Intelligent Enterprise

The Knowledge Management Cluster is a network of experts on the much maligned topic of knowledge management. On September 27, at a meeting in San Francisco, Ross Dawson, CEO of consulting firm Advanced Human Technologies, was scheduled to speak on the subject of "Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships: Leadership In Professional Services." Optimize spoke to him beforehand. (For other conferences, see its Web site.

Although KM may not be highly regarded, Dawson, who splits his time between San Francisco and Sydney, still defends it, citing its importance in supporting the connected economy and social network analysis and noting the value of more-recent technologies such as XML and Web services in achieving it.

Q: Is knowledge management defunct?

A: Not quite, but close. KM emerged in the mid-1990s, with the idea that knowledge is our most valuable resource and that we need to make it more productive. Then the term was taken over by the technology vendors that shaped the whole hype cycle. The problem with KM—besides its being an unwieldy term—is that there's no intrinsic value in managing knowledge. The term itself isn't outcome- or business-oriented.

I've really tried to extricate myself from it. I believe there are five ways of looking at the issues unearthed by KM: social networks, collaboration, data relevance, workflow, and knowledge-based relationships. These are all outcome-oriented, and executives understand them. To me, it doesn't make sense to keep bundling these items as KM. It's a term that has lost its usefulness.

Q: What do you mean by social networks?

A: That looks at the relationships between entities, not just people. The security agencies of the world are using network approaches to find the relationships between people and places and entities. This is where technology is being applied to homeland security.

Q: What about business intelligence? Doesn't that fit into KM?

A: I look at BI as analysis of large amounts of data—data mining, as it were. That's the real power of computers. They can work with large data sets and pick out some patterns. I agree that there are some limits to the insights, but computers are increasingly getting better at pattern recognition.

Pattern recognition is an interesting domain. This is one place where humans reign supreme, because we can recognize patterns across a whole array of information sources. When you move into large amounts of data, as opposed to many sources, that's where computers get the edge and where BI is working better.

To bring those two thoughts together, there are also BI tools using large data sets that help you identify relationships that are not initially visible. That's useful not only for fraud detection but also for customer prospecting.

Q: Can you provide an example?

A: In financial services, you can use BI tools to determine, based on someone's purchase patterns, if that person is a prospect for wealth management offers.

Q: It seems as if one of the challenges here is the inevitable collision between companies that want to collect information and consumers who want to keep it private.

A: Privacy really is one of the driving dimensions in the future of business and society. All other things being equal, people prefer that their information not be made available. But commercial organizations must do something to demonstrate that there's value in giving up some privacy. Look at Amazon: If you accept cookies, you get recommendations in return. People are generally open to this, and you don't need to offer much before they're willing to give up information about themselves. Given that demonstrated willingness to give up information for a very small reward, more information is likely to become available about people.

Q: That actually brings up an interesting point about technology—it seems that there's so much more that can be done with technology in terms of collecting valid and valuable information. Would you agree that we're really in the Model T era of what's possible?

A: Absolutely. The ability to recognize patterns is advancing at a rapid pace. In terms of applying that to business intelligence, one issue is the ability to acquire the data, given what we've discussed about privacy. You not only have to ensure access to information but you also have to be sure that that it's clean and that it's captured properly and appropriately. v

One example today is behavioral analysis. What patterns do people follow when they walk down supermarket aisles? Giving the diminishing cost of data storage and the increasing availability of computer power, there are far, far richer things that can be done.

Q: So what we're saying is that knowledge management—whatever you decide to call it—isn't really dead; it's in its infancy.

A: That's why I include workflow in my list of important aspects of knowledge management. Think about the idea of taking different data sets and integrating them, such as a Google map showing gas stations and a query for finding them. This goes back to the network analysis idea, in which you take different data sets and bring them together for a new use that's more meaningful.

Q: You also include professional services; in fact, you wrote a book calledDeveloping Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, The Future of Professional Services (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000). How does that relate?

A: Professional services is making up more and more of the economy. Besides lawyers, accountants, and consultants, it includes anybody in technology—hardware or software development, or coding. All these people have specialized knowledge, and they all have clients, whether they are external or internal.

Meanwhile, the drive of technology and science means we must become increasingly specialized, which, in turn, means that no professional can stand alone. Each one must work with other professionals to create something valuable. So how do they become aware of each other so they can collaborate? That's a knowledge-based service—something customized by a combination of the knowledge of both the client and the professional.

Q: That sounds like IT.

A: That's right, and it's the future of professional services and the entire economy. The professional as knowledge specialist is always engaging in knowledge-based relationships that require knowledge management and collaboration.

Related Links:

Modernizing Knowledge Management

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