Living Organizational Memories

1. Living Organizational Memories Jonathan Ostwald http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~ostwald DLC 2004

2. Knowledge Management • Discussion about the Article • What was interesting? • What was NOT interesting? • How does this course relate to “courses-as-seeds”? • Knowledge Management • Who needs it? • Is it more than a buzzword? • How could KM help/not help in DCL2004? DLC 2004

3. Motivating Example • Service Representatives (mid 1990’s) • At Regional Telephone Company DLC 2004

4. Motivating Example • Service Representatives (mid 1990’s) • At Regional Telephone Company • OM - Methods and Procedures Document • Cannonical Representation of Work • Created by Management • No direct path for reps to modify/share • Management Complains - Can’t keep up with change • But they don’t seem to realize • Service Representatives are knowledge workers • They are primary interface with customers • They learn of new devices and practices • They innovate • We tried to develop better OM . . . DLC 2004

5. Living Organizational memory • Evolves through the small contributions of many people • Informs creative work • Captures results of creativity • Integrates and structures information • User-Modifiable • Provides Community Services DLC 2004

6. Swiki as KM System • What are the strengths of the Swiki? • Radical End-user authoring • Simple to use • Accessible via web • … • What are the weaknesses? • Ad-hoc Structure • Finding relevant info • … • Where would we expect the Swiki to be most/least useful? • Traditional Courses • Courses as seeds • Industry • Open source DLC 2004

7. livingOM Architecture • Information Types • content is seeded • Relations • enable semantically navigable • information structures • Frameworks • example: enTWIne Magazine • Task-oriented • Flexible and quickly prototyped • Status • Just beyond demonstration of Concept DLC 2004

8. A Tour of the Prototype • Navigation Bar • Provides access to different information types • Relations • Integrate information space • Seeded with L3D information • Endnote, L3D HomePage, Misc Documents • Pages are customizable • Templates that mix HTML, data, and functionality DLC 2004

9. livingOM Documents • Based on flexible model • Collaborative and Evolving, • Threaded Discussions, • Research Papers, Theses • Mechanisms • Restructuring, Editing, Search • Figures, Tables, Contents, • Automated Concept Links DLC 2004

10. livingOM - Self Application • Target: Mid-Sized Research Groups • Examples: L3D and enTWIne group • Aim to be creative as a group • Tradition and history of artifacts, language, Stories, . . . • Dynamic Membership • Characteristics of L3D Organizational Memory • Many information objects created over time • papers, presentations, bibliographic databases, glossaries, theses • reports, email discussions, subgroups, . . . • Evolved through collective work of many people • Spread across many systems and locations • Portions (w.g., homepages) chronically out-of-date DLC 2004

11. enTWIne livingOM / Website The enTWIne website is a framework that presents livingOM contents to users Information space is open-ended Information is created and controlled by users Contents are fine-grained and richly linked DLC 2004

12. enTWIne Magazine • Subproject • Description External View of livingOM Highlight Activities Encourage contributions DLC 2004

13. enTWIne Magazine • Framework • Content • Structure • Interactions • for a particular task • Power-Tools • Template Language • Access to Objects and • Behaviors of Info Objects Magazine livingOM DLC 2004

14. Lessons Learned • Build it and they won’t come! • Need motivated user groups • Assessment is difficult because it requires a useful and useable system that is actually used for a significant period of time by a significant number of people. • Thus far: Driven by Learning how to implement things • Now we need to learn what to implement • And how to display • Data-oriented -> Task-oriented frameworks DLC 2004

15. KM at DLESE • Digital Library for Earth System Education • http://www.dlese.org/ • We use Swikis! • For personal use • For workshops • For projects • Why does KM seem to “work” at DLESE? • Why don’t we use LivingOM? DLC 2004

16. Extra Slides Follow DLC 2004

17. LivingBook Model DLC 2004

18. Social Creativity Revisited • Design-in-Use • System design and system use are interleaved • Necessary for sustained usefulness of OM • Provides new focus for social creativity • Unself-conscious culture of design • Users make changes to the environment when they run into limitations or want to try something new • Incremental Formalization • New Structures • New Frameworks • Research Objectives • Support and study creativity in the context of design-in-use • Study the interaction between design-in-use and creativity DLC 2004

19. Meta-Design • Designing for the designing user Because problems cannot be completely anticipated at design time (when the system is developed), users at use time will discover mismatches between their problems and the support that a system provides. Design problems in the real world require open systems that users can modify and evolve. DLC 2004

20. key design-in-use use feedback Meta-design in Organization Memory Assessment Framework A Layered Architecture in support of Meta-design DLC 2004