Signal Charlie

Why Knowledge Management? If you show me a mishap or incident, with human and/or material causal factors identified, I can show you where a human or machine in the system did not have accessible, reliable and timely knowledge to support proper decision making. Whether it be in the concept, design, implementation or operational framework of real world systems.

So how do we develop knowledge? It’s all about the data these days. Data driven decision making. Scientific data. Taxonomies. Quantitative analysis. I view it as the quantification of safety, and we need to balance data with folksonomies, the human view in the system perspective. This is a quality approach that I view that as the qualification of safety.

But what to do with that data (and hopefully it’s not garbage data). Data must be turned into information by humans or machines in the loop, and quality information becomes knowledge. Knowledge must be exchanged freely within a high reliability system, and it takes trained professionals to manage knowledge systems. A Librarian. Like me 🙂

Key Attributes of a Library and Information System

-Organization – How is knowledge organized

-Storage – What best systems support knowledge archives

-Access – Can the user easily access the knowledge

-Retrieval – Can knowledge be retrieved in a timely manner

Key Attributes of Knowledge, or the ART of Knowledge

-Accessible – Knowledge must be available to the user in order to have effect

-Reliable – Knowledge must be qualified, trusted and pertinent

-Timely – Knowledge must be available in a timely fashion, especially in high reliability organizations