Managing Information: C. Tryon/book review by J. Colannino

 This review first appeared in the newsletter of the Knowledge and Information Professionals Association (KIPA)

Knowledge Management (KM) is a fledgling discipline with origins in four established ones: computer science (informatics), library science (cataloging and indexing), business (project management), and psychology (organizational dynamics). Depending on its birthplace, KM means different things or at least has different emphases, from the philosophical to the pragmatic. In fact, KM is in desperate need of better philosophy, primarily for the sake of undergirding its praxis, which has often taken many a wayward turn.

Although educated in the library science tradition, Tryon comes down solidly on the project-centric side of things where he has spent the better part of his living. Tryon cuts to the chase by systematizing what works and presents a considered step-by-step process: 1. Create a knowledge management vision and goals statement based on best KM processes and practices. 2. Evaluate your organization by conducting a KM assessment. 3. Use the assessment to define a knowledge inventory. 4. Create a knowledge portal to share and disseminate that knowledge.

In order to facilitate these steps Tryon systematizes Knowledge Management into what I believe will become a foundational model for KM -- the KIPPAR model. Picture a knowledge inventory (KI) supported on three pillars: projects (P), processes (P), and artifacts (A). These pillars are grounded on knowledge repositories (R); these then, are the elements of the KIPPAR model. The knowledge inventory declares what counts as knowledge; knowledge is produced especially when an organization undertakes projects. Such projects require a variety of processes that inevitably contribute to organizational knowledge. That knowledge is defined and codified by particular artifacts (e.g., documents, specifications, etc.). In order to keep from reinventing the wheel, knowledge must be preserved for posterity in the knowledge repository and remain accessible via various portals.

None of this feels new, but it is. Although it has been known for sometime that good PM requires good KM, Tryon firmly establishes PM as KM's handmaiden. Moreover, the KIPPAR model is a real contribution, showing succinctly how the pieces fit together. Finally, Managing Organizational Knowledge provides a practical guide for establishing formal KM practice in a language that organizations already speak.

The work is organized into ten chapters and has an introduction, conclusion, acknowledgements, and an Appendix with helpful templates. Such a project-centric approach to KM is bound to be useful, and I recommend this book for any organization or practitioner seeking to install or enhance KM efforts.

The Information: J. Gleick/book review by J. Colannino

Comment: "(This book review first appeared in the pages of "In the Know", A Newsletter of the Knowledge & Information Professional Association, VOLUME 2, ISSUE 6, NOVEMBER, 2011)

What is information? Knowledge theorists such as myself use the "wicked" acronym (actually WKID) to provide a clue: Wisdom > Knowledge > Information > Data. Data are generally defined as "bare facts." By the time we get to information we have a collection of organized data or taxonomy. Knowledge is information employed for a purpose; this is the level of understanding that defines a discipline, e.g., psychology, engineering, etc. Wisdom is knowledge plus some moral or normative component: knowledge will tell you how to make a bomb, wisdom will tell you if you should. It is at the level of wisdom that paradigms and worldviews operate and compete: e.g., environmentalism, theism, materialism, etc. -- all make normative claims regarding to what effect we should employ knowledge. Even so, the WKID categories are to some extent points of convenience along a continuum; the dividing line is often less obvious than advertised.

Into the fray jumps Gleick. Beginning with African drums, moving to Shannon's information theory, and ending at the modern flood of continual information, Gleick attempts to provide perspective on "the information" (an element so foundational to human existence that the author decided to introduce the subject with the definite article). With an interesting prologue and provocative epilogue, the work is organized into 15 chapters and 526 pages, of which nearly 100 comprise end notes and an index. Although the book is not formally divided into parts, it is roughly divided into three sequential themes: forms of communication, Chapters 1 - 5 (a history); the theory of information, Chapters 6 - 9 (a theory); and the sources of information, Chapters 10 - 15 (a flood). The first five chapters survey language in its various forms, first oral then written; I found them riveting. The next four chapters begin the dive into formal communication theory. They reveal the remarkable result that digital codes (as opposed to analog transmissions) can be made arbitrarily accurate even over noisy channels. In fact, the most accurate, condensed, and efficient digital code known to man happens to be the genetic code -- so, information is foundational to humanness in more ways than one -- and it gets its own chapter (10).

If the book had ended with Chapter 10, it would have remained a very good book, if not incomplete. But the author earns extra points for soldiering on. Because in fact, Chapter 10 sets up an implicit tension: what has generated all that information? At the time of the mid-nineteenth century, the answer was well known: all known information sources were sentient. Had DNA's digital code been discovered then, rather than 100 years later, the verdict would have likely remained unanimous, and the question would not have been "What..." but "Who..." with God declared Author; Shannon's information theoretic would have only cemented the view: the unparalleled informational carrying capacity of DNA, its digital nature in a pre-digital world, its remarkable error correction routines...

But that is not how history went, and it is not what Gleick believes, nor how he chose to end his book. He does not shy away from attempting to answer the questions his subject demands. Four chapters are devoted to memes, randomness, quantum mechanics, and other non-sentient explanations for the origin of biological information. (This is something I have studied at some length. I generally find non-sentient explanations of biological information incoherent, and I say that is the case here; I am apparently a century out of time.) Notwithstanding, the writing is very good, and in places, spellbinding. His investigation is fearless and authentic. Gleick is committed to follow his subject to its end, and I cannot help but to recommend this book."