Knowledge Management: TOO BIG TO KNOW?

David Weinberger

Andrea HernandezHaitao WangXintong Li

HOW COULD WE DEAL WITH KNOWLEDGE IN A WEB SOCIETY?

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.

What is the knowledge?

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.

Stopping Point

Knowledge on the Paper

A perfect stopping point A hugely disconnected medium Investigation gets very expensive Very restricted

The carriers of the knowledge

Encyclopedia Newspapers Libraries

Small technology: Hyperlinks

Knowledge On The NetThe medium is changing from Paper to Net:

Issues:I.Information OverloadII.MessyIII.UnsettledIV.Scattered

I. Information overload1. 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

Filters in the printed world1. Old Filter :

The local library Deleted or disconnected

ManuscriptsLibrary

2. New Filter :

Filter forward, not Filter out Include Vs Exclude

Filters on the NetWikipedia,

II. Information Messiness

Paper-based knowledge :

knowledge is hierarchical, like a pyramid

Knowledge on the Net really doesn’t have a shape

It is

No foundationBoundary-freeWideInfinite

Internet Information Messiness

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.

Dealing with differences

Technics:

ForkingNamespacesLink Data

Human Tendency Echo Chambers

Echo ChambersWe 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

IV. Scattered

The knowledge on the Net is scattered, and doesn't follow the

long-form arguments like a book

“Web-form”“Long-form”

• 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

Knowledge lives on the network

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

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?

Build the New Infrastructure of Knowledge

An actual map of the internet

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

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

Thank you!