Knowledge Management Chapters 7-8

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Knowledge ManagementChapters 7-8

• By
• Mikhail Averbukh
• Scott Brown
• Brian Chase

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Outline

• Chapter 7
• Research that Reinvents the Corporation
• Chapter 8
• Managing Professional Intellect
• Additional Research
• Toyota Case
• Pitfalls of Social Networking
• Biotech Case

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Chapter 7 Outline

• Pioneering Research
• Technology Gets Out Of The Way
• Harvesting Local Innovation
• Coproducing Innovation
• Innovating with the Customer
• PARC Seedbed of the Computer Revolution
• How Xerox Redesigned Its Copiers

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Research that Reinvents the Corporation

• Published in 1991
• By John Seely Brown
• Former Director of Xerox Research Center, PARC
  (Palo Alto Research Center)
• Real case study example
• The most important invention that will come out
  of the corporate research lab in the future will
  be the corporation itself.

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Pioneering Research

• The Corporation Invention created by PARC
• Pioneering Research Principles
• New work practices is as important as new
  products
• Ubiquitous computing- Information technology
  used in a broad range of everyday objects.

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Pioneering Research

• Learning from innovation 
• Cant just produce innovation
• Ultimate innovation partner is the customer
• Tailoring innovation to the needs of the
  customers.

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Technology Gets Out of the Way

• Remote Interactive Communication (RIC)
• ITs transformation of the copier
• Complex computing and communication devices-
  Sensors that collect information
• Artificial intelligence techniques
• Customer - never see the machine fail
• Xerox - way to listen to the customer

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Technology Gets Out of the Way

• The technology itself will become invisible
• Example Photocopier
• Example GPS devices in cars
• Example Fujis interactive photo editing machine
  at Walgreens
• A flexible, versatile device that is able to
  meet many different customer needs

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Harvesting Local Innovation

• Getting involved in the anthropology of work
• PARC was studying work practices throughout
  companies (Ex. Payroll)
• Employees were inventing innovative work
  practices, while not even realizing it, to reach
  their goals

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Harvesting Local Innovation

• Customized user-system program (CUSP)
• Allows users to modify the system themselves
• Buttons - people without a lot of training in
  computers can make modifications
• Xerox tech reps learn most out in the field

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Coproducing Innovation

• Communicate fresh insights so that others can
  grasp their significance - tech transfer
• Uncover features that need to change
• Conceptual envisioning environment
• Envision new products before they are actually
  built
• Share understanding with partners to coproduce
  new technologies and practices

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Coproducing Innovation

• Help employees grind a new set of eyeglasses so
  they can see the world in a new way
• You cant just tell people about a new insight,
  you have to let them experience it.

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Coproducing Innovation

• Innovating with the Customer
• Researchs ultimate partner in coproduction is
  the customer
• Customers may be unaware of their needs
• Product may not yet exist

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PARC Seedbed of the Computer Revolution

• Basic research in computing and electronics
• How complex organizations use information
• Throughout the 1970s PARC innovations
• Bit map - display with easy interface
• LAN - distributed computing
• Overlapping screen windows
• Point and click editing
• Smalltalk - first object oriented programming
  language
• Laser printing prototype - billion dollar
  business (1990)

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How Xerox Redesigned Its Copiers

• In the early 1980s users were finding their
  Xerox copiers extremely difficult to use
• Unreliability was not the real problem
• Knowing that trouble was inevitable
• Now the new copiers have enough technology to
  where the functions of the copiers are put into
  the context of the task the user is trying to
  accomplish

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Chapter 8

• Managing Professional Intellect
• Making the most of the best
• James Brian Quinn, Tuck School of Business
• Philip Anderson, INSEAD
• Sydney Finkelstein , Tuck School of Business

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Managing Professional Intellect

• In the post-industrial era, the success of a
  corporation lies more in its intellectual and
  systems capabilities than in its physical assets
• Critical skill managing human intellect and
  converting it into useful products and services

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Outline

• What is Professional Intellect?
• Developing Professional Intellect
• Leveraging Professional Intellect
• Inverting organizations
• Creating Intellectual webs

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What is professional Intellect?

• 4 levels
• Cognitive Knowledge
• Advanced Skills
• Systems Understanding
• Self-motivated Creativity

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Level 1 of Professional Intellect

• Cognitive Knowledge
• Know-what
• Mastery of a discipline
• Achieved through extensive training
• Essential, but not sufficient for success

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Level 2 of Professional Intellect

• Advanced Skills
• Know - how
• Ability to apply the rules of a discipline to
  complex problems
• The most widespread value creating professional
  skill level

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Level 3 of Professional Intellect

• Systems Understanding
• Know-why
• Deep knowledge
• Understanding cause-and-effect relationships
• Move beyond the execution of tasks

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Level 4 of Professional Intellect

• Self-motivated creativity
• Care-why
• Consists of will, motivation, and adaptability to
  success
• Not always necessary
• Organizations that nurture care-whys thrive
• Resides in the culture of an organization

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Developing Professional Intellect

• Recruit the best
• the leverage of intellect
• Force intensive early development
• repeated exposure to the complex problems
• Constantly increase professional challenges
• push professional beyond the comfort zone
• Evaluate the weed
• internal competition and performance
  evaluations

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Leveraging Professional Intellect

• Boost problem-solving abilities by capturing
  knowledge
• Merrill Lynch knowledge base
• Overcome reluctance to share information
• Offer incentives
• Organize around intellect
• ROI considerations

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Inverting Organizations

• Tailor solutions to the particular way intellect
  creates value
• Example Nova Care
• Critical professional intellect is in its
  therapists
• NovaNet captures and enhances organizations
  system knowledge
• Work is organized around therapists

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Inverting Organizations
In Inverted organizations, field experts become
bosses
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Creating Intellectual Webs

• Spiders web self-organizing network
• Brings people together to solve a particular
  problem
• Many consulting firms, investment banks, research
  consortia and medical teams use this approach.

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Creating Intellectual Webs
In Spiders Webs, a few experts team up to meet
a specific challenge
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Managing Professional Intellect

• Summary of the article
• The success of a corporation lies more in its
  intellectual and systems capabilities than in its
  physical assets
• The knowledge on how to manage human intellect
  and how to convert it into useful products and
  services is of great importance

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Toyota Case

• Created a knowledge network with suppliers
• Faced several dilemmas
• Motivate self-interested people to participate
• Free Rider Problem
• Maximize efficiency of knowledge transfers
• How to effectively transfer tacit knowledge
• How do you address these problems?

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Toyota Case
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Toyota Case
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Pitfalls of Social Networking

• The desire to protect Personal Intellectual
  Property
• The need to maintain external professional
  networking
• The social networking meme still need socializing
• Meme cultural information that represent an
  idea that can be passed from one person to
  another.

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Buckman Case
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Buckman Case

• Infrastructure hardware/software that enables
  communication
• Infostructure formal rules that govern exchange
  on the network
• Infoculture stock of background knowledge which
  is embedded in the social relations surrounding
  work group processes.

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Buckman Case

• Infrastructure
• Used network for both intra and inter-company
  communication.
• Contained virtual conference rooms, libraries,
  bulletin boards, etc.
• Infostructure
• Forum specialist organize and validate
  information before uploaded to knowledge base.
• Region focused forums for each segment of
  business.

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Buckman Case

• Infoculture
• Allow employees at all levels to use network to
  promote information sharing.
• Employees who share the most become the most
  influential.
• Managers looks for employees who share on the
  network.

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Summary
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Sources

• Creating and Managing a High Performance
  Knowledge-Sharing Network The Toyota Case.
  Strategic Management Journal. By Jeffrey Dyer and
  Knetaro Nobeoka. Issue 21, year 2000.
• Three Potential Pitfalls of Corporate Social
  Networking. Gartner Group, 4 December 2007. By
  Brian Prentice.
• Knowledge management in practice An exploratory
  case study. Technology Analysis Strategic
  Management September 1999. By Shan Pan and Harry
  Scarbrough.