It is confusing at times, to find different authors within a said field, treating and talking about what should be a straight forward set of variables in conflicting and confounding ways. The Tacit/Explicit dichotomy is a perfect example.
Paulyini[i] had once said that all knowledge has a tacit dimension, so, should we be asking if tacit knowledge could be transferred and written? or to what degree tacit knowledge could be transferred? Maybe the tacit/explicit knowledge divide is too simplistic. Maybe, tacit knowledge could itself be divided further; to allow for example for cases where, although admittedly awkward, a particular “tacit” knowledge may actually be made explicit in the right situations. Similarly should it not allow for a more accurate description for cases where it is absolutely impossible, not only to ever make the knowledge explicit, but to transfer it at all?
The fact that the common definition for tacit knowledge does not explicitly answer these questions raises strong concerns about that entire way of thinking. The simple and somewhat vague model is suitable for some contexts; however, in this situation, where we are proposing enabling informal learning to occur, spontaneously, through written word, a much more comprehensive and sophisticated view is needed.
Leonard and Sensiper’s (1998)[ii] approach where knowledge is seen to fit into a scale; with totally explicit knowledge on one hand and totally implicit knowledge on the other, provides an interesting starting point.
This interpretation allows that most knowledge lies somewhere between these extremes, where for example, parts of a particular knowledge set may be codified, but only interpreted correctly through the application of adequate tacit knowledge.
Five experts were interviewed about this theoretical but highly problematic dichotomy. From the results it is possible to note clear divisions within what should be the tacit knowledge domain.
Firstly, all but one interviewee made reference to soft skills as falling in the extreme ranges of the tacit domain; it seemed common consensus that soft skills may not be realistically acquired through informal, distance learning. This feeling was reinforced when interviewees were asked to exclude possibilities of video and voice calling.
However, I agree with Russel JF Kirk, CTO for Grey Convergence, when he stated that anything that may be learnt through a book may be learnt online, and that some extraordinary books, even though not specifically soft skills related text books, manage to teach certain social skills through good writing and rich social settings.
This point is valid for the traditional interpretation of what soft skills are. However from speaking to a large number of people in virtual communities, it has emerged that there are Internet-specific soft skills which in fact may only be acquired informally, through experience in an online environment. Net-etiquette is a good example, but also, the ability to properly communicate by e-mail requires a degree of experience and a conscious realisation about the misunderstandings that the technology is so prone to.
Two of the expert interviewees mentioned how Personal Experiences along with all their emotional underpinnings, are particularly hard to share and make explicit. The experts came to the conclusion, that this type of tacit knowledge, although almost impossible to learn in a formal way, may be shared informally in VCoP. However the extent of this learning is heavily dependent on situational, individual and technological factors.
Situational: A large host of issues surrounding the situation in which the knowledge is being shared, such as; politics, confidentiality issues, and a fear of offending people in the real world. All of the interviewed experts, for example, made reference to confidentiality issues as being a major hurdle in the sharing of personal experiences. At times, the fact that a particular company is experimenting with a particular technology is confidential; this acts as a major barrier for any personal willing to share his experiences, often making him unable to describe his full frustration at any particular problem.
Individual: How willing and able is the particular person to personalise his comments and postings? How able are they to share their emotions in this way, and also, on the other side of the coin, how able is the reader to read between the lines and learn the intricate details of any particular experience? How open are they to advice in the first place, and how motivated and dedicated are they to reading through a large amount of posts in order to get a full picture?
Technological: Here it is possible to divide and group different sets of issue regarding the choice and management of the technological infrastructure underlying the VCoP.
Organistional: VCoP need to be managed, facilitated and lead. The way this is done has tremendous implications on the ability for individuals to share personal experiences, and more crucially share emotions. James Pullicino from the BBC, a veteran software engineer turned project manager, described how emotional subjective comments and postings are often frowned upon in online forums. He said that such comments, although valuable, divert the threads focus, and often divide the community’s discussion regarding the thread; one part focusing on providing emotional support, the other continuing an objective discussion. Pullicino continued to say that the communities ability to effortlessly redirect such emotional outbursts in order to refocus the objective discussion whilst also providing a more comfortable, secluded environment where emotional and personal experiences are more suitably located, is absolutely crucial.
William Venters, a knowledge management and systems development lecturer at the London School of Economics, agreed very much with the usefulness of such an ability. He added that when the technological and organisational infrastructure allows users to “splice” the community, forming little enclaves or sub communities, the discussions automatically become more specific enabling the community to support a greater range of professional backgrounds and practice interests.
Indeed, Miguel Cornejo Castro[iii] makes explicit reference to the importance for the community to enable sub communities to emerge and prosper in his paper about the “Community of Practice Ecosystem”.
Community leaders also have the option of allowing certain types of technologies to be made use of. These technologies in turn have large impact on the ability for personal experiences to be shared. A good example is the use of story telling. This is not a technology per se, it is more of a technique. However, it still needs to be effectively promoted and taught for it to be able to be used effectively.
Technological Choice: Obviously, the elements classed as organisational have a number of technological links. This category however refers to more fundamental technological elements; crucially, whether the technology is intended to communicate one to many vs many to many or one to one.
A community based on blogs, for example, falls closer to the ‘one to many’ category. This makes it ideal for the sharing of personal experiences. A blogging community, which offers a good search feature, is in fact very useful for reading about people’s experiences. It has been used through out this research, where for example, many good tips about conducting and directing interviews were learnt by reading other researchers’ blogs.
A one to one based technology, such as is well supported in older IRC based communities, may enable more emotional dialogues to take place. If these conversations are made achievable and thus searchable another interesting technological element emerges, that of anonymity.
Feedback: All 5 interviewees all mentioned specifically that one of the most useful ways in which they extracted value from participating in a VCoP was by asking for and receiving second opinions about either their written work pieces or even about decisions they have made. This sort of knowledge would fall under the tacit knowledge domain, not because it is hard to share, but because making it explicit is useless since such a document is too static whilst constant, quick and effective communication is required. The quick and easy comment system in blogs and the interactive environment provided in online forums provides a clear means by which this type of tacit knowledge may be easily shared, albeit, slightly dependant on the individual’s ability to write clearly and to effectively navigate the software.
Miguel Cornejo Castro[iv]in his paper entitled “Revisiting Communities of Practice: from fisherman’s guild to the global village” pin points how the virtual environment helps the feedback mechanism by firstly reducing the cost of communication and secondly by reducing the cost of storing and effectively retrieving informal feedback.
Sensitive Judgment Calls: In certain situations, knowledge is not made explicit by choice, since formalising the knowledge would change its status and impact. Will Venters, a lecturer at the LSE, explained how even if it would be possible to write an effective formal document describing a procedure for the correct marking of exam papers, the existence of such a procedure would negatively impact the learning experience provided by his course. Students would change their behaviour to reflect the examination scheme, rather than focusing on learning all they could. Such situations rely on a constant stream of tacit knowledge sharing rather than explicit documents. As Castro explained, the virtual community setting reduces the cost of such communication. We may speculate that community oriented knowledge management systems would have a positive impact on the sharing of this type of tacit knowledge.
However, it may be argued by achieving such discussions, a VCoP would automatically make such knowledge explicit. On the other hand, the informal context in which the achieved discussion is set would not yield the surety that an explicit formal document would attach to itself. In the previous example, if the student find such a online discussion, they debate its significance, noting that it maybe hearsay, or that it is old. Either way the fact that its significance is subject to discussion distinguishes it from a more formal document. Also VCoP may offer the opportunity to either restrict areas of the network or to allow certain discussion not to be archived.
Again, the truth of the statement still depends on the individual’s ability to write clearly and to use the technology, but to a lesser extent as so far, this is the least ambiguous subject that still falls in the Tacit knowledge domain.
Gossip, Rumours and Rapid Information: James Pullicino, from the BBC, had noted that during his many years programming, he would have had to frequently rely on tacit knowledge, originating in fact from online communities, because formalised, published information about the latest product would not yet be available. He went on to say that when such publications where finally printed, the technology would have progressed making it obsolete for his purposes.
Blogs and online forums, elevate the publication barrier, and make the sharing of information much easier and faster and crucially cheaper. Tacit knowledge which would occur spontaneously in an office, about either the latest technology, or latest inside news and sometimes even important gossip and rumours, find nice new homes in virtual environments. They are not ambiguous and the only obstacle to make them explicit is not the subject’s ambiguity but in fact the very fast depreciation rate of the knowledge asset.
From the interviews it is already clear that tacit knowledge may be transferred effectively through a VCoP. We may even speculate that certain dimensions of tacit knowledge are shared more cost effectively using community based knowledge management systems.
[i] Polanyi, M. (1967). The Tacit Dimension. New York, Doubleday.
[ii] Leonard and Sensiper’s (1998)
[iv] Miguel CORNEJO CASTRO1
3rd European Knowledge Management Summer School
1Macuarium Network SL, C/ Sandoval 25, 4º izda, 28010 Madrid, Spain
