Knowledge Management

Anatomy of an AI System

Hand on heart: How often when you use the convenience of an AI do you think about the enormous effort behind it?

The AI Anatomy Map is an exploded view diagram that combines and visualizes three central, extractive processes that are required to run a large-scale artificial intelligence system: material resources, human labor, and data using Amazon’s Echo as example. It is worth a deep dive:

Go to the original website to see the picture in full scale.

The role of KM when it comes to innovation

The role of KM when it comes to innovation
Bild erstellt mit Microsoft Copilot

Last week I attended a really inspiring talk held by Patrick Cohendet (HEC Montreal), organized by the Research Network of the KMGN: Knowledge Based Approaches to The Firm: An Idea-Driven Perspective.

What I really liked and what was an excellent food for thought was the conception of Knowledge Management as a bridging funtion between the Generating of (many) Ideas and the Innovation Management. Knowledge Management facilitates the evaluation and filtering of ideas by ensuring that during this process relevant knowledge is available and efficiently used:
„[…] an idea needs to be equipped with various bodies of knowledge in order to become commercially viable. After the initial spark, the “social and cognitive construction of the idea” phase becomes crucial in the ideation journey. The goal is to provide the idea with enough knowledge to form an internally consistent set of concepts and ultimately make it commercially viable.“ (Patrick Cohendet)

So, the question is not – as often asked for in organizations – to clearly distinguish between KM on the one and Innovation Management on the other side. On the contrary, KM is at the very basis and an essential prerequisite for a successful Innovation Management, isn’t it? Always felt, now well explained. Thank you, Patrick!

Mindmap on Knowledge Management

In the last few months an expert group of the GfWM e.V. (German Society on Knowledge Management), of which I was a member, developed a rather comprehensive mindmap on Knowledge Management. This is now also available in English:

The Knowledge Management Mindmap is intended to provide a systematic overview of the main fields of action, models, methods and tools in the area of knowledge management. It was developed to make it easier for interested parties to get started in this diverse field. As a comprehensive guide, it is aimed at both individuals and organisations. It is important for us as expert group to emphasise that this list does not claim to be exhaustive. We have also deliberately decided not to evaluate nor rate the elements shown in the mindmap. The mindmap can be downloaded here in various formats.

Feel free to use it, distribute it, comment it, further develop it!

Knowledge sharing in a public museum

In the last months, Dirk and I (the two coordinators of the German Knowledge Management MOOC, WMOOC) had quite difficulties re-editing the recordings of the WMOOC live sessions due to numerous new projects. But now Dirk is thankfully investing holiday time in exactly this task (Thank you so much, Dirk!!) and finally the fascinating session on Knowledge sharing as a part of project knowledge management in one of Polish public museums with Kamila Brodzińska from Jagiellonian University in Kraków is online (duration 53’56 min). As you may have guessed from the language of this post the session was held in English. Enjoy!

BTW, this year’s WMOOC will again start on October 3rd, just as the accompanying qualification to become a Knowledge Management Professional. Further information on latter can be found here. So, register to become part of the WMOOC community!

WMOOC Live Session on ‚A short history of KM development‘

Even though the German Knowledge Management MOOC (WMOOC) already ended few weeks ago we are still polishing the recordings of our live sessions. One more is available now, one more in English language: Peter Pawlowsky of Chemnitz University talks about A short history of KM development, from knowledge distribution to knowledge sharing (83’19 min). He also gives a personal outlook on the future of KM. Enjoy!