Rivers of knowledge

9th Specials, Health and Law Libraries Conference

Leveraging our knowledge: the skills and attributes information service professionals bring to new roles in information and knowledge management

Karen Bishop

A value learned by information service professionals in 'information studies' is the belief that the key to empowering people is sharing expertise and information, and collaborating across organisational boundaries and functional units. This belief has become part of the information professional's 'culture', part of our value system - the normal and accepted way we expect people to behave towards one other. In a knowledge-based organisation we would be seen to have the all-important attribute of being 'knowledge-aware'.

This 'knowledge-aware' mindset, this set of values, gives information service professionals a head-start, I believe, when it comes to securing new roles being created to support knowledge management. When a person is being considered for a particular position, the employer will most often be inclined to select someone whose work-ethic and value-set is in line with the 'vision' of the organisation. Human Resource Directors in knowledge-based organisations will carefully choose people who are likely to 'fit in' with a knowledge-aware organisational culture - even if they lack the technical competence they were hoping for initially. Attitudes, values etc are also just as important as the skills you can 'measure', and employers figure it is easier to teach people technical skills than to change their attitude!

The challenge for the information professional lies in applying competencies used in 'managing information' to the broader picture of 'managing knowledge'. Larry Prusak, James Matarazzo and Tom Davenport believe the 'traditional' competencies of information service professionals as 'mediators' between people and recorded knowledge (ie putting people in touch with relevant information, no matter where it may be or what form it is in); their 'listening' skills; 'information literacy' training; and experience with information technology, can all be usefully applied to newly emergent roles in information and knowledge management. With one proviso ... information professionals must focus not only on the information management tasks at hand, but also on the 'bigger picture' meaning and purpose of information management in knowledge-based organisational strategy.

Angela Abell (1997 and1998) monitored the changing demand for information skills in firms across all corporate sectors in the U.K. She also examined the role of information professionals in the knowledge management process. Her research highlighted the importance of core information management skills (ie collection, structuring, retrieval, filtering, analysis, design and skills transfer) in managing knowledge. It is not enough to capture and share all of the knowledge within an organisation, she believes. Just as important is the task of ensuring that relevant knowledge is delivered in such a way that it can be easily assimilated. Abell concluded that information professionals are not usually seen as leaders, persuasive communicators, or good at understanding core business processes.

The high priority given by employers in knowledge-based organisations to interpersonal skills and an understanding of organisational operations and behaviour, results from the expectation that, in addition to managing information products and informing processes, the information professional will also manage people and social processes. It is important to remember that managing knowledge involves 'soft' people skills as well as technical ability, and, where information management is concerned, task-focus needs to be situated in organisation-focus.

From my recruitment experiences in Australia, I have identified several key skills and attributes that clients would like to see in the knowledge set of prospective information and/or knowledge managers, including the ability:

• to 'network' with people across the organisation, both face-to-face, and via state-of-the-art collaborative technology ('networking' is a very powerful enabler for KM. It enables one to gather and share relevant information/knowledge; to build trust and 'buy in' from employees at all levels of the organisation; to find out 'who does what' and 'who knows what' and 'who needs what' in the organisation; and to connect people to one another and to published information quickly and easily via their desktop computer)
• to use superior communication skills to facilitate an involving, collaborative information environment; to identify 'tacit' knowledge that could be made 'explicit'; and to devise ways to encourage people to identify and publish relevant ideas, observations etc for distribution.
• to exercise traditional 'management' skills such as 'leadership' , 'motivation' and 'influencing' skills, as well as the 'change management' and 'project management' skills so necessary in constantly changing environment today
• to enable explicit knowledge to be shared 'virtually' throughout the organisation using web-enabled technologies, and to apply metadata and other information management techniques and principles for improved accessibility to relevant content
• to create links between disparate but connected bits of information and knowledge across the organisation and via the internet
• to integrate separate document management, library and other databases into a single KM system. (IT&T tools)
• to have a thorough understanding of the organisation's business, its information flows, strategic plans, people and processes
• and to have a thorough understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of knowledge use, transfer and management

This sounds like an information professional has to be SuperSleuth/WonderPerson and I'm afraid there has, in my opinion, been a tendency to expect too much from a single individual, particularly in the position of Knowledge Manager. However, I think we will see a proliferation of KM positions in the future, with teams of professionals working together to achieve an institutionalised approach to creating, deploying and developing knowledge.

New roles and skills for information management

Some corporate libraries are being reinvented as knowledge centres, often with bigger budgets (for example, in the 'big six' consultancies). Nevertheless, their future is by no means assured as there is no shortage of other people ready to take on these tasks. Information professionals are seen in a support role, as service-oriented but not value-oriented - they don't understand the impact they can have on the business, nor do they act on this. The core skills of library and information professionals are both relevant and essential in organisations today, but they are often under-utilised and under-valued. (Corrall 2000 pg 8)

Davenport and Prusak (1993) warn us that information professionals and the functions they perform (in corporate libraries, information centers, records centres and archives), are in danger of being left behind in the knowledge economy. It is their belief that librarians often operate under an obsolete conceptual model of what an information centre should be today.

An alternative frame of reference for an information centre in knowledge-based organisations is outlined in a study of corporate libraries and information centres in eight large Japanese companies (Prusak and Matarazzo, 1991). The study's principal findings highlight the differences in approach towards information management between these successful Japanese firms and the conventional view of corporate libraries in western companies.

• the mission of the information function is closely aligned with the strategic thrust of the organisation. Information professionals clearly understood the company's direction and their role in moving the organisation towards its goals
• Japanese firms place tremendous value on information, which is considered an essential cost of doing business.
• business information, events, and situations are perceived and presented in their contextual settings. All the information centres visited had large and well-used collections of corporate histories and biographies.
• information technology is seen as an enabler of information management, not the primary component. Information management is not viewed as a subset of a technological function.
• the management of the information function is alternated among all company managers, allowing many managers to learn how information is used and valued in the organisation, and to appreciate the need for a consolidated information management strategy. The information management function is seen as being as important as the other managerial functions.

For Davenport and Prusak, the warehouse model must be 'blown up,' librarians must not see themselves as warehouse custodians, or even as centralised providers of expertise, but rather as overseers of an organisation-wide multi-media network that connects information providers and resources with the users of information: 'They must be concerned with the structure and quality of the content that goes out over the network (programming), in what format it is distributed (media selection), to what audience it is directed (broadcasting vs narrowcasting), and how the receiver's behaviour changes in response to the content (advertising response). However, just as television networks do not produce all of the programs they broadcast, the role of the information network executive in firms should be to encourage wide participation in information creation and dissemination. Broadly speaking, the role of the information professional becomes the establishment of connections between those who have information, and those who want it.' (Davenport and Prusak 1993, p. 408)

Where information management is concerned, information professionals should not limit themselves to being the custodians or gatekeepers of information. They can add value to the information they provide so that information addresses both the content-related and contextual requirements of information use. Information professionals could also provide training, advice, and consultation to users about the selection of information sources, the design of information search strategies, and the evaluation of information. They could participate in strategic planning and decision making activities, where they can help ensure vigilant information-gathering and processing, and develop an intimate understanding of how information is actually used in the organisation. They need a firm grasp of the business and agenda of the organisation, and should be early adopters and sophisticated users of new information technologies. (Outsell research 2001)

Information professionals are ideal "internal information consultants" say Bates and Allen (1994, p 34-35, 38) They understand how to organise information, understand the strengths and weaknesses of collaborative information technology, and recognise the information needs of different work-groups. A trained information professional can review a department's information needs and help the system administrator develop databases to best organise that information. The skill set of a librarian experienced in database design and information management is an excellent fit for the needs of Intranet information content management. In some organisations, librarians have become "information trustees," overseeing the establishment and maintenance of databases of information. They set standards for database construction and documentation, ensure consistency among databases, co-ordinate the updating of all databases, and ensure information is relevant and up-to-date.

Chun Wei Choo (1995) believes information professionals can raise their profiles in knowledge-based organisations by:

• working closely with users of information (knowledge workers and clients) as well as technology experts,
• helping steer and shape the information policies, structures, processes, and systems that will nurture organisational learning.
• extracting, filtering and disseminating vital external information/competitive intelligence;
• designing and developing workgroup application suites that are effectively platforms for information sharing and information management;
• working side by side with subject experts in collecting and analysing strategic intelligence;
• acting as trainers and consultants who transfer information gathering and research skills throughout the organization.

New roles in knowledge management and skills for managing knowledge

Tom Davenport (1998 pg 5) believes that 'knowledge management will not succeed if there are no workers and managers whose primary duties involve gathering and editing knowledge from those who have it, paving the way for the operation of knowledge networks, setting up and managing technology infrastructures'.

Marianne Broadbent (1998), and other leaders in the field of information services management, for example, Davenport and Prusak (1996), Klobas (1997), Milne (2001) and Corall (2000), believe it is in the best interests of corporate librarians to 're-invent' themselves (and raise their profiles within their organisations), by extending their roles as managers of recorded information to include working with unrecorded organisational knowledge.

Managing knowledge, these leaders believe, requires the information professional to act as:

• 'Facilitator' of tacit knowledge development, use, capture and exchange, where the goal would be to encourage 'knowledge awareness' ie the benefits of collaboration and learning.
• 'Catalyst' of knowledge, where the goal would be to convert 'tacit' knowledge into explicitly communicable messages ie 'explicit' knowledge. High-value 'explicit' knowledge would be 'captured' as 'corporate memory' in a 'knowledge-base' consisting of purposeful collections of material, designed to contribute to the sets of understandings of specific user groups to enable them to perform their work more effectively.

Joseph Horvath (2000 pg 47) notes that "because of the limit on the time and attention that knowledgeable people can devote to knowledge management activities, firms within a number of industries (eg professional services, information technology, pharmaceuticals) have begun to experiment with a new type of support role - the 'knowledge integrator' or 'knowledge co-ordinator'. Although the particulars vary, knowledge co-ordinators are generally responsible for collecting, reshaping, and disseminating the information and knowledge that others in the firm produce in the course of their work. Knowledge co-ordinators also function as intermediaries, putting knowledgeable people in touch with those who need to draw upon their knowledge"

Information professionals already have the 'core' information management skills required to manage knowledge once it becomes 'explicit': 'the process for explicit assets is to identify, catalogue and optimise the availability of the artefacts in which the knowledge is stored.' (Snowden, 1998 pg 13).

The greater challenge for information professionals is managing the 'tacit' intuitions and 'know-how' knowledge workers acquire through years of experience and practice. Tacit knowledge transfer involves people, and social skills such as communication, and it is not always possible, or appropriate, to 'capture' tacit knowledge and treat it as an explicit 'knowledge artefact' (Sbarcea, 2000).

Managing knowledge requires a mix of technical, organisational and interpersonal skills. The mix and emphasis varies according to responsibilities, but everyone involved needs to be able to understand the business, communicate effectively and have at least basic competence in handling information and using IT. (Corrall 2000) Although information service professionals are not always prominently involved at the outset of KM initiatives, many organisations have brought them in at a later stage, when the ongoing management of Intranet 'information architecture' and 'knowledge content' usually emerges as the major challenge. "The need to structure and codify information, to have a common language, and to manage selective dissemination of information, has highlighted information specialists' skills in indexing systems, thesaurus construction, and user profiling for customised alerting", said Jeff Sussman, CEO of Delphi Consulting in Australia at the One Umbrella executive breakfast in April 2000.

Knowledge management actvities are designed to facilitate the creation, exchange, use and retention of tacit knowledge at work. According to research undertaken by TFPL in 1998, the

successful implementation of such knowledge-enabling initiatives in the workplace, requires the knowledge manager to apply several skill-sets, including:

• an understanding of organisational culture and group dynamics, and how organisational behaviours such as trust and respect might affect knowledge exchange in the workplace.
• an ability to manage the changes necessary to move towards a more knowledge-aware organisational culture.
• superior communication skills and the ability to lead, influence and empower.
• an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of information technology and telecommunications as tools for knowledge exchange and collaboration.
• an understanding of knowledge-seeking behaviours and the ways people convert information into knowledge.
• an understanding of how best to support a learning environment at work.
• project management

Several role descriptions for information professionals advertised on the 'Knowledge People' page of the One Umbrella website may be found at http://www.oneumbrella.com.au.

In conclusion, here are two examples of new roles for information professionals:

'Content Managers' - are mainly concerned with virtual information management and the development of Intranets. Competencies for these roles include the ability:

• to identify the information and knowledge needs of the organisation, the various business units and individuals.
• to identify information created internally and assess its value/relevance to the organisation.
• to identify information gaps and understand information processes.
• to review and evaluate current use of external and internal information sources.
• to identify barriers and prioritise changes that need to be made to ensure the steady flow of information and knowledge across the organisation.
• to develop a knowledge map of the organisation indicating appropriate connections and collections
• to design and structure the virtual information environment.
• to aggregate/integrate information/knowledge - from both internal and external sources - from rumour through records to research.

And finally, required competencies for Knowledge Managers generally include:

• an in-depth appreciation of IT and collaborative technologies, especially web-based services;
• a thorough understanding of knowledge processes, and the principles of knowledge management as a technique for the management of intellectual assets
• an in-depth understanding of the issues involved in managing organisational expertise
• educating users in the benefits of sharing their expertise and relevant experiences, learning search techniques and using knowledge-sharing tools
• maintaining the content and evolving information architecture of company databases/Intranets/Extranets/Websites
• 'filtering' internal and external information and integrating, organising and categorising items of relevance so that information is readily accessible when required
• superior communication, influencing and relationship- building skills
• specialist subject knowledge (for example, health, finance, tax, law, insurance etc)

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