Noise to Knowledge

by R.M. Schneider
Last Update: 15 Nov 2009

Knowledge Management is not new.  Knowledge management goes back as far as human memory, and then evolved into stone tables, books, and file cabinets.  Then--suddenly--in the late 20th Century "sticky notes" arrived. 

One of the great myths of Knowledge Management that is a technology solution. 

It's not. Knowledge Management is a process that can be used to share and transfer knowledge between traditional "silos" of service management.  It is a management process that transforms "noisy" thoughts and ideas into learnings and then into knowledge.

There are four key questions that are key to developing a knowledge management process for any organization:

1. What kind of knowledge do you need?
2. How do you get it?
3. How do you store it?
4. What do you do with it?

Noise to Knowledge

I have developed a simplistic model which I call "Noise to Knowledge". It describes what I have observed to be natural processes for how information moves between three identifiable nodes: (1) Noise, (2) Learning, and (3) Knowledge. 

Information inside each node is "stored" in particular types of "buckets".  The most effective organizations have natural processes which move the information through filters and tools to drive information from "noise" to "knowledge".



Information flows back and forth between these nodes.  The "buckets" in which information sits in each node is different. 

The nodes can be described with examples:

Noise:  Discussions which may or may not be relevant or correct.  In email, newsgroups (NG), conversations around water cooler or pub.  Nuggets of information which may or may not "live".  The user of the term "noise" is not to be suggesting that the information here is useless.  On the contrary: there often are valuable bits of information in the "noise" which needs to be found, extracted, and turned into Learnings and Knowledge.

Learnings:  "the last posting" in a NG thread which confirms and finalizes the conclusion and/or learning. The "wrap-up" in a meeting.  Stored in emails, "last posting", FAQ's, memos, etc. "One-time" then (maybe) file type of documents.

Knowledge: compendium of learnings (including what's remaining to be learned).  In articles, published papers, books, maintained web pages, encyclopedias, etc.  "Documents" that get written, checked, edited, published, maintained.

Information flows between notes due to Processes, deliberate or "natural", that push and pull the information through "filters".  It is presumed and assumed that there is some sort of appropriate (or inappropriate as the case may be) decision and/or thinking process that moves the information between the nodes.  The above model does not attempt to describe these often "un-describable" processes.

It is essential that people have the right "tools" to manage the process of moving information amongst the nodes.  In BC (before computers) time, the world had this pretty much figured out.  However, now that we have computers this is getting all too complicated because we do not in general have the right tools ubiquitously available.  Even small teams of people who work the same organization or projects do not use the right tools--for example, private email folders is not an appropriate place to store "knowledge"; but in absence of anywhere else that is where it will go.

In general, due to their nature, participation, and the user-interface of the relevant tools, newsgroups about computing topics are pretty much no more than "noise" with some "learnings".  Many learnings get lost; hence the repetitious questions. We have "pointers" to knowledge, but there are few processes here that work to move the  information from "noise to knowledge".

This appears to be not unusual for many "computing information/knowledge" communities (maybe because the information has a short "half-life" value).  I've observed other "communities" where the nodes and processes I mention are more complete and hence more knowledge is retained and propagated.

Rob Schneider is Managing Director of RMSchneider Limited, a management consultancy in Edinburgh (Scotland) specialising in Projects (Management, Collaboration, and Systems).