Expertise Networks

A Framework for Intra, Inter and Global Knowledge Sharing in Organizations Toronto Knowledge Workers Joel Alleyne – January 28, 2009

Adjunct Instructor (UT) iSchool Medicine (HPME) KMDI Practitioner in Residence PhD Candidate Consultant Manager Entrepreneur (was) CKO / CIO – large law firm Action Researcher

“ The economic problem of society … is not merely a problem of how to allocate ‘given’ resources – if ‘given’ is taken to mean given to a single mind … It is rather a problem of how to secure the best use of resources known to any of the members of society … a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality.”
Hayek,
The Use of Knowledge in Society,
American Economic Review ,
No 35 (September, 1945) pp. 1 - 18

Expertise researchers can be found across a number of interrelated disciplines, e.g.:
Cognitive science and psychology (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2003),
Education (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993) and
Sociology (Evans, 2008)

Expertise researchers can be found across a number of interrelated disciplines, e.g.:
Philosophy (Selinger & Crease, 2006)
Medicine (Groopman, 2007)
Management (Stephenson, 2006)

Expertise networks are the social, technical, and organizational networks that connect experts with novices and other experts.
A type of analysis (lens) that uses social networks that model the distribution of expertise in a domain and make explicit the level of expertise of the actors with respect to that domain
Novice(s) Expert(s) Intermediate(s)

Expertise Networking is central to and supportive of Knowledge Management

Effective problem-solving
Sound decision-making
Team collaboration
Competitiveness
Growing Complexity
Market differentiation
Innovation in products and services
Coordination

Core to the business
Pervasive
A “lens” for examining the enterprise and also intra-enterprise opportunities

Better understanding of expertise networks will facilitate:
Identifying and locating experts and expertise
The sharing of knowledge, wisdom, and experience.
Access to hidden or tacit knowledge resources.
The improved networking of a firm’s intellectual (and human) capital assets.
An important channel for the acquisition, sharing, trading and distribution of knowledge

Also … leads to optimization
When optimized – should pay dividends for an organization
Goes beyond general repository-based approaches to knowledge management

Expertise Management (Kotlarsky, Oshri, & Fenema, 2008)
Expertise Sharing (Ackerman, Pipek, & Wulf, 2002)
Expertise Location (Ackerman & McDonald, 1998)
(References are examples only)

Expertise Communities / Communities of Experts (Benton & Giovagnoli, 2006; Hakkarainen & European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction., 2004)
Expert Directories / Yellow Pages (Collinson & Parcell, 2001)

Connected Intelligence (De Kerckhove & Rowland, 1998);
Distributed Mind (Fisher & Fisher, 1998);
Collective Intelligence (Levy, 1997)
Epistemic Communities (Haas, 1992)

Advice Networks (Stephenson, 2006)
Automated discovery of expertise (search vendors and Mitre.org)
Knowledge Network/ing (Allee, 2003; Skyrme, 1999)
Talent Networks / Talent Management (Bryan & Joyce, 2007); (Cappelli, 2008)

Expertise mapping
Expertise markets
Expertise recognition
Expertise continuity
Expertise utilization
Expertise optimization
Expertise networking

Expertise conduits
Expertise recommenders
Expertise development
Expertise in context
Expertise exchange (ask an expert)
Expertise discovery
Expertise profiling

British Petroleum
Hill and Knowlton
Morrison & Foerster
IBM – Beehive
IBM – Small Blue

Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
Health Care – Inter-Professional Care
School Board
Utility Co – Central America
Cubeless (Sabre)

Initiatives in several jurisdictions
Goal: to optimize the use of health human capital (expertise)
Effective, efficient, economical
Reduce fragmentation and lower costs (Retchin, 2008)

Several (overlapping) terms used in the health care literature
Inter-professional
Collaborative
Interdisciplinary,
Trans-disciplinary
Multidisciplinary,
Multi-professional
Coordinated
Transprofessional

This appears to be fertile ground for the examination of expertise networking
Experts in IPE/IPC cross disciplinary boundaries
Removing / transcending traditional cultural and organizational barriers appear to be a challenge

Within the IPC Expertise network
Knowledge practices, knowledge sharing, knowledge transfer, knowledge translation (from research to practice)
Collaboration, coordination and communication

Informatics Support
Shared record keeping – the electronic record (necessary but not sufficient)
E-learning, e-cases
Social / Knowledge Media
Modeling and simulation / case based – virtual worlds? Gaming?
Directories

Research will focus on IPC / IPE (clinical settings)
Examine existing knowledge practices
Examine (case) attempts to change behaviours and processes in a care setting

Develop understanding of the expertise networks and how they function in this setting
Further develop (inform and expand) theory of expertise networking based upon experiences
Opportunities (domains)
Long term care
Primary care

A system for locating experts in the organization ( expert locator )
A network of our internal experts ( expert network )
A directory to experts ( expert directory )

A system that enable one to search for internal expertise ( expertise search system )
A system that allows us to discover capabilities existing in ( expert discovery )
A system that allows users to ask questions and to receive answers from experts within your organization ( question and answer exchange )

A system that facilitates collaboration between experts and non-experts ( expert collaboration )
A system that hosts a community of internal experts ( expert community )
A system that allows experts to share their knowledge ( expert knowledge-sharing )

A virtual marketplace system that allows experts to swap and trade what they know in response to the demand for knowledge and their ability to supply expertise ( expert marketplace )
A system that facilitates the profiling of experts capabilities ( expertise profiling )

Technology that allows the visual mapping of expertise connections ( expertise mapping ) – e.g. using
social network analysis
Knowledge Mapping, and
other techniques.

A system that acts as a pointer to expert know-how ( who knows what )
A system that tracks skills and capabilities and therefore can support future workforce planning. ( “workforce value chain” )

Your input is valued
Looking for
Ideas
Points
References
Cases
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Expertise Networks

by Joel Alleyne on Feb 11, 2009

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