A Democracy of Thought

Social Knowledge Management and Public Discourse

2007-10-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

According to wikipedia: Knowledge Management ('KM') comprises a range of practices used by organizations to identify, create, represent, and distribute "Knowledge" for reuse, awareness and learning. There has been a great deal of time and effort - somewhat successfully - put into developing systems that help corporations manage the intellectual capital within the enterprise. Traditionally, this has been labeled "Knowledge Management", or more aptly: Corporate Knowledge Management.

Similarly, there has been a great deal of time and effort spent - successfully - in managing the enormous amount of content (knowledge) on the Internet. Companies like google, yahoo... are really just engines for managing the wealth of information... some 20 billion web pages and growing. So much data in fact, that companies are enlisting the help of people, 'guides', to help navigate these vast 'oceans' of data. These applications add the human element, hoping to making better sense of it all: better suggestions, better links and better bookmarks. Some define it as "recommendation engines". Let's call it: Internet Knowledge Management.

The New Frontier:
By allowing groups of individuals to form communities, the Internet is flexing it muscle as a social tool... revealing the potential for a revolutionary third front of Knowledge Management: Social Knowledge Management. By blending search, social networking and public discourse, the future holds the promise of a system that can identify, extract and archive the insight of individuals, and make it searchable.

Here is what's needed to make this work:
1) identify what individuals know
2) extract the knowledge and life experience of individuals
(this is where traditional knowledge management systems fall short)
3) index, archive and make searchable this database of human experience

The knowledge being extracted differs from the content provided on sites like wikipedia. Wikipedia demands fact, without color or commentary. Opinion is flagged as inappropriate. Social Knowledge Management needs to manage both fact and insight, human experience and point of view.

The Value of Discussion:
First, let's look at how knowledge is exchanged in the 'real' world. The best way for people to share knowledge is to talk... public discourse. If I want to know what you know, ideally I can simply ask you. Discussion is the driver to much of what we as individuals know. Also, the cadence, the ebb and flow of conversation takes us closer to the single bit of information we are seeking faster and better than searching. Think of it like needing to understand something about spicy cooking, and having a library of cooking books in front of you. Indexes are much like a search engine. Look up " Spicy Cooking", and the index gives you appropriate pages. Check each page, you should be able to locate the information you need. Now for an application of the information: My wife does not eat spicy food, but I love it... so I would like to find a recipe where I can get through the preparation, and serve her just before I add the spices I like. How do you string the correct words together to search? "Spicy cooking, 95% done, end of meal, pre-serve before adding spice? There are billions of questions no search engine can answer. But imagine talking to a Cajun chef. Someone who loves spicy cooking. The give and take discussion would get you a more 'enlightened' answer, quicker. Opinion and commentary. Now imagine that commentary being added to a public database, making it searchable for the benefit of everyone.

That is closer to a semantic web application of search, a blend of search and social networking driven by computer interactions and processes unknown to the user.

More to follow...

The ABC's of Social Knowledge Management

2007-10-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

Defining "Aboutness"
For Social Knowledge Management to work, the system needs to create a picture of you, as an individual. This is the most simple representation of who you are as an experienced person. Currently, the accepted way of graphically rendering a persons "aboutness" would be within a tag cloud. Defined by wikipedia as: "A tag cloud (or weighted list in visual design) is a visual depiction of content tags used on a Website. Tags are typically listed alphabetically, and tag frequency is shown with font size or color. Thus both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible. The tags are usually hyperlinks that lead to a collection of items that are associated with that tag".

A tag cloud that defines your "Aboutness" for Social Knowledge Management would include:

1) the things you know about
2) the things you discuss
3) the things you have experienced
and:
4) the things that most interest you, regardless of expertise

Words or concepts like: horses, poker, nuclear physics, gardening, parenthood, the Caribbean can be added to your "Aboutness" cloud because you have interest, knowledge or expertise in these subjects, in one of two ways: either self-defined (added to the cloud by the individual), or derived (added to the cloud by the system).

Here is a typical tag-cloud defining aboutness for an individual:

Self-defined tags:
This is my tag cloud, obviously I talk a lot about aboutness. And horses. Many of these words I personally added to the could using a simple editing tool (add tag). Words like Internet, chat, Democracy, twitter. These are the things I have experience with, know, and more importantly, want to be seen as having some experience with, or understanding. A person who has a blog about Caribbean Travel would probably add the word Caribbean to their tag cloud. It is both a perception of experience and insight as it is factual knowledge of the subject.

Since the self-defined tags are user controlled, there is no real way to judge the accuracy or sincerity of the users knowledge. If I add the word "thermo-nuclear physics", there is no proof I have even the slightest idea what it is. All we know is that the user has defined these words as somehow important to them. They have "raised their hand", saying "this is somehow associated with me".

Derived tags:
There are a multitude of "touch-points" to derive tags... such as chats, blogs, bookmarks, email, phone conversations. The best way to derive tags would be to feed into the engine all the interactions we have on a daily basis, churn through the data and return a list of those things most often discussed. Our daily conversations tell a great deal about who we are. However, due to privacy concerns, many of these are not for public consumption. We have no problem allowing our blogs to be public and searchable. But we would be hesitant to allow our email to be processed. Any system that derives tags will have to allow the user to clearly define access, or the system is destined for failure. Users should be given complete control to remove any tag added by the system.

Aggregating all of the different "feeds" an individual has, i.e: blogs, conversations, forum posting, opinions, commentary, bookmarks, etc. is the best way to get a snapshot of "aboutness". The accuracy would improve over time and usage.

More to follow...

ABC's continued: Brokering Availablity

2007-10-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

The second step in creating a functional Social Knowledge Management system is to allow users to "Broker" their availability: How and when do individuals want to be "involved" with the system. The question for "searchable individuals" is: How would you like to contacted, if someone wants to engage you in a conversation"? The choices are either synchronous (immediate) or asynchronous (not immediate).

Synchronous conversations:
Phone
Chat - Instant Messenger

Asynchronous conversations:
Email
Forums
Blogging - Posting Comments
Internal messaging

Since a good deal of Social Knowledge management will involve sharing experience with people you don't know, the user has to define which methods of contact are acceptable. I might be happy to get an email from anyone, but not willing to get the same message on my chat client. I might be hesitant to take a phone call on a subject that I would be perfectly willing to discuss on a forum thread.

At this point, we know your aboutness and when you are willing to "raise your hand" and be counted, instantly making those seated on the sidelines 'Social Activists", and creating a marketplace of free democratic thought.

Age Bias and Social Knowledge
The Internet is for the young. Blogging and content creation takes basic technology know-how that escapes widespread adoption by older generations.

Some interesting data points from Pew Internet and American Life Projects:

• Power creators are the Internet users who are most enthusiastic about content-creating activities. They are young – their average age is 25 – and they are more likely than other kinds of creators do things like use instant messaging, play games, and download music. And they are the most likely group to be blogging.
• More than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites.
• 36% of online American adults consult Wikipedia
• 28% of internet users have tagged or categorized content online such as photos, news stories or blog posts.
• 87% of online users have at one time used the internet to carry out research on a scientific topic or concept.

For Social Knowledge Management to succeed, it must embrace all generations, especially those 50 and up. After all, what better place to harvest wisdom and life experience? Currently, this age group is all but ignored. Solving this "technology gap" provides an incredible
opportunity. Breaking down the barriers to entry means making it as easy as possible for the technologically challenged to become full-fledged content providers.

The Benefit of Synchronous Public Discourse
An open, networked Social Knowledge Management System could create the largest database of human experience, insight and wisdom over time. This would require democratic, inter-generational adoption. Historically, the difficulty has been finding ways to extract the wisdom. We must find the means of collection that are the easiest and offer complete access. We must also address privacy concerns. For that reason, email is less than ideal. The simplest synchronous (or immediate) discourse is most likely the easiest way to gather information. And the most widely adopted of these are phone and chat.

Chat is easy. The overwhelming majority of chat happens on AOL's Instant Messenger Service. More that 150 million users and growing. Commonly, chat is between people who know each other. So called "buddy lists" keep track of people you know, and show their "presence" or availability quite well. And almost none of this discussion is indexed or archived. Social Knowledge Management allows users to reach out beyond the buddy list, extending their influence to the people they don't know. The idea is to open chat to public discourse, and archive the discussion for the benefit of others. An easy way for young and old to interact. An easy way to share and collect knowledge and insight. Can it be easier? Yes. Imagine voice to text translation. As that technology matures, the mechanism for interacting with the system could be as easy as answering the phone.

More to follow...

Worry Less - Set it Free

2007-10-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

One of the first knee-jerk reactions to chatting publicly, or having chats "recorded" is one of concern. It's easy to understand, this action is contrary to current behavior. We chat privately. And after, our conversations "disappear".

Worries about loss of privacy, child predators, identity theft and scamming have made internet users wary of anything public that puts us "on the record". But that is changing. On social sites like facebook and myspace, millions of people are using "real" names, and sharing much more personal data than ever before. I contend it is actually safer to have a chat system for public discourse that is completely "on the record". First: all discussion is directly attributed to the participants within the conversation. Being recorded, this system would be the very last place users with a darker agenda would want to represent themselves. Second: The system rewards civility. Those who are helpful, even if they don't have the answers, are still engaging the system and helping. The "Report Abuse" functionality would actually carry clout, and work. The system must succeed, moderated just by the Society themselves, through rating the interactions of users. Because we are blending search into these discussions, users that are poorly rated, dishonest or lack civility will rank lower in the search results... all but eliminating them from the public discourse happening around them.

The ethos of the community should be activism, and helping through search and sharing knowledge. Those who's actions run contrary to the ideal should be rated into irrelevance.

More to follow...

The C: Connecting People

2007-10-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

The system understands you (who you are, your areas of knowledge and experience). The system also knows your preference for activism (how and when you would like to be included). The entire system should be anchored by search... bridging the gap between all social networks.

Some people will use email to answer questions, helping one. Some will welcome public discourse, helping many. It's all about Connecting People. Those willing to share. These people will be the "Information activists" of the future. Bloggers, content providers, young and old.