A Meandering Flow through Personal Knowledge Management

8/21/2019 A Meandering Flow through Personal Knowledge Management

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A Meandering Flow through Personal Knowledge Management

Richard Pircher

Review of "Personal Knowledge Management: Individual, Organizational and Social

Perspectives" edited by David J. Pauleen and G. E. Gorman

Studies suggest that information overload, interruptions during work, innovation barriers and

similar problems on the individual level dramatically hamper productivity – both of

individuals and of organizations. Knowledge and innovation are core success factors in

today's economy, and in the first run they are always intra-personal. Despite this assessment

the diagnosis of the editors of this book that it is the first book on personal knowledge

management (PKM) appears to be correct (apart from other languages e.g. the German

monograph by Reinmann / Eppler 2007).

PKM, like the parent discipline Knowledge Management (KM), has grown out of acombination of fields like cognitive psychology, philosophy, management science, education,

communications, etc. The editors collected contributions by scholars, consultants and expert

practitioners, which are expected to develop "an accessible, holistic and detailed

understanding of PKM as it concerns the individual and individuals in relationship to

organizations and society as a whole". The target group consists of academics, students and

reflective practitioners. The 12 chapters of the book are not clustered according to topics but

put together in a sequence intended to be coherent and to represent a "natural flow of

ideas".

In the preface the editors raise several interesting aspects of PKM: a lack of empiricalresearch and of significant conceptual development, an inherent conflict between KM and

PKM or PKM as a path for effectively instilling a KM ethics into the organization. On the one

hand, “knowledge workers must be responsible for their own growth and learning” and need

a certain amount of freedom and self-organization to do a good job. On the other hand, the

company has to provide this organisational freedom to enable them do so. PKM as a form of

self-management may trigger much more existential questions than KM usually does.

Technology should only be a non-dominant part.

In their introductory chapter the editors suggest that PKM not only empowers workers but

also helps to link individual strategies of the workers with those of the organization theywork for. The concept is expected to “help individuals manage more than just their careers: it

also serves as the impetus to consider lifelong learning and the development of skills and

networks to extend one´s horizons – to become not only more knowledgeable about `things´,

but to become more reflective and ultimately wiser about life.” As such, the editors regard it

as serving the individual, the organization and society as a whole.

Brief glimpses at the chapters of the book are supposed to give an impression of the "free

flow of ideas" and of the multi-faceted character of PKM mirrored in this volume.

In chapter 2 by Case and Gosling “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?”, core

characteristics of knowledge – both personal and organizational – are discussed. It issuggested that western civilization has rejected wisdom in favor of data, information and


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knowledge. The authors propose that we could learn from pre-modern philosophies like

Stoicism and Aristotle.

Peter Murphy claims in chapter 3 that creation requires ambiguity, symbiosis of analogy and

paradox.

Mark Wolfe stresses the significant point of the crucial meaning of communication and

communication theory for knowledge management and moreover for PKM in chapter 4.The notion of Systems Intelligence represents the core term in chapter 5. It offers the

opportunity to discover the significance of the individual's ability to be aware of the systems

around themselves and the personal role within. As such it shows a link between

(organizational) KM and PKM. Parallels to Scharmers Theory U (2009) may be drawn.

Prusak and Cranefield propose four foundational practices for PKM in chapter 6: scan and

reinvent, vet and filter, invest in your networks and get out of your office. Helpful examples

of and insights into information filtering and assessment are offered.

Chapter 7 is based on an interview with the well-known KM-expert Dave Snowden and

mainly focuses on social knowledge networking by means of technological tools. Seven

notable principles highlight his understanding of what underpins successful KM.Chapter 8 by Kolb and Collins addresses chances and downsides of connectivity which

needed management in order to achieve a valuable status of connectivity flow.

William Jones emphasizes the role of information in chapter 9.

In the following chapter Tom Davenport, a KM pioneer, summarizes findings on knowledge

workers' behavior and challenges from an organizational perspective.

The links between PKM and organizational learning from a KM perspective are explored in

chapter 11 by Cheong and Tsui. The authors suggest that PKM is an enabler for effectively

managing both individual and organizational learning.

Finally Karl Wiig links PKM with the knowledge-society. He argues that PKM requires in-

depth understanding of societal contexts, knowledge work, etc. He regards PKM as anecessary societal challenge.

We may summarize that the book is no introduction to PKM for beginners or for practitioners

keen to apply PKM immediately. It does not offer an easy grasp on PKM models or a set of

methods and tools ready to use the next working day. Nor does it provide a kind of guiding

map or model which would help to obtain an overview of PKM and to easily locate the

chapters of the book within the field of PKM (which would support learning and the

application of PKM for the reader). However, through the "free flow of ideas", which includes

high level contributions, the book discloses a complex and sometimes contradictory offer of

what PKM could mean and include.PKM presents itself as an conglomerate of different approaches and perspectives which

provide for a rich and multi-faceted discourse. Some aspects recur: Technology is often useful

but represents only one aspect subordinated to personal PKM skills. These may include

information management skills like retrieving and vetting, but even more importantly

awareness of the self, of emotions and of systems, strategic competency development, to

know how to learn and to know and reflect oneself comprehensively on a regular basis.

PKM like presented here invites the ambitious individual to try to get to find out more about

themselves, to improve the ability to deal with personal knowledge systematically and

according to personal goals and preferences. Viewed like this, PKM turns out to be of

essential assistance in our time of information overload, attention economy, changing natureof work, lack of orientation and stress-induced diseases.


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Literature

Scharmer, C. Otto: Theory U: Learning from the Future as It Emerges, Mcgraw-Hill

Professional, 2009

Reinmann, Gabi / Eppler, Martin: Wissenswege. Methoden für das persönlicheWissensmanagement, Huber 2007

Documents

A Meandering Flow through Personal Knowledge Management