Author Archives: Claire Laybats

World Library and Information Conference review

Author: Hal Kirkwood, Bodleian Business Librarian, Said Business School, University of Oxford. President, Special Lib Assoc. 2019 and BIR Editorial Board member

In August I attended the World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) in Athens, Greece.  It was my first ever attendance at this global meeting of librarians and information professionals with over 3000 attendees from 140 countries.  IFLA is a rather complicated organization of strategic programmes, sections, divisions, and special interest groups with the purpose of representing the interests of library and information science services and their users.  The development and support of libraries and librarians around the globe is a key focus of IFLA activities.

The Congress was an interesting and engaging event with its theme of Dialogue for Change resonating throughout the keynotes and sessions.  Starting out with the Newcomers Session I learned about the ins and outs of the Congress; the ability to sit in and observe any meetings; and the scope of all of the different entities within IFLA.  The sessions I attended consisted of a mix of business meetings and content-focused presentations.  Focus on the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) filled the programme over the course of the weeklong event.  It was fascinating to see librarians from all over the world presenting on the many common challenges that libraries struggle with collection development, information literacy, technology impact, and costs while at the same time presenting on very unique situations due to geographic, cultural, or political factors. From protecting cultural heritage to providing offline access to the Internet to supporting disabled library visitors to dealing with the variety of global copyright regulations, the variation went on and on.

One of the most impressive events held during the Congress was the poster event with almost 200 posters presented covering such a wide array of topics and issues.  The scope and scale made this an information rich event to attend and showed off a tremendous level of experience and creativity. Browsing through the rows of posters and hearing each presenter explain their challenges and solutions put the diversity and depth of information professionals on full display.  Many of these librarians should consider taking their ideas a step further to write a full article on their experiences, struggles, and solutions.  The information profession will be the better for it if they were to share their accomplishments.

An amazing cultural event was held at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center for all of the attendees.  The event included a variety of food and cultural entertainment all at an amazing center that houses the opera as well as a portion of the national library.  The building itself is a stunning architectural achievement with gorgeous views of the coastline along with extensive gardens to walk through that are integrated into the overall design of the building.  It was truly something to be experienced.

Two of the most notable actions to come out of the IFLA Congress is the Library Map of the World and the Ideas Store.  The Library Map of the World https://librarymap.ifla.org/ is a data-rich graphical view of libraries and library statistics around the world.  An additional layer includes specific stories on how libraries are connecting with the UN’s SDGs to meet local development needs.  It is a very interesting project that can only benefit by additional libraries and associations joining in to provide access to broader and deeper data.  The Ideas Store https://ideas.ifla.org/ is a growing collection of ideas about libraries and information literacy to inspire and instigate action.  The Store allows you to filter by Opportunities, Idea Groups, Countries, and Regions to explore the 1200 ideas currently available.

Attending IFLA was an eye-opening experience in seeing what so many information professionals and librarians are working towards in their own regions, countries, and libraries.  The expansion and increased access to information will inevitably create greater opportunities for multitudes of people around the globe.  If you have the chance consider attending an upcoming IFLA World Congress to see the true scope of libraries and librarians.

Paul Corney – a very worthy winner of the 2019 K&IM Walford Award

Author: Denise Carter, Decision Consult and BIR Editorial Board Member

In these strange and turbulent times, we definitely need to take the time to celebrate those people who are doing excellent work. As a member of the BIR editorial board it is with pleasure that I can write one of the BIR’s frequent contributers, Paul Corney, Knowledge et al, has been awarded the 2019 K&IM Walford Award.  The Award is presented annually to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of knowledge management and/or information management. Previous winners include David Gurteen and Sue Lacey-Bryant.  As a well-respected Knowledge Management (KM) expert and guru who has certinaly made an outstanding contribution to knowledge management services, Paul is a very worthy recipient of this year’s award. 

Paul is dedicated to improving professional recognition of KM. In particular he has been recognised for his selfless i support of CILIP in its aim of becoming the UK and International professional body for KM. He  has been committed and tireless in promoting CILIP’s initiatives not only in the UK but also abroad – particularly in the Far and Middle East where he is recognised as a KM leader and has a high profile. Paul has worked as CILIP K&IM Ambassador since end of 2017. He has worked incredibly hard with CILIP to realise the K&IM Chartership as a valid option for professional registration for information professionals. By using his network and connections he opened doors for CILIP to speak to the right people at the beginning of the process and understand that there was an appetite for a Chartered KM professional qualification.

As part of the KM Chartership project board he has been able to ensure that the new programme avoids the pitfalls of some other attempts by other organisations in this space. He has also continued to promote and discuss the KM Chartership within the KM community worldwide and engage other influential Knowledge Managers to become involved with CILIP in speaking at conferences, and potentially acting as mentors or assessors for the new KM Chartership programme. He is always willing himself to mentor and nurture others in their KM work.

Along with his recent articles for BIR, Paul has written several books on KM. The most recent are Navigating the Minefield and the KM Cookbook published by Facet. In Navigating the Minefield, Paul provides a range of realistic up-to-date examples both on how to start KM in an organisation and also how to sustain KM. The examples are drawn from 18 KM programmes  from diverse organisations from across the world and provide great stories to encourage KM in organisations and there are useful anecdotes that can be re-used to sell KM in organisations. The KM Cookbook is presented in an engaging way and includes big name KM case studies and references to the appropriate parts of the ISO/BSI KM standard. As a member of the BSI KM Committee, Paul has been able to draw on his internal knowledge of the standard and its process.

BIR call for editorial board members

BIR is seeking members to join its  Editorial Board, alongside the Co-Editors of the journal. Responsibilities of the Editorial Board include:

Encouraging submissions: Encouraging quality submissions to Business Information Review helps the journal to grow in quality and reputation. As the journal is substantially based on commissioned content, an active member of the board would proactively speak to colleagues within their networks and regions to commission quality content for the journal. Please consider submitting a paper yourself to the Journal and actively encourage those you work with to

Suggesting special issues, ‘hot topics’ and review articles: Hot topics and/or review/special issues can attract more readers and citations to the Journal. If you spot any trends or areas that might help raise the profile or benefit Business Information Review please let the editors know your suggestions or submit  your own for consideration. If you know of any colleagues best suited to a ‘hot topic’ or theme, please reach out to them to see if they would be interested in participating or curating a special issue.

Encouraging usage of the Journal: Encouraging your faculty, students and other professionals to use the Journal helps librarians to decide to retain/subscribe to the Journal at your

Encouraging your institution to subscribe to the Journal: If based at an institution and it does not already subscribe, please recommend Business Information Review to your Subscriptions ensure the Journal’s commercial success and increased circulation means increased usage and citations.

Participating in board meetings: By attending board meetings we can work together to develop the Journal. Your attendance at each meeting, feedback and experience as an editorial board member are central to informing decisions about the future of the Journal. If you cannot attend please send your feedback to the Editors or

Promoting the Journal at conferences: If you are attending any conferences and would like to take copies of the Journal, or promotional business cards, please contact the Publisher and they can arrange for these to be sent to Networking with colleagues and those in similar research and professional fields about the journal is imperative to the development and proliferation of Business Information Review.

Applications are welcome from well-networked practitioners and academics in the field of information provision and management. Those interested in submitting an application should send an up-to-date CV with a statement outlining their reasons for wanting to join the Editorial Board. Being a member entitles you to a gratis online subscription to the Journal.

All enquiries, expressions of interest and applications should be directed via email to:

Claire Laybats and Luke Tredinnick, Co-Editors

Email: businessinformationreviewj@gmail.com

BIR September Issue

Our latest issue sees the publication of the 2019 Business Information Review Annual Survey. The BIR Annual Survey is the worlds’ longest running research into trends within the business information sector. Since 1991, it has provided an invaluable guide to emerging issues, changing technologies and professional values. The 2019 survey is the fourth written and researched by Denise Carter of DCision Consult. Some of the key themes that have emerged in this year’s survey include the following.

  1. The challenges of new and emerging tools and technologies and ensuring organizations have the right skills to manage these effectively.
  2. The potential for Information Professionals to become the organizational strategic advisor for data and information across the whole organization.
  3. Whether Information Professionals still view themselves as subservient in organizational relationships, and whether they feel their role is to answer queries reactively or to proactively provide data that provoke new discussions and questions.
  4. The integrity and ethics of data: where data come from, how it is manipulated and whether good ethical standards in data management will become fundamental in the future.
  5. The increasing importance of information literacy.

The BIR Annual Survey has now been running for 29 years. From its inception, it was recognized that the survey might reveal useful longitudinal data about trends and changes in the profession. However, aside from a brief review of the first 10 years published in 2000, no comprehensive review of the surveys has taken place. The second paper in this issue addresses this gap. The first of a two-part review of 29 years of the annual survey, it explores in particular the way in which technological change has been tracked by the research over time, and what this reveals about the role of emerging technology in the profession. The second part of this review will be published in the December issue.

Our third paper, this issue was written by Eddie Collins and Delphine Phillips of Integreon. Entitled ‘Automation – It Does Involve People’ the paper explores the benefits of Robotic Process Automation – software that can be used to mimic repetitive administrative tasks that traditionally require human intervention, such as data transfer. The final paper is entitled ‘The Impact of Business Intelligence Through Knowledge Management’ and was written by Wassila Bouaoula, Farid Belgoum, Arifusalam Shaikh, Mohammed Taleb-Berrouane and Carlos Bazan. The paper explores the uses of Business Intelligence tools in Knowledge Management.

Best Paper Prize 2018

We’re pleased in this issue to announce the winner of the Business Information Review Best Paper Prize 2018. The prize is awarded to the research or professional paper judged by the editorial board and editors as the most successful, interesting or relevant over the course of the preceding year. A number of papers stood-out over the course of the year, including Mark West and Delphine Philips’s ‘Exploring the future of Business Information Services in the financial sector’ published in March, 2018, and Hal Kirkwood’s ‘The current state of artificial intelligence and the information profession’ published in March, 2018. However, the 2018 Best Paper Prize has been awarded to Andrew Lambe, Fiona Anthoney and Jo Shaw’s paper ‘One Door Closes, Another Opens: Surviving and Thriving Through Organizational Restructure by Ensuring Knowledge Continuity’ published in December, 2018.

The paper addresses the experience knowledge continuity and organizational memory during NHS England’s organizational restructuring in 2015. It recounts the approach taken by the Knowledge and Intelligence team of the Sustainable Improvement team at securing organizational knowledge following the Smith Review of Improvement and Leadership Development in the National Health Service and its consequences, charting the stages in the migration of content, the development of new retrieval tools and the development of a new knowledge service. It provides an interesting and highly relevant case study, and we are very happy to award it the BIR Best Paper Prize 2018.

BIR Annual Survey – Key Themes 2 : The information professional as a strategic advisor

Another of the key themes from this years’ BIR annual survey brings up the increasingly important aspect of the information managers role as strategic advisor to the organisation. We have all seen that information and mis-information can have a huge impact on an organisation’s operations and strategy, now with the increasing need to gain value from data and bring together internal and external data and information everything just got a lot more complex.

We have long talked about the importance of the information professional to the organisation but in this perfect storm of information and data it’s time to take those ideas, skills and knowledge to the next level.

Corporate strategy is key and core to the organisation but what is that strategy built on? Market data, competitive intelligence, internal research and development data, financial information and news to name just a few.  The information team with their wealth of experience, knowledge and skills in research, information management, information and data literacy are more than qualified to play an important role in ensuring that the right information (read reliable, trusted and validated) is available to those developing and planning the corporate strategy and that that information is kept up to date and relevant to help evolve the strategy as needed.

Technology is a closely linked partner in effective information management and information professionals are increasingly required to have skills and knowledge to assess what technology and automation services are appropriate for their departments to operate in increasingly demanding environments. A number of organisations I have spoken with recently are considering intelligence tools or add ons to existing systems to help optimise their workload ensuring that they can concentrate on providing the best value add service to the organisation.

So with advising on and management of information sources and licensing, introduction of data content management, challenges around gaining benefits from an increasingly vast source of unstructured content and considering what technology and when to implement it to enhance effective information management I think it is fair to say that information professionals can indeed be considered as strategic advisors to the organisation.  The challenge sometimes is communicating the importance of the information professionals skills and knowledge to executive leadership so that they also see information professionals as a key strategic advisor to support and facilitate their objectives and goals for the future.

Find out more about what our respondents thought on this in the annual BIR survey published in September.

The issue of personalisation and its impact on KM

Author Hal Kirkwood BIR Board member, Bodleian Business Librarian, Said Business School, University of Oxford. President, Special Lib Assoc. 2019

The current state of affairs was on full display at the last (November 2018) KM World Conference in Washington DC.  I had the opportunity to attend for several days to see first-hand what is happening in the knowledge management realm.  There were many themes prevalent throughout the conference; each day consisted of 3 tracks. The Day One tracks focused on KM & Culture, Digital Workspaces, KM Tools & Tech.  Day Two tracks focused on Knowledge-Sharing Processes, Content Management, and KM Culture & Collaboration.  Key takeaways and themes were the importance of collaboration; identifying the right tools to fit the problem and your organization’s culture; designing environments, both physical and virtual, for employees and clients; determining how to transfer knowledge; developing information ecosystems; and the implementation and impact of artificial intelligence and machine learning.  The clear underlying theme is the continuing intersection of people and technology.

One aspect that is gaining traction into KM is personalization; utilizing individual user data to provide a more focused recommendation or timely suggestion. Technology, in conjunction with access to massive amounts of data, is driving momentum towards ever greater personalization.  Personalization, not customization.  Consumers become weary of making choices when these systems can make relevant choices for them based on their prior experiences.  Consumers are showing preferences towards companies that provide effective, relevant personalization.  However, since knowledge management focuses on the internal management of a company’s knowledge personalization at the employee level has been slower to develop.

Personalization has primarily been within the purview of marketing and consumer buying habits.  The power of personalization relies on a combination of data that was once inaccessible; namely geolocation crossed with purchasing habits.  It has become especially powerful when the immediacy of time is included to deliver personalized information and recommendations to a potential customer at the most optimal moment to affect their behavior.  Artificial intelligence and machine learning will make significant inroads in the personalization strategies of companies marketing plans to provide more focused experiences for customers.  1

The challenge for many companies is to scale this personalization to the masses.  AI and machine learning will increase the capacity to track multiple data points for larger numbers of customers. This will increase the expectation of customers for improving levels of service that meet their exact needs and requirements.  Evidence shows that it is highly successful when implemented in increasing sales and customer satisfaction. but that most companies are not implementing it.

Every company is now looking for ways to gather customer data that can be used to make more informed, and more specific, decisions on individuals.  Many companies are also capturing terabytes of data on customer behavior to then sell to businesses for this very reason. There is the issue however, that the attempt at personalization will be wrong based on the AI processing poor or inaccurate information.  As personalization becomes more accurate, and more ubiquitous, it will seem all the more glaring when AI-driven personalization is incorrect. Consumers are likely to feel more uncomfortable about what data is ‘out there’ on them and its accuracy, or lack thereof.  This is a complicated issue of human perception of technologically driven services.  How much control we have over all of this data is also a major concern.  In Europe, GDPR is beginning to make an impact by providing consumers with more control over what data is collected and how it is used.  It remains to be seen how exactly this will impact the data collection and utilization process. Many consumers, when surveyed, approve of the use of their data if they will receive a tangible benefit. There are some conversations taking place about implementing some form of GDPR in the United States, but little in the way of concrete details have provided.

Companies such as Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, and several other key companies are pursuing, and leading, the development of even greater data collection to develop ever more enhanced services for individuals.  Areas like physical fitness, healthcare, and personal finance are becoming driven by apps that collect personal data to then provide recommendations relevant to an individual’s life.  Consumers will allow themselves to be tracked in this way because of the return on investment of their personal data.

The majority of personalization development has been in the B2C marketplace; there will likely be increased demand for it on the B2B side.  The key element will be systems that collect client-level data that can be assessed by AI applications.  Many companies are moving into this to deliver solutions for collecting and analyzing data.  Business intelligence systems will develop as AI and machine learning are layered into them for much greater personalization of services and deliveries to corporate clientele. Companies must make the choice to implement an AI-based system to drive their decisions.  Not an easy task when it often requires a significant operational and cultural shift in how they conduct business.  Companies making this decision are likely to benefit but must be wary of the myriad pitfalls.  What ramifications this will have on the competitiveness of companies and markets, as well as within the broader business information environment still remains to be seen.

2018 a year of welcome, congratulations and goodbyes at BIR

We are just in to 2019 and already we are looking at papers and planning for the end of the year! Reflecting on how quickly things move along I thought it would be good to look back at what had happened at BIR in 2018.

It certainly wasn’t a dull year.  We had a number of editorial board member changes and were pleased to welcome Hal Kirkwood to the team who has just taken up the post of SLA President for 2019 in addition to his work with BIR and his day job as Bodleian Business Librarian at Oxford University.  We’d like to wish Hal all the best and congratulations in his new post as President of SLA.

Congratulations are also due to a past editor of BIR, Sandra Ward.  Sandra was awarded CILIP’s highest honour, an honorary fellowship in recognition of her work and many contributions to the information profession throughout her career.  In their November newsletter CILIP said “ We are also delighted to announce that Dr Sandra Ward has been recognised by CILIP for her many contributions to the Information Profession throughout her career and particularly for her fantastic contribution to CILIP’s Knowledge and Information Management Project and the launch of the Knowledge & Information Management Special Interest Group”. Congratulations Sandra from all of us here at BIR.

Thanks should also go to our board members who have retired from the board this year, Martin White and Penny Leach for their support and contributions to the journal.

We have also added to our awards section, encouraging both those starting in their career as well as the more experienced members of the profession to develop their skills and knowledge and write for the journal and be considered for one of our annual best paper prizes.  We will shortly announce the winner for 2018’s best paper prize and are actively encouraging early career professionals (first or second jobbers) to submit papers to be considered for our Early Career paper prize (launched at the end of last year) which we hope to be assessing towards the end of 2019.

Emerging technology and content buying

Author: Penny Leach, Associate Director, EBRD, and BIR Editorial Board Member

Please note this post contains the personal views of the author and are not connected with her employer.

Emerging technology and innovation are impacting content buying – and selling – in multiple ways.  This was the conclusion of a lively session held at the SLA Conference this year.  The situationis evolving rapidly, with varying levels of appetite and capacity to optimise the exciting opportunities.  As is so often the case, collaboration between multiple parties is more likely to lead to success, makingthe most of harnessing data in ways thatfree human intelligence for more value-add activity, and create appropriate commercial models.  However there are challenges and concerns – the fear of unknown costs, of loss of control over proprietary content,of missing out (and being disenfranchised) due to a lack of knowledge or resource and appropriate infrastructure, raising both private and public sector concerns.

The SLA Conference this year was held in Baltimore in June.  The Conference is a great way to meet other information professionals and other members of the information community from across the globe and build better connections in person.   Every year the SLA Leadership & Management Division’s Content Buying Section brings together an experienced panel representing different approaches in thecommunity of content of vendors and buyers, to provide reality-based insight.   This year the panellists were Amy Davis, Senior External Content Advisor at EY; Tim Baker, Global Head of Innovation at Thomson Reuters (now Refinitiv); and Bill Noorlander, Director of BST America (Conference sponsor).

The panel focussed on four emerging technologies that are creating content and new ways of deriving value from content: the Internet of Things (IoT); Data Analytics; Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics Process Automation (RPA).  Early on, the largely buyside audience was reminded that content is not normally for sale but rather is leased for specific purposes – hence the complex contractual terms that are needed to protect all parties (content creator, provider and user).

Several themes emerged from the discussion,and from audience questions during the interactive session.  Generally the new content and technologiesare seen to enable several kinds of ‘smarter’, such as better client experience when deploying more visual and user-friendly products, more machine-ready data that customers can use in their own apps, and more efficient companies using their own data effectively to reduce cost (automated processes) and add value (e.g. finding more content to enrich products).

There is increasing usage of sensor-based devices in personal, industrial and civic applications (IoT).  This is creating new and extremely high volume data streams to add to the fast-growing mass of structured and unstructured data that isalready part of our digitised world.  This data ‘exhaust’, as a by-product of core businesses, offers opportunities for monetisation – for example in the financial sector– but with caveats that (as ever) mean ‘free’ is not really the case.  These alternative data sets are messy, fragmented, lack standardisation and history, and are hard both to use effectively (signals can be weak),  and to price.   For vendors, it is costly to develop and maintain new commercial offerings where client needs might be very specific.  There are hurdles, too, around data privacy and ownership, and legal terms such as the definition of users.  ‘Bots’ for example, one of the tools created by AI and an example of RPA that can free humans from repetitive tasks, may be prohibited by legacy contracts.   And just how do you count ‘eyeballs’ and fingertips?

On the buy side, the panellists concurred that it is better if multiple stakeholders are at the table – information professionals familiar with content licensing and the concept of reference interviews to articulate data needs, IT, procurement, legal advisors, and of course, the business process owners – to determine the requirement, negotiate new or amended license rights, match price to available budgets, and finally but not least, implement the new tools.

New players are emerging- new intermediary service companies such as data  ‘wranglers’ as data science and analytics skills (e.g., Quandl)  and new roles such as Chief Data Officers (CDO). More tools are needed to commoditise processes to reduce development costs and to deal with challenges.  Blockchain for example may help with the tracking of data elements.  As ever, watch this space!

Realising the value of data – Third Theme in our BIR Annual Survey

This is the third in our series of themes from the latest BIR annual survey.  The value of data is something that is constantly being discussed within organisations – How do we make the most of the data we have? How do we realise the benefits?  How do we know what we know? how do we commercialise it?

All are interesting questions and equally important.  Since the rise in popularity of ‘big data’ which started around 2005,   (we have been focussed on collating data for much longer than that but technological advancements that culminated around this time gave rise to the possibilities of gathering and making use of large and potentially disparate data sets), organisations have been increasingly looking at gathering data – on their customers, on their competitors, markets, business environments to name a few.  Within this time organisations have also been trying to figure out how they can realise the value of the data they have gathered.  Even today with advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) organisations are still struggling to assess the value of data.  If it is done correctly it can help inform strategy and investment in future business assets and acquisitions, if it is not then it can be very costly indeed.  There are a number of ways for looking at how to measure the value of data but at this time none are accepted as the way forward.

McKinsey have written articles and conducted research in this area.  They have found that those organisations that are able to leverage customer insights to inform and improve the business are out performing peers by 85% in business growth and sales.  McKinsey note that most organisations find it difficult to realise the potential value of their data because of different technologies, legacy systems and siloed working meaning that data is fragmented all over the place.  It is this situation in particular that hinders organisations taking real advantage of the data they already hold and can lead many into investing externally into research and competitive analysis in order to leverage value from data.

What is the answer?  You the information professional are the key to the answer.  An understanding of search, location and structure of the internal data as well as the context in which it was found and stored is vital to making sense of the wealth of data an organisation holds.  Jinfo reported on the importance of the information professional in Data Analytics – ready your information service (see references below) looking at the importance of source expertise for gathering and analysing external data. In gathering and analysing data context and source are key to providing accurate insights to inform organisational strategy.

Read more about what information teams are considering and doing today to have an impact on data value in our annual research report published in September’s issue.

References

https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/your-data-is-worth-more-than-you-think/

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/our-insights/capturing-value-from-your-customer-data

https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/big-data-analytics/how-valuable-is-your-companys-data/a/d-id/1331246

Data analytics – ready your information service https://web.jinfo.com/go/sub/report/2760

 

On hollowing out….

Author: Stephen Phillips, Executive Director Morgan Stanley and BIS Editorial Board Member

Please note this post contains the personal views of the author and are not connected with his employer.

Earlier this year Stephen Dale wrote a fascinating article on corporate memory for the May edition: “Are we destined to forget everything we already know”.  As I reflected on his narrative, I felt the need to explore this topic further, as organisations appear to have become “hollowed out” as they focus on cost to deliver short-term efficiency and opportunity.

I also felt the need to re-interpret some of the terminology used to define information, knowledge and memory.  The vocabulary for these concepts has become interchangeable in many organisations as they continue to search for increasingly challenging opportunities to realise further benefits from managing this space.

A quick search on Google (I know!) reveals the first definition of knowledge to be “facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject”. Nothing contentious there, but the second definition cites it as “information held on a computer system”. The latter was a new one to me; since when did knowledge become defined as information held on computer systems?

Another interpretation rang more true to me: “awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation”.  To my mind, this speaks to the human nature of knowledge – it is much more than facts and information; it is about awareness, familiarity, experience, consciousness, perception and appreciation.  All nouns that reflect human nature and remain technological aspirations; at least for the time being.

Whilst it is important to recognise and appreciate the capabilities of the latest developments in AI, machine learning and neural processing, it is more important to recognise their limitations and appreciate the benefits associated with tenured people and their accumulated know how in their respective roles.

The most impactful force in the resizing of the business information industry has been the empowerment of “knowledge workers” to do their own information seeking.  However, investment in these workers and their information skills has lagged behind, leaving a workforce that know which buttons to press but who are poorly informed about what underpins the information and technologies they use every day.

Redundancies, outsourcing or offshoring of business information specialists compounds the issues.  New entrants that come into the industry find it difficult to secure positions with their limited experience which is incompatible with the expectation to operate at a level without the benefit of strong foundations of basic, practical information handling experience.

Meanwhile, the “new knowledge workers” increasingly rely on technology not just to bestow them with the facts and information they need but also to skilfully manipulate it into a finished product.

Does it matter?

What happens when the technology fails?  Who has the knowhow or experience to check the product is accurate and is as expected? What happens if it fails the quality check?  Who figures out what went wrong?

Technology is a wonderful thing; I really do love many new technologies.  Organisations are recognising the value of people and particularly those with tenure and the depth of understanding they bring to the business; but we cannot be complacent.  When the technology fails, there is growing dissatisfaction with the lacklustre quality of services; when a problem arises, it requires depth of knowledge and experience to fill the gap.

A number of professional services organisation have begun re-aligning their KM work with Talent Development.  Recognising that knowledge and knowhow are part of the intellectual capital of the organisation.  Acknowledging that experiential learning associated with employment is something to nurture and pass from person to person, not programmed into a machine and regurgitated ad infinitum.  This is especially the case when these standardised routines appear at odds with the need to differentiate an offer by building bespoke solutions to meet specific needs and expectations.

I remain optimistic that our industry will respond and reposition in light of continuing advances.  Unfortunately, this is only one part of the equation.  If we are to thrive, we must continually demonstrate our value to convince our leaders that we have a place in the future of our respective organisations.