Knowledge Matters™

It’s been six days since I last blogged – partly because I’ve had writer’s block, and partly because I have been considering the political correctness of some of my thoughts and ideas. Those who know me well know that I am inclined to speak my mind, and have heard my fat tax idea. Obesity is a modern plague and mostly is preventable. Like smoking obesity costs our society billions of dollars in health services that could and should be spent elsewhere. I fail to see why those of us who don’t smoke and are not obese should subsidise those who are simply fat because they are lazy. These people should pay an extra premium on their health insurance, and I believe airlines should have special seating for them. Just like baggage if they can’t fit through a frame they should have to sit in a special area and pay an additional fare. Why should I pay for a seat that I effectively have to share with a stranger who oozes into my seat and makes the journey unpleasant?

Nowadays the notion of a fat tax is politically incorrect. As evidence I present the Canadian Transportation Agency’s “One person one fare policy ”. This policy says that:

“airlines may not charge more than one fare to persons with disabilities who are required by the airlines' domestic tariffs to be accompanied by an attendant for their personal care or safety on flights, or who require additional seating for themselves for air travel, including those disabled by obesity”.

Remind me not to travel on Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz or WestJet in the near future! My problem with this policy is the message it sends. ...

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Professor Robin Dunbar has researched the size and structure of human social networks. This research, combined with his work on primates, provides some interesting insights into our cognitive cache (to use a machine metaphor). To generalise his work seemingly we have circles of about 5, 15, 35, 80 and 150 people, which correspond to our family, our close friends, our colleagues and acquaintances, our club and business affiliations, and finally our village or neighbourhood. (For more information on these network circles review the papers on Dunbar’s website ). Now this work has implications for all sorts of business initiatives, including event management.

Take for example conferences. I suggest the ideal conference size is between 35 and 80 people if one wants to network and learn. We have all been to conferences of 150 or more people where we feel lost and tend to revert to our known social contacts rather than mix. Recent commentary on the actKM list suggests actKM 2007 was the best conference ever. Perhaps this was in part because the conference was attended by less than 50 people and allowed intimate interaction? My own experience at ACKMIDS 2005, PACIS 2007 and ICKCC 2007 would seem to confirm this view. I enjoyed ACKMIDS because it was focussed and small. PACIS 2007 and ICKCC 2007 were valuable but far more impersonal. Further because of their size I was unable to network effectively and unable to attend some of the presentations because they were held concurrently. ...

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Because I am writing a doctorate I read a great deal, and across many disciplines. Some of the interesting facts I have come across recently are:

• Stanley Milgram’s famous small world experiment of 1967, since popularised as ‘six degrees removed’, was first proposed and proved by the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy in 1929.
• Molecular chaperones are proteins that protect other proteins and help our cells survive. The chaperone proteins are altruistic and display network characteristics.
• People with lower or higher socioeconomic status, as well as groups under stress use strong links rather than weak links . This means these groups are much more closed, and not as open to diversity or new ideas.
• Five seems to be a special number. Dunbar has showed that we have circles of 5, 15, 35, 80 and 150 people, which correspond to our family, our close friends, our colleagues and acquaintances, our club and business affiliations, and finally our village or neighbourhood. My own analysis of actKM 12 months ago showed actKM has many of the characteristics of Dunbar’s theory.

So what you say? Well I think knowledge practitioners should read widely, inside and outside the discipline, such that it is. We should recognise there is little that is completely new. We should borrow and use ideas from other disciplines to advantage. For example the notion of a chaperone is interesting and applicable to knowledge management. ...

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It’s no secret that I am a fan of Professor Ronald Burt’s work. His book “Structural Holes: the Social Structure of Competition ”, is a seminal publication. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for “Brokerage and Closure ”, although I would still give it four stars. Read in sequence and in conjunction with each other they offer the knowledge management practitioner and network analyst some useful insights.

Once again Burt’s writing style is academic in flavour, with many examples. At times it is heavy going, but I still think well worth the effort. Burt remains interested in the structure of networks and particularly the links, or relationships, rather than node attributes. I think the focus on links rather than nodes is important. I just wish the software tools were better at showing link attributes, although I note NetMiner 3 is becoming more powerful in this area. One of the taken for granted but important assertions Burt makes is relationships amplify diversity and individual power, however in turn many diverse links enhance the power of relationships.

The central theme of this book is still around brokerage between structural holes ...

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Every now and then I come across an intriguing article that is also seminal to my interests and doctorate. Sociologica , which is the Italian Journal of Sociology, has just republished Harrison White's "Notes on the Constituents of Social Structure ". Harrison White is the Giddings Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, however his doctorate is in theoretical physics. White is very influential in network analysis and is sometimes credited with developing block-models - but I digress.

In this article White introduces the notion of a "catnet", where he brings together the ideas of categories and networks - hence catnet. The idea at the time was quite novel, yet now it seems obvious - people who are alike in some way will form networks (birds of a feather flock together). White's contribution was how to represent the various categories that might be found in a network. Further by bringing together network analysis and categories like race, gender, or education, he was able to show that categories are an artificial construct that aid understanding but of themselves are not sufficient. ...

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