What We've Done and How We're Different
EIS is a knowledge management
consulting, intelligence, and training organization. We help organizations to enhance their
knowledge processing and their ability to learn and adapt. The form of knowledge
management we advocate and practice is called The New Knowledge Management (TNKM),
and over the past 5 years we have been among the few developers and first practitioners of
it.
Why
The New Knowledge Management?
TNKM is necessary because the
old KM focused on Knowledge sharing and distribution alone, and not on Knowledge
Production and Innovation. So the old KM is not about managing knowledge making, trhe area
in which much of the value of Km may be found. The old KM also lacks a comprehensive
conceptual framework, so it can't provide a clear guide to building KM as a professional
field, an also can't provide a means of approaching may of the important KM problems
organizations face in the real world. In addition, the old KM lacks a clear normative
focus -- an organizational end-state that provides a vision for Knowledge Management. It
provides no target to aim at, no built-in standard for evaluating KM programs and
projects. Finally, the Old KM neither clearly distinguishes knowledge from information,
nor clearly distinguishes knowledge processing from knowledge management. In other words,
it fails to distinguish KM from other activities of managers and knowledge workers and, as
a result calls into question the usefulness of KM as a field of endeavor.
EIS
Accomplishments in Developing TNKM
EIS's work in
developing TNKM (See, for example, Key Issues in The New Knowledge Management) has resulted in certain accomplishments and competencies
that differentiate it from other KM consulting and training organizations. Here they are.
EIS
developed a unified theory of knowledge providing a foundation for TNKM.
EIS
developed a model of the origin of the knowledge life cycle.
EIS,
together with one of its primary allies, Macroinnovation Associates, LLC (MA) produced and
continues to develop the knowledge life cycle conceptual framework, a framework that
provides a basis for describing and understanding knowledge processing and for specifying
the primary objects of Knowledge Management.
EIS,
together with MA, produced and continues to develop a new multidimensional framework for
classifying KM activities. It is the most detailed classification of KM activities
produced to date.
EIS,
together with MA, has developed a new knowledge conversion model, based on a transactional
complex adaptive systems framework. The new model reveals the incompleteness and
inadequacy of the Nonaka-Takeuchi SECI model as the basis of knowledge management
programs.
EIS
developed a new analysis of the role of culture in KM. The analysis helps to place culture
in perspective and provides a conceptual basis for analyzing its impact on knowledge
processing and KM.
EIS,
together with MA, is developing a normative KM model called the Open Enterprise, as a
basis for attaining sustainable innovation, internal organizational transparency, and
inclusivenss in distributed knowledge processing and problem-solving (in The Open Enterprise: Building Business
Architectures for Openness and Sustainable Innovation).
EIS has
produced and continues to develop the Enterprise Knowledge Portal (EKP) construct, a
conceptual framework for grounding a future application supporting all sub-processes in
the KLC and knowledge management activity as well. EIS research (in Enterprise
Information Portals and Knowledge Management) has shown that knowledge portals
are still in the future in spite of vendor claims to the contrary. EIS research has also
specified the path to the knowledge portal and has provided a foundation for EIS
consulting services assisting companies interested in EKP or eKP development.
EIS is
developing a KM software evaluation framework based on the EKP construct. The framework
will provide a map for placing various types of software in the context of a cognitive map
based on the EKP, and also for comparing software products occupying the same niche in the
EKP framework.
EIS,
together with MA, is developing a new taxonomy for classifying types of capital. The
comprehensive capital model is a new construct transcending current intellectual capital
frameworks and integrating processs capital concepts. The model provides a completely new
foundation for consulting work in the KM-related capital assets measurement field.
EIS,
together with MA, is developing a framework for systematic development of KM Metrics. In
this area EIS has produced new work on KM Benefit Estimation, a technical approach to KM
Metrics, and a conceptual framework of descriptors and metrics related to the KLC. Working
together, EIS and MA have developed a comprehensive classification of KM metrics.
The
practice of TNKM is about producing and integrating new solutions to problems arising in
knowledge processing, and it is about implementing those solutions through knowledge
management decisions and actions. EIS,
working with MA and KMCI has developed a new methodology called K-STREAM™ to support producing, integrating, and implementing knowledge
management solutions through projects. K-STREAM™ is practical and adaptive. It is driven by the
task patterns proposed as solutions to knowledge processing problems. It is centered on
estimating the impact of such a solution on business structures. It is iterative and
incremental. It recognizes the non-linear nature of progress toward real KM solutions. It
incorporates the KLC, KM and all the other frameworks listed above. It also integrates a
variety of well-known techniques of analysis and practice and IT applications as
necessary.
These
analysis and practice techniques include business process and systems modeling and
simulation (System Dynamics, CAS simulations Econometric Modeling, Object Modeling),
communities of practice, Story-telling, knowledge cafés, Group Decision Process Methods
(Delphi, Nominal Group Technique, Group Value Measurement Technique, Team Analytic
Hierarchy Process), Cultural Analysis, Value Network Analysis, Influence Network Analysis,
Semantic Network Analysis/ Cognitive Mapping/Knowledge Mapping, Measurement Modeling
(Analytic Hierarchy Process, Balanced Scorecard Modeling), and intangible asset analysis.
The IT applications include: Collaboration, Knowledge Discovery in Databases/Data Mining,
Group Decision Process Support applications, Applications supporting analytical modeling
and simulation, intelligent agents, computer-assisted learning, support for semantic
network analysis/cognitive mapping, text abstracting and full-text indexing, queryng and
reporting, searching/retrieving, packaged analytical applications, balanced scorecard
applications, support for object modeling, assessment capture/ best practices software.
History:
Executive
Information Systems, (EIS) Inc. incorporated in 1993 to provide the finest applications of
Information Technology to Decision Support. Through a series of consulting engagements,
development efforts, and research projects in Data Mining, Data Warehousing, and Knowledge
Management, EIS has evolved a focus on The New Knowledge Management, as an organizing
concept for its KM consulting activities. In the area of IT KM applications, the Enterprise Knowledge
Portal is EIS's focal business solution.
TNKM is not just
a brand name for EIS's activities. It is the outcome of a continuing process of
re-inventing Knowledge Management by seeking and formulating its foundations and then
using these to create integrated KM interventions in organizations. Interventions that
make sense because they're aimed at knowledge processing problems that account for an
organization's inability to compete effectively and to cope with its environment.
People:
EIS's primary
consultant is Joseph M. Firestone, Ph.D.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO)
of Executive Information Systems (EIS), Inc. Joe focuses on product, methodology,
architecture, and solutions development in Knowledge Management and Enterprise Information
and knowledge Portals. He performs Knowledge and knowledge management audits, training,
and facilitative systems planning, requirements capture, analysis, and design.
Joe was the
first to define and specify the Enterprise Knowledge Portal (EKP) Concept, and is
the leading writer, designer, commentator, and trainer in this area. He is widely
published in the areas of Decision Support (especially Enterprise Information and
Knowledge Portals, Data Warehouses/Data Marts, and Data Mining), and Knowledge Management,
and has completed a full-length industry report entitled "Approaching Enterprise
Information Portals." He is also the author of Enterprise Information Portals and
Knowledge Management, and the co-author of Key Issues in The New Knowledge
Management and The Open Enterprise: Building
Business Architectures for Openness and Sustainable Innovation.
Joe
is also the co-editor of a special issue (Vol. 12, April 2005) of
The Learning Organization Journal, entitled "Has Knowledge
Management Been Done", and the developer of the KM Blog "All Life Is
Problem Solving" at http://radio.weblogs.com/0135950.
Joe is a founding member of
the
Knowledge Management Consortium International (KMCI),
and the Managing Director and CEO of it and its
parent company The Center for the Open Enterprise, LLC. He is also the Director of the KMCI Knowledge and Innovation Manager
Certificate (CKIM) Program, and Director of the KMCI Research Center. Joe is also a
frequent speaker at national conferences on KM and Portals, an author whose articles have
appeared in industry periodicals including KM World, Intelligent KM, Knowledge Management
Magazine, and Intranet Strategist, and a trainer in the areas of Enterprise Information
Portals, Enterprise Knowledge Portals and Knowledge Management (KM).
Alliances:
EIS's strategic allies
include Macroinnovation Associates, LLC, a boutique KM consultancy run by Mark W. McElroy,
KMCI, The Center for Sustainable Innovation, Inc.
(CSI)and EM Software Solutions, Inc.. Mr. McElroy and Dr. Firestone have worked closely
together in leading development of TNKM concepts, and both have worked closely with KMCI
in developing its educational and research programs. EM Solutions is a Washington, DC area
software and systems integration consultancy
and software development firm whose capability includes development of
business process engines for enterprise integration and process automation
using its proprietary Template Software O-O development product line.
Contact
Joe Firestone:
eisai@comcast.net
703-461-8823