Presentation of the Topic: Knowledge Management, too big to know? For the course Cooperate Communications ITIS Master Program

1. Knowledge Management:
TOO BIG TO KNOW?
David Weinberger
HOW COULD WE DEAL WITH KNOWLEDGE
IN A WEB SOCIETY?
Andrea Hernandez
Haitao Wang
Xintong Li

2. What is the knowledge?
In the past, we had the following assumptions about knowledge:
 Knowledge will create a picture of
the world.
 We can build up knowledge brick-by-
brick (even if it takes long time).
 We can take it into pieces and nail it
down (and that part won't change).
 Knowledge is the real stuff, and like
gold, we can filter it out from vast
amount of ideas.

3. Stopping Point
The system is designed to have stopping points. If we trust the
expert, and he/she gives the answer, we can close the issue,
we don't need to repeat the experiment or ask another one.

4. Knowledge on the Paper
 A perfect stopping point
 A hugely disconnected medium
 Investigation gets very expensive
 Very restricted

5. The carriers of the knowledge
 Encyclopedia
 Newspapers
 Libraries
Small technology: Hyperlinks

6. Knowledge On The Net
The medium is changing from Paper to Net:
Issues:
I.Information Overload
II.Messy
III.Unsettled
IV.Scattered

7. I. Information overload
1. New knowledge appear every day:
 So many books and periodicals
 So many web pages
2. Problems:
 Getting information more than
you can process
 Poor memory retention
 Endless search for answers

8. Filters in the printed world
1. Old Filter :
 The local library
 Deleted or disconnected
Library Manuscripts

9. Filters on the Net
2. New Filter :
 Filter forward, not Filter out
 Include Vs Exclude
Wikipedia,

10. II. Information Messiness
Paper-based knowledge :
knowledge is hierarchical, like a pyramid

11. Internet Information Messiness
Knowledge on the Net really doesn’t have a shape
It is
No foundation
Boundary-free
Wide
Infinite

12. III. Unsettled
Every link expresses some difference between the page that we are on
and the one that we are being sent to.
Is only because of this
Link - Difference the web has a
value.
Problem:
What we see on the web, is only disagreement.

13. Dealing with differences
Technics:
Forking
Namespaces
Link Data
Human Tendency Echo Chambers

14. Echo Chambers
We like to be with people who are like us.
If we are living in echo chambers on the Internet, then it
doesn’t matter how many differences, disagreements, and
points of view are present.
• Knowledge is hiding from diversity.
• We exclude more differences
than ever before

15. IV. Scattered
The knowledge on the Net is scattered, and doesn't follow the
long-form arguments like a book
• In a book we start from A and we try to
get to Z.
• Books are loosing their place as the
Pyramid of Knowledge
• Knowledge lives on the Network now
“Long-form” “Web-form”

16. Knowledge lives on the network
Knowledge actually lives on this network, of people corresponding,
disagreeing, agreeing, enhancing, differing in every possible way

17. Why old knowledge systems are
so fragile?
Traditional
Knowledge
 Bounded
 Settled
 Ordered
 Proceeded step
by step
Knowledge in the
Age of Internet
 Unbounded
 Overwhelming
 Unsettled
 Messy
How could we deal with network knowledge
in a web society?

18. Build the
New Infrastructure of Knowledge
An actual map of the internet

19. Strategies:
Networking of Knowledge
1. open access journals, repositories, encyclopedias, etc.
2. Provide the hooks for intelligence: create more
metadata to solve the information overload problem.
3. Link everything

20. 4.Leave no institutional knowledge behind
Institutions provide isolates thought.
The Net is not going to tear down all institutions
Institutions need to be fierce contributors to the Net
Toward knowledge and not dazed ignorance.
5.Teach everyone:
How to use the Net
How to evaluate knowledge claims
How to love difference
Net provides us with growth and knowledge

21. Thank you!