Levy, M., (2007), Web 2.0 Implications on Knowledge Management, Journal of Knowledge Management, 13 (1) pp120-134
Moria Levy is the founder and CEO of ROM Knowledgeware, an Israeli based firm for Knowledge Management solutions. View Levy’s complete profile at:
Moria Levy is the founder and CEO of ROM Knowledgeware, an Israeli based firm for Knowledge Management solutions. View Levy’s complete profile at:
http://managing-knowledge.blogspot.com/2009/04/teamwork.html
It may be broadly understood that corporate or organisational knowledge within our institutions is communicated, disseminated and accessed using a complexity of methods that include the services of Web 2.0 in conjunction with the past decade’s knowledge management principles. The distance education courses currently offered through Charles Sturt University, for example, are completely online courses that utilise Web 2.0 applications such as wikis, blogs and live chat to communicate expectations and content between staff and students, alongside Internet services such as online forums, email and the Intranet. In addition but decreasingly, options for traditional services such as telephone and post are still available. There are many avenues and opportunities today for information sharing between staff and students across the university that may affect one's experience of the organization.
Granted the extent of this network across a majority of medium to large organizations both in the public and private sectors has evolved quickly, so perhaps it is fair to say this information communication technology phenomenon has seen a recent and steep trajectory of pick-up within institutions rather than a long, slow introduction. Still, in this context Moira Levy’s paper, while providing a point by point analysis of Web 2.0 in relation to knowledge management practices within what seems to focus on the corporate environment, could be understood, in the space of only three years since it was written, to be a little out of date.
Such is the pace of change we are experiencing in our lives and throughout all aspects of contemporary society. The speed and unavoidable pick-up of new information communication technologies has been referred to as the ‘hydraulic’ effect of the Web (Markoff, 2004) and it exerts its pressure on individuals and organizations alike whether we choose to join the network or not. The adoption of Web 2.0 applications has been swift. An organisational environment within a liberal democracy (and increasingly across the developing world) without Web 2.0 services is becoming more unusual than not (Hassan, 2008).
Having said this, Levy’s text does provide a space within which to stop and take stock of recent organisational climates symbolised by the term Enterprise 2.0 (Hinchcliffe, 2007; Spanbaur, 2006) wherein knowledge management principles such as collective intelligence do meet and are affected by Web 2.0 applications such as blogs and wikis. Her discussion consists of a selection of nuanced positions on how Web 2.0 applications are perceived by commentators to either compliment or complicate the commonly accepted conceptual framework of KM. For example Snowden speaks of how Knowledge Management theory now has a technology that can assimilate with the continuous release of small, lightweight modules of communication, the ‘perpetual beta’, in an organization (Snowden, 2007) whereas McLean cautions for a ‘wait-and-see’, more considered approach to using the Web as a collaborative development and distribution platform (McLean, 2007).
An additional and useful device that Levy employs is her point-by-point exploration of definitions from Tim O’Reilly’s 2005 paper from the Web 2.0 Conference of that year (O'Reilly, 2005). She makes analytical comparisons using a series of tables measuring the specific attributes of Web 2.0 against similar features of Knowledge Management aspirations. An example of this can be seen in Levy’s explanation of the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) characteristic of Web 2.0 outlined by O’Reilly and how it is similar to the ‘what’s new alerts’ characteristic of using say, Enterprise Content management tools and Portals from amongst knowledge management staples.
The general clunkiness however of the language and expression of ideas throughout this text is perhaps due to the peculiarities of translation. The presentation of tables and columns for assessment of the two subjects does to some extent make this paper less muddy. In the short space of time since this article appeared in the Journal of knowledge Management in 2007 Levy’s pro-Web 2.0 position has proved to be more the norm than the experiment, particularly with younger generations of employees and managers in a knowledge management environment.
BIBLIOGRAPHYIt may be broadly understood that corporate or organisational knowledge within our institutions is communicated, disseminated and accessed using a complexity of methods that include the services of Web 2.0 in conjunction with the past decade’s knowledge management principles. The distance education courses currently offered through Charles Sturt University, for example, are completely online courses that utilise Web 2.0 applications such as wikis, blogs and live chat to communicate expectations and content between staff and students, alongside Internet services such as online forums, email and the Intranet. In addition but decreasingly, options for traditional services such as telephone and post are still available. There are many avenues and opportunities today for information sharing between staff and students across the university that may affect one's experience of the organization.
Granted the extent of this network across a majority of medium to large organizations both in the public and private sectors has evolved quickly, so perhaps it is fair to say this information communication technology phenomenon has seen a recent and steep trajectory of pick-up within institutions rather than a long, slow introduction. Still, in this context Moira Levy’s paper, while providing a point by point analysis of Web 2.0 in relation to knowledge management practices within what seems to focus on the corporate environment, could be understood, in the space of only three years since it was written, to be a little out of date.
Such is the pace of change we are experiencing in our lives and throughout all aspects of contemporary society. The speed and unavoidable pick-up of new information communication technologies has been referred to as the ‘hydraulic’ effect of the Web (Markoff, 2004) and it exerts its pressure on individuals and organizations alike whether we choose to join the network or not. The adoption of Web 2.0 applications has been swift. An organisational environment within a liberal democracy (and increasingly across the developing world) without Web 2.0 services is becoming more unusual than not (Hassan, 2008).
Having said this, Levy’s text does provide a space within which to stop and take stock of recent organisational climates symbolised by the term Enterprise 2.0 (Hinchcliffe, 2007; Spanbaur, 2006) wherein knowledge management principles such as collective intelligence do meet and are affected by Web 2.0 applications such as blogs and wikis. Her discussion consists of a selection of nuanced positions on how Web 2.0 applications are perceived by commentators to either compliment or complicate the commonly accepted conceptual framework of KM. For example Snowden speaks of how Knowledge Management theory now has a technology that can assimilate with the continuous release of small, lightweight modules of communication, the ‘perpetual beta’, in an organization (Snowden, 2007) whereas McLean cautions for a ‘wait-and-see’, more considered approach to using the Web as a collaborative development and distribution platform (McLean, 2007).
An additional and useful device that Levy employs is her point-by-point exploration of definitions from Tim O’Reilly’s 2005 paper from the Web 2.0 Conference of that year (O'Reilly, 2005). She makes analytical comparisons using a series of tables measuring the specific attributes of Web 2.0 against similar features of Knowledge Management aspirations. An example of this can be seen in Levy’s explanation of the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) characteristic of Web 2.0 outlined by O’Reilly and how it is similar to the ‘what’s new alerts’ characteristic of using say, Enterprise Content management tools and Portals from amongst knowledge management staples.
The general clunkiness however of the language and expression of ideas throughout this text is perhaps due to the peculiarities of translation. The presentation of tables and columns for assessment of the two subjects does to some extent make this paper less muddy. In the short space of time since this article appeared in the Journal of knowledge Management in 2007 Levy’s pro-Web 2.0 position has proved to be more the norm than the experiment, particularly with younger generations of employees and managers in a knowledge management environment.
Hassan, R. (2008). The information Society Today:The Acceleration of Just About Everything, The Information Society (pp. 1-31). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hinchcliffe, D. (2007). Leveraging the Convergence of IT and the Next Generation of the Web. from http://blogs.zdnet.com.Hinchcliffe/?p = 101
Markoff, J. (2004). Internet use said to Cut into TV Viewing and Socialising. 30 December. from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/30/technology/30internet.html
McLean, D. (2007). The New Web: Rewards and Risks for Businesses. PCWORLD.
O'Reilly, T. (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. from http://tim.oreilly.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
Snowden, D. (2007). Weltanschauung for Social Computing. from www.cognative-edge.com/2007/03/weltanschauung_for_social_comp.php
Spanbaur, S. (2006). Knowledge Management 2.0: new focused, lightweight applications rewrite the rule about KM. CIO, 20(5), 1.
