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SCMP Reporter

Dave Snowden, a Welsh academic, set out for IBM's Manhattan office one night after dinner. It was late, he was wearing a tuxedo and carrying a laptop, but he thought he would enjoy the walk.

His map told him the shortest route would be down 125th Street. What it didn't reveal was that where 125th Street passes through Harlem is one of New York's most dangerous neighbourhoods.

'I survived simply because nobody could believe that anybody could be that stupid,' recalled Mr Snowden. 'A police car drew up and said 'buddy, you just shouldn't be here,' and bundled me up in the back and got me out of there.'

What Mr Snowden learned that night was the value of human experts. Without innate local knowledge, the basic data on his map could have got him killed.

Dave Snowden is director of the Institute for Knowledge Management (ikm.ihost.com), a global non-profit group founded by IBM two years ago to help companies find and maximise their information assets.

The institute believes that business in the 21st century is moving into a renaissance, where companies become less hierarchical and more socially organised.

In an information economy, where it is increasingly difficult to differentiate between competitors, a company's most valuable asset is often the most intangible.

'We're now moving to a point in the information economy where people focus on their intellectual capital as the main differentiator,' said Mr Snowden. 'If you want to compete in the knowledge economy, you've got to deploy your knowledge.' The undocumented knowledge, experience and working practices of a company are often not understood by managers, who generally view their staff as units with a set role in the corporate hierarchy.

'If you treat knowledge properly and you recognise the high human element in knowledge then all of a sudden things become cheaper and simpler, because you stop trying to do everything in a database,' he said.

In the typical hierarchical business, the real knowledge is often hidden not in the database, but in individuals who understand how to process and act upon that information.

Each individual becomes a node, dispensing or withholding information as needed.

'When you do a knowledge audit, you'll often find hidden knowledge assets. You'll find individuals who are network knowledge nodes,' said Mr Snowden.

But the problem comes when those key individuals are unrecognised. Their knowledge may be overlooked or misused, and their contribution unrewarded.

'Your knowledge could walk out of the door and you wouldn't even know about it,' he said.

Identifying a firm's knowledge assets can be a tough challenge. An individual may not realise he or she is an expert, or may choose to hide their knowledge for their own reasons.

One of the institute's technologies is an e-mail analysis application, which identifies how individuals co-operate and share information. When the system identifies a potential expert, it asks whether they wish to be known as experts or to keep their expertise private. When other staff look for information on that topic, the system asks its experts whether they are willing to help.

Consequently, an individual who misuses or fails to give credit for others' information will fail to benefit from the system, while someone who is trusted will receive prompt support.

'The system rewards those who help. This means those who share information will get more success than those who steal or do not help,' said Mr Snowden.

It also rewards the organisation, by encouraging experts to share their knowledge.

'In a knowledge economy, everybody is a volunteer. They're not conscripts,' he said.

The institute has 34 members, mainly from Europe and the United States, though Australia's Finance Ministry recently became a member. It aims to cap the membership at 50, each member paying US$75,000 to join.

'There's a limit to the number of companies you can allow in and have a genuine community,' said Mr Snowden. 'We're not just a big professional body with lots of members, we're actually a community of people who are trying to move the agenda forward.'

Knowledge management is a huge and complex field, with few Asian practitioners, but Mr Snowden believes the region has cultural advantages that could help it catch up.

'The region is coming into knowledge management slightly later than the US or Europe, [but] the opportunity for Asia is not to go through all the first-generation grief and make all the mistakes, but to move straight into the second generation,' said Mr Snowden.

'The collegiate nature of society over here is the type of society that American and European companies are now trying to create. The ironic thing is the high level of individualism and individualistic reward is exactly the sort of thing that mitigates against knowledge management. So I think Asia has a good chance to leap into this quite quickly.'

The governments of Singapore, South Korea and South China have all embarked on knowledge management initiatives, with China about to launch projects in education this year.

'Asia started really a year or two years ago, and is now starting to get a critical mass of companies who are interested.

'So I doubt if we'll get the type of mass membership in Asia that we get in the States, but I think that there are now enough significant large companies who want to practice,' said Mr Snowden.



Group faces up to 21st century with an audit of knowledge