoration piece in some corner of in an office.
I agree with Prof. Mark that they have meaning in mathematical terms and they exist in dictionary and it is wrong to say that they do not have any meaning at all.
My point is for a real life person yes they do have meanings but on an organisational level we don’t know in which perspective or in which terms these words going to be used unless some information is not attached with them.
Now I move myself a step forward to Information, according to Prof. Mark if I have a 35 inch television at my home, is information for Mr. Mark. Yes that’s true it’s information for Mr. Mark but I used this in terms of describing the full example as I said in my example this 35 inch television size is enough for our sitting room size which is 12 by 10 or whatever.
According to our last discussion we are agreed that it’s difficult to prove our point of view with the respect of generic examples from real life so it would be better if we stick to the examples from our organisation.

According to Prof. Mark “You wrote, "Knowledge is to understand the information and make our decision or judgement on the basis of information.". If the word "information" did not appear in the definition I'd be much happier.”

Sir don’t you think there are cases when people conclude something from the information provided on the basis of their knowledge. For example in Pakistan recently general elections took place and before the elections the stock market was down because investors wasn’t feeling comfortable with the existing political party who was in rule and as soon as results announced and the situation started getting clear about the opposition parties that they are coming in power now, the investors started investing again and now with in days stock market has done a record business in Pakistan history.
The reason why I have given this example is people knew the previous party who was in rule for last eight years wasn’t good enough and it wasn’t secure to invest money into the stock market and it was also a military rule in Pakistan (though this is a true fact about Pakistan that investment always come into Pakistan whenever there is a military rule rather then democracy and it’s the world power America who claims to bring democracy all over the world but they are one of the biggest supporters of military rule in Pakistan which is quite strange). So how did they decide not to invest though military ruling time is considered much secure in Pakistan, because of their knowledge as America is stepping back to support him.
Over all, my view about knowledge is, we can not make our decisions from the information provided all of the time with out the help of knowledge we do have.

According to Prof. Mark “You conclude by saying, "Over all data, information and knowledge are interchangeable. Data may be knowledge for someone and vice versa". (From what you write earlier about data/information/knowledge, I did not expect this conclusion, so you need to explain your position better.)”

Here I would like to give an example from my organisation. I work as a receptionist in my hotel and we keep a copy of a guest bill at reception and we call that copy a Reg Card. Reg card contains the guest information that when a guest checked in and when he/she will be checked out and all the payment details etc. In a case if some of the guest claims that he/she has prepaid his/her breakfast but that guest name is not on a breakfast list which is given to the restaurant department staff they come to the reception and ask us to confirm if that guest has pre paid or not.
We dig up that guest’s Reg Card and confirm the restaurant staff about pre payment.
If we give that Reg Card to the restaurant staff they won’t be able to understand how to confirm if the guest already has paid for his/her breakfast.
For us (Receptionist) that Reg Card is information but the same Reg Card is just data for Restaurant staff, similarly the breakfast report which is only relevant to the restaurant staff is just data for us (Receptionist) while that list is information for restaurant staff. So Data, Information and Knowledge are interchangeable.

Knowledge Management Definition (Reply back to Prof. Mark Woodman comments)

This blog is a reply to the comments given by Mr. Mark Woodman and Samir Sheikh to my blog under the topic name Knowledge Management Definition.

If I go back to the date when we discussed this topic (knowledge management definition) in our class I had two objections on existing definitions of knowledge management definitions. One of the objection was there is no generic definition of knowledge management as if not all of them but most of them talk about the knowledge management only on an organisation level which in my point of view is not right and this was the reason I come up with a generic definition which can be fit in any scenario.

I truly agree with professor Mark comments that I haven’t described the word “entity” which I have used in my definition.

Today in this blog first I would like to high light my views about the generic definition and also the word entity and then I will give the organisation level definition of knowledge Management.

First of all in my view, a definition is something which fits in all the scenarios rather than a specific one so this was the reason I didn’t stick only to the organisation level definition but tried to give a generic definition.

Secondly, the word entity which I have used in my definition means anything from this world (materialistic or non materialistic) has some characteristics associated with it. For example stars, galaxies, oceans, humans, animals etc so whatever you name, it has characteristics associated with it and these characteristic is some how a knowledge for someone. It may not necessarily be knowledge to some of us but it definitely has knowledge associated with it, that’s why I used a general word “entity” to describe it.

Now I come to my actual point in which I will give an organisation level definition of Knowledge Management which will be as follow

“Knowledge Management is the process of Knowledge Creation or refining the existing knowledge, Filtration, Storage and Dissemination of knowledge in an organisation.”

The only difference between the previous and this definition is, I have replaced the last part (any single entity of this universe) with knowledge in an organisation.

So the same definition can be generic only by changing one word “entity” with organisation.

Example:
In my organisation (Hotel) we encourage our guests to leave their comments (guest comments) to improve our services and quality, which they drop into the guest comments box which is located at reception.
Asking guests to enter the comments is knowledge creation and by using that knowledge; management refines/filter the knowledge provided by guests and use that refined/filtered knowledge to improve the quality of the services provided by my company. The management of my hotel input that filtered information in a form of a report which is storage of the knowledge and then that report is send to the head office. The head office examines that report closely and measures the necessary steps to prevent the common problems occurring in other branches which guests have commented.
The head office sends a memo to all the branches to adopt certain procedures to avoid the same or relevant problems which is dissemination.

Nonaka Knowledge Management (Criticism) Reply back to Prof. Mark Woodman comments

As I already have given my criticism on Nonaka knowledge management in my blog and here I am going to give a reply back to the comments which are given by Professor Mark Woodman.

Here I will reply to all the issues one by one.

Part1:
In this part I will discus the Nonaka Seci model in operation In hotel type organization.
According to Nonaka there are four different modes of knowledge conversion which are Socialization, Externalization, Internalization and Combination. All of these four modes revolve around Tacit or Explicit knowledge and here we will see how these different modes play an important role in my organization (hotel-type).

Though Nonaka didn’t describe precisely from which mode his model starts with but his spiral model pictures and literature starts with Socialization. It can also be another debate that from which mode someone will start implementing the model. According to my understanding it depends on organization to organization but I’ll start with Socialization as Nonaka has described.

Socialization:
This mode describes the conversion from individual tacit knowledge to group tacit knowledge.
My organization (hotel) is one of the industries where customer satisfaction is a main factor and every single employee is equally responsible to provide the best customer services. A hotel reception is a very first place from where a guest makes his/her mind about the quality so being as a receptionist it is also a very first place from where knowledge (tacit knowledge) starts by observing and interacting with guests.
This individual tacit knowledge converts to group tacit knowledge by sharing the knowledge with other staff people (Receptionists, house keeping, Restaurant and Management etc).

Externalization:
This mode describes the conversion from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.
In hotel industry the individual/group tacit knowledge which we employee share with each other bring new ideas and if those ideas are applicable, management converts them into the explicit form.

Combination:
This mode describes the conversion from separate explicit knowledge to systemic explicit knowledge.
My hotel is a multinational organization and having more then 100 branches nation wide. Explicit knowledge of one branch don’t stay or applicable to one and only that particular branch but that explicit knowledge shares through out all the branches via head office and then each and every branch look into it, if the applicability of that explicit knowledge is possible to that particular branch or not. In this way the separate explicit knowledge becomes the systemic explicit knowledge.

Internalization:
This mode describes the conversion from explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge.
As I have said we do have more then 100 branches nation wide and also operating overseas as well. Head office issue the orders (explicit knowledge) to all of the branches which comes to the General Manager of a branch and then general manager forward that order (explicitly or tacitly depends on the situation) to the managers and then managers inform their team members tacitly. This is how the explicit knowledge from head office in the form of a notice converts into tacit knowledge in a branch to the end employees through the team managers.

A Real Time Example:
My hotel (Premier Inn) has a standard uniform in which hotel provides shirts to their employees while employees wear their own trousers, in some cases employees also have given the trousers.
We have a trend of getting together once in every 3 or 4 month time and all the employees of one branch go outside for a party and we call this an even gathering.
In case of an event gathering, the employees from some other branch cover that branch that is going outside so employees from different branches get a chance to go to the other branches. Similarly we also went to another branch for a night shift which is located at M4/J4 (Motorway4/ junction4 Premier Inn) when they were out for an event.
The night when we were working in there, the GM of that branch was staying in the hotel after coming back from the party and we already been informed about him that he is going to stay in that hotel. Me and my colleague who is also my house mate we were working together in their and we always wear our own black suite with the company shirt. When GM arrived at hotel after attending the party he introduced himself to us and asked about the uniform if that suite is given by the company and he really appreciated that we look professionals by wearing our own suites and he will ask the company to provide the suites as a uniform to everyone.
So here all the conversation with GM is Socialization (which is the conversion from individual tacit knowledge to explicit tacit knowledge).
After that he forward a proposal to the head office about a new uniform in which he asked if a new uniform (black suite) can be introduced which calls Externalization (this is the conversion from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge).
Head office also appreciated that idea and issue notices to all of the company branches (GMs) in which company asked everyone to wearing a suite. This is Combination (this is the conversion from separate explicit knowledge to systemic explicit knowledge).
On a branch level GM’s issue notices to their team managers to enforce that everyone wears a suite and team managers informed all of their team members verbally that everyone should have to wear a suite from now which is Internalization (A conversion from explicit to tacit)

Part2:
In this part I will discus the terminology hard lines which I have used in my blog and also why the relevant knowledge must have to be explicit. Are there not circumstances where a new member of staff acquire knowledge by observing and copying what other staff does?

In my hotel, Premier Inn has a brand standard (the instruction which we must have to follow) and we can’t negotiate on brand standard. The brand standard is available in written form to all the employees all the time and they can consult that any time they want to so I used the word Hard Lined instead of brand standard.

My point was to high light those areas where we haven’t given any explicit material to consult, especially regarding to the information system usage. We been told only once how to use that system and that’s it, which is not enough to get know how about any system. It becomes really very crucial when there is a long queue at reception to check in and there is only one receptionist and no one else to assist that receptionist and not even any explicit material to consult with. It is also critical in terms of customer services as no one likes to wait for a long time at reception to get a room as professional people comes to the hotel at late night after their work.
So if we have all the necessary procedure in terms of information system usage available explicitly then it becomes easy to solve the information system related problems.

There are certain things which can be learnt by copying other staff members like as the formal greetings to the guests and to inform the hotel policy about their stay etc which is all verbal and it is also a communication skill rather then a technical skill.
In terms of information system usage it’s a technical skill and technical skills only can be gained after doing some practice, it can never be learnt by copying someone else.
It also becomes difficult for employees like us as we work on night shifts and some time its only one person who runs the hotel so if we have a problem we can’t acquire an immediate help.
In terms of using information system (especially for night staff who runs all the end of day reports and micros etc) it becomes more crucial where everything is dependent to another and getting stuck with one matter means you cant do anything else.
For example first of all we do the micros account posting (technical term which is relevant to information system) then the micros end of day. At 04:00 A.M we do the banking. If there is something wrong with the micros we cant run our banking so here it can be seen how important is it to having all the instruction explicitly available to avoid any kind of inconvenience.

Three things which I will and I will not do as a chief Knowledge of my company

People find new ways to find and fix the problems in their daily life routine. In our last seminar which actually was a café we have learnt a new way to figuring out the most common practices which we shouldn’t do as a chief knowledge officer rather then looking for the solution.
My today’s topic is first to find out three most common practices which I should avoid as a chief knowledge officer in my organisation and then the three practices which I should do by reversing the process which is also known as "Reverse Brainstorming" [1] [2] to manage the knowledge and also how beneficial the café practice was and what I have learnt from this practice during the last seminar.

I’ll start with three most common problems which I shouldn’t do as a chief knowledge officer. We are total 4 groups in our class and each group is of 6 people so each group came up with roughly 25 plus practices which should be avoided as a chief knowledge officer and then by voting each group choosed three most common practices which should be avoided and here I am going to present those three practices from all of the groups individually.

Group1: (our group)
No communication between people (they don’t like to communication with each other)
Not allowing employee’s to express their ideas (no creativity, stick to the procedures). Management don’t allow them to express or share their ideas.
No documentation of procedures/functions at all
[3]

Group2:
No communication strategy (intranet, internet & documentation)
No learning & development strategy
No identification of required knowledge

Group3:
No socialization & culture (no interaction, communication & culture)
No training (no storage, documentation, innovation & regulation training)
No training and development

Group4:
No information flow (no communication)
No improvement or performance
No system or tool

From the above group views it can be seen clearly that no communication concept should be avoided as a chief knowledge officer. The other practices differ from each group point of view while according to my understanding the other practices also have more or less the same meanings.”
Here in my opinion I will stick to the three practices which our group (group1) has stated and I will really avoid (group1) practices as a chief knowledge officer of my organisation.

Now I would like to come up with the three practices which I should do as a chief knowledge officer in my organisation by reversing the three practices which our group has stated in group1 which will be as follow

Communication between employees (encourage people to talk to each other)
Allowing employee’s to express their ideas (Management need to create an environment where employees can express & share their ideas)
Documentation of procedures/functions

Now I would like to express my views on how beneficial the café was and what I have learnt out of it.
It was very beneficial as each and every member of a group has a freedom to express his/her point of view with out having any scare of being rejected or being criticised. Usually people are afraid to express their ideas as they always afraid of the upcoming criticism but this café practice given everyone a chance to say whatever is in their minds, right or wrong. [3]
It was also good practice in a way that we have learnt a new style of communication by coming across with other group members by introducing ourselves to them and also knowing about other group members as well. We are here in this class for last 5 weeks but till before this cafe nobody knew more then other class mate names but this café practice at least given everyone a chance to learn a bit more about other group members.
Over all this café practice was fantastic and a very good practice which I have learnt out of this café is reversing the problem.
It won’t be wrong if I say it was kind of a practice which doctor’s suggest as CARE IS BETTER THEN CURE. The reversing practice minimize the chance of error as in this practice the most common problem already high lightened and it becomes in our mind before even those problem arise.

Here I would like to give an example from my organisation which is very much relevant to this reversing practice. In hotel industry we come across new faces everyday as new people checks in and out on daily basis. After working for some time in this kind of industry reception staff becomes a face reader to some extent and we conclude from the face or personality of a guest if he is kind of trouble making person and we don’t not give them a room in our hotel to these kind of people. As soon as some guest comes up to the reception we always think the worst scenario first (especially weekend youngster guests) that if this guest makes a trouble what would be the situation for us and for how many other guest which already staying with us we have to give the explanation and also refund their money back. So we don’t look at the business first but we look at the worst scenario and the end circumstances and we really avoid giving a room to those kinds of guests.
Here we decide first what we shouldn’t do before telling the availability of a room to the guest.

References:
[1] Cougar, J. D. 1995, Creative Problem Solving and opportunity finding, boyd & Fraser Publishing, Retrieved March 01, 2008.

[2] Reverse Brainstorming, A different approach to brainstorming related variant: "Negative Brainstorming", Retrieved March 01, 2008 from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_96.htm

[3] Kurt-martin Lugger, Herbert Kraus, 2001. Journal of Universal Computer Science: Mastering the Human Barriers in Knowledge Management, Vol. 7, No. 6 Retrieved March 01, 2008 from http://www.jukm.org/jucs_7_6/mastering_the_human_barriers/Lugger_K_M.pdf

Knowledge Management (Data, Information and Knowledge) waseem

Being as a common man anyone may not have ever considered that relation between Data, Information and Knowledge as it is the combination of symbols which may make some meaning to some of them while on the other hand don’t make any sense to another person but being as a student of this course this is the basic to get an understanding of knowledge management course.
Today I will try to discuss the difference & relationship among these three terminologies and, also will look at how data, information and knowledge play an important role in my organisation.
Though its too early to conclude something about the different notations used in knowledge management and knowledge management itself, but I have observed that its totally a mind game and all depends on your understanding that how you observe your daily life in your organisation and how you perform your duties by utilizing your skills to maximize the productivity for your organisation.

Data
It is just symbols which don’t necessarily make any sense or meanings itself [1]
e.g “35” “Television” “Colour”
“0700” “Train” “London”
“84” “Rooms” “Hotel”

Information
When we put data into a context which makes a clear understanding & meaning to it, call information. [2]
e.g we have a 35 inch colour television at our home.
First train to London is at 0700 A.M.
There are 84 rooms in premier inn where I work.

Knowledge
is to understand the information and make our decision or judgement on the basis of information.It depends how do we perceive something and varies from person to person according to their understandings. [3]

e.g we need “sky box” to watch the television at our home or we need to put an antenna at the top of our roof to watch the free channels. We are making these decisions because of the knowledge we have and if we don’t have the knowledge then we won’t be able to make these decisions.
My university starts at 0900 A.M and it takes me 2 hours to go to the university and it takes me an hour to go to London which is at half way to the university so I’ll be on time if I catch the 0700 A.M train. Here I can make my decision about the train timings only on the basis of my knowledge and calculating the time is also my knowledge which I am utilizing to be on time in my class.
The hotel where I work has 84 rooms and during the week days our hotel is 100% guaranteed full that’s why we recommend our regular guest to make an early reservation to avoid any sort of problem. If some regular guest makes a late reservation and there is no room available then by using our knowledge we overbook the hotel to a certain extent as we know there will be some late cancellation and we can accommodate our late reservation guests to a certain number of rooms.

Everyone should agree with the definitions of Data, Information and Knowledge separately without applying them on any organisation or in any scenario. Data, information and Knowledge separately are understandable for anyone but it makes a difference when we apply them in any organisation or try to apply them in any real life scenario and their meanings become different for everyone according to their understandings. [4]
For example in my hotel my company provides a good night guarantee which means any guest can have their money back if they are not satisfied with the hotel services and this process calls invocation. If any of the guest invocate we fill a report on our system and submit it. To fill in the report we collect data from the guest reservation such as guest name, which employee checked in that guest, guest address, contact no and how the guest has refunded (cash or credit/debit card) and also the refunded amount.
The data which we get from the gust reservation do not make any sense individually but when we put that data on the report it becomes information to us and to the management as well then the management makes a decision either that person complaint was genuine or he/she invocated just to get his/her money back. By checking his/her previous record it becomes clear that how many times that particular guest has invocated in past and by using knowledge the hotel management makes a decision either to allow that guest to stay with the hotel in future or not.

A guest detail (data) helps us to make a report (information) on which basis decision (knowledge) makes. For front desk (reception) it’s easy to understand the data and to enter that data on report form but if we ask the hotel restaurant department they wouldn’t be able to collect that data and hence they need knowledge first to get an understanding about the data and how to fill in the invocation report.

Over all data, information and knowledge are interchangeable/relative. Data may be knowledge for someone and vice verse. [4] [5]
During the seminar all of the other groups mentioned this is a one dimension process (data, information and knowledge) but its not, it can be in any direction like as in the following diagram.

References:

[1] Malmberg, P. 2006, Scientific Proceedings: European Productivity Conference (EPC, 2006), Retrieved March 02, 2008 from http://www.epc2006.fi/EPC_Scientific_Proceedings.pdf#page=31

[2] Thomas, H. Davenport & Prusak, L. 1998, Working Knowledge: How Organisations Manage What They Know, A Book Summary by Jyrki J.J. Kasvi, Retrieved 28, February 2008 from http://www.knowledge.hut.fi/projects/itss/referDavenport.pdf

[3] Rowley, J. Feburary 15, 2007, Journal of Information Science, The Wisdon Hierarchy: Representations of the DIKW Hierarchy, Sage Publications, Retrieved February 28, 2008 from http://jis.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/33/2/163

[4] Ganesh D. Bhatt 2001, Knowledge Management in Organizations: Examining the Interaction between Technologies, Techniques and People, Volume 5, Issue 1, Retrieved February 28, 2008 from http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewPDF.jsp?Filename=html/Output/Published/EmeraldFullTextArticle/Pdf/2300050106.pdf

[5] Liew, A. June 2007, Journal of Knowledge Management Practice: Understanding Data, Information, Knowledge and Their Inter-Relationships, Vol. 8, No. 2, Retrieved February 28, 2008 from http://www.tlainc.com/articl134.htm

Bibliography:

1. Retrieved February 13, 2008, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/ict/databases/0datainforev1.shtml
2. Retrieved Feburary 13, 2008, from http://www.systems-thinking.org/dikw/dikw.htm

Trace back:
A reply to Prof. Mark Woodman can be found from the following link
http://waseemknowledgemanagement.blogspot.com/2008/02/knowledge-management-data-information_24.html

Knowledge Management Definition (Waseem)

To get an understanding about something it is important to get the understanding of the definition of that particular field, item or entity etc.
My today’s topic is to get the understanding of knowledge management definition and to see if any of the existing definition fits in all the scenarios and if it is not than what will be the one or if any of the existing lacks something in it then how it can be generic so that it describes universally.
Knowledge management is the field where nothing is hard lined and intellectuals have different opinions. As Maier, A. (2007) said "Knowledge Management is still a young field with multidisciplinary roots. thus, it is not surprising that there seems to be almost as many definitions to the term than there are approaches or "schools" of authors contributing to the field" [1]. According to the World Wide Web definitions of knowledge management [2] it’s the process of Knowledge Creation, Storage and Dissemination in an organisation.
More or less all of the definitions talks about the knowledge management on an organisation level only and there is no universal definition which can fit every where [3].
In my view each and every entity of this universe has some characteristics which have already defined and some has yet to be explored and defined. Here I would like to categorise this in two parts, first one is in which the characteristics has already defined. In this part these defined characteristics may need to be refined and in second part I consider those which have yet to be defined. So refining the existing characteristics or defining those which has yet to be explored is the knowledge creation.
Web definitions of knowledge management process missing one essential part in between knowledge creation and storage. These definitions don’t describe anything that who will verify that the created knowledge is really the creation of the knowledge so I would like to give a definition to the knowledge management which will be as follow

“Knowledge Management is the process of Knowledge Creation or refining the existing knowledge, Filtration, Storage and Dissemination of any single entity of this universe.”

References:

[1] Maier, R. 2007, Knowledge Management Systems: Information and communication technologies for Knowledge Mangement, Third Edition, spring publisher, Retrieved March 02, 2008 from http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=r5pAHIN1ChwC&oi=fnd&pg=PP7&dq=universal+definition+of+knowledge+management&ots=yz920zJVl6&sig=ivpAwfc7RAFAbViPZ4vZ4tRX3Cs#PPA52,M1

[2] Definitions of Knowledge Management on the Web: Retrieved February 06, 2008, from http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:Knowledge+Management&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

[3] Remenyi, D. November 2001, Second European Conference on Knowledge Management, Academic Conferences Limited publisher, Retrieved March 02, 2008 from http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MEDSnYpaKr0C&pg=PA631&lpg=PA631&dq=is+there+a+universal+definition+of+knowledge+management&source=web&ots=B3aWyyJY3a&sig=cy8cH2soK5_ltMJD-NSKYjuyMR0&hl=en#PPA631,M1

Trace back:
A reply to Prof. Mark Woodman comments can be found from the following link
http://waseemknowledgemanagement.blogspot.com/2008/02/knowledge-management-definition-reply.html