Innovation is a somewhat overlooked dimension in knowledge management, but it’s really the core of what all our efforts in KM should be about, says Waltraut Ritter, Research director at Knowledge Enterprises over Teh Tarik in her very short stop-over in Kuala Lumpur. It was the second time I met her in KL and our 2-hr long knowledge sharing was definitely a good experience for me.

Waltraut is visiting faculty member in a new university programme called I-schools at International School of Information Management, University of Mysore, India.  I-schools or Information Schools are  a collaborate project of a group of 19 I-schools in the United States and Canada (e.g. University of California, Berkeley; Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Syracuse University).

The focus is on the I not the T as so often in information and knowledge management programmes. Topics include: Cognitive approaches to information, IPR and Cyber laws, cultural informatics, knowledge economy, information science, information behaviour, entrepreneurship in the information industry.  (www.isim.ac.in).The programme is funded by the Ford Foundation.

The school in India is the first in Asia to adopt the concept and become part of this initiative, but there are discussions with other universities in the region.

Are I-schools the next thing after B-schools?

There is a huge demand for managerial talent in the Indian information services industry. Both Indian and foreign companies are struggling to find professionals for senior positions in the IT services and related knowledge-intensive industries. This will probably continue, particularly as the whole industry is undergoing so many changes, from high volume to high value services.

What are the changes in the information services industry?

I see great changes in the management perception of knowledge and innovation. Most companies in the information services industry are beginning to invest in knowledge, building their own know-how capital and foster innovation capabilities.

This changing perception is also visible in other countries in the region, in some of the highly developed economies, where investment in knowledge has started earlier, e.g. in  Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea, and you can also see this in Malaysia, which still has a relatively low expenditure on R&D. 

Note from the interviewer: China increased its R&D investment at an annualized rate of 19.3% in the last decade. Malaysia’s aggregate R&D expenditures now represent 0.7 percent of the country’s GDP — a percentage that is expected to rise to 1.5 percent by 2010. Developed countries average R&D expenditure is 2% of the GDP (Singapore -2.15%, Taiwan - 2.3%, Japan - 3.07%)

Malaysian National surveys of innovation and R&D suggests that the proportion of innovating firms in the manufacturing sector is between 21 and 42 per cent. The survey also mentions that innovating firms consider the finding of appropriate source of financing to be a serious problem. Penang aspires to become a northern knowledge hub in the region. The city is keen to promote a 'learning economy'

It is essential for the Government of Malaysia to collaborate with GLCs, Public and private research and educational institute to promote greater innovation in the country. GLCs like MDeC can facilitate such collaboration.
 

How are Indian companies managing their know-how?

Knowledge Management in the leading Indian IT services industry gets a lot of attention, and it also goes beyond the basis information organisation side of it. Some companies have started to look at their internal know-how networks, trying to identify the sometimes hidden know-how that can be turned into valuable IP. This is not only the task of KM professionals, but also involves professionals from R&D, service development, quality, and internal IP counsels The know-how of an organisation, existing and emerging, needs attention from many sides!

So, apart from teaching, what are you doing nowadays?

I am exploring the intersections between innovation and knowledge management and work with local and foreign companies trying to source know-how in India and China. Where are emerging centres of excellence in R&D and knowledge creation in Asia? Where will world class knowledge centres develop? That’s a big question for R&D managers in (Western) companies. Through this work I found that innovation is often still understood as technical or product innovation, not as social “thing”. The early phase of innovation and knowledge creation often starts with informal discussions in a stimulating environment. How do we know that something exciting is happening in a team of product developers or R&D staff or between a group of software developers and customers? Looking for new ideas on innovation, I came across an inspiring book, called “The Medici Effect” by Frans Johansson. The book has been translated into a kind of a game, a guided power dialogue on how innovations happen in organisations.

http://www.celemi.com/Areas-of-expertise/Business-simulations/The-Medici-Game/

What is MEDICI?

Well, it’s a game where people step into the intersections of different fields and explore about how ideas from different disciplines and cultures can create something new. This idea is quite a challenge for organisation with are still organised in departments and specialized lines of business. In KM some organisations form “Communities of Practice”, to create a common space for people with a shared interest. Departments and CoPs put people with similar experiences together to discuss and share, but innovation is more likely when you actually leave the comfort zone of your department, your network or your CoP. New ideas come up when people abandon their specialized, analytic perspectives and collaborate on free-form interpretation of vague or inconsistent information.

Any examples?

Yes, plenty…the Sony Playstation 3, as powerful as a supercomputer, can be used in medical research, helping to analyse complex human protein structures; Autonomy (enterprise search software) uses self-learning properties from ant ecology, the semiconductor industry experiments with plastic as a low-cost alternative to silicon; the mobile phone arose from a fruitful exchange between the radio and telephony groups at Bell Labs etc.  How did these ideas come up? Many of the really new ideas today are generated by researchers coming from different fields and specialisations; they talk to people with seemingly completely professional expertise and find something interesting in the intersection. Most scientific articles today have many authors; often all experts in different fields. That also applies for innovation in services, coming back to challenges in the Indian information services industry. Where will the new business and service models be coming from?

How’s the response from people about this game?

It’s sometimes difficult to get managers to play a “game”. They don’t see the value in it immediately. I also find that many people are somehow afraid of the term “innovation”, perhaps because it implies uncertainty and ambiguity, dealing with things we don’t know.
Once they understand that’s not about winning and loosing in Medici, the conversations are flowing and it’s very stimulating. It’s not a dry PowerPoint explaining the value of innovation, but really engages people.

How does Innovation relate to Knowledge management?

The creating of knowledge is what all organisations are all about, isn’t it? In knowledge management, we call this the growth and renewal dimension of intellectual capital; and it refers to the dynamic dimensions of an organisation. It’s the most difficult part of knowledge management, but also the most rewarding.

Coming back to the I-schools,  I hope that this new programme contributes to a profound understanding of the social dimension of information and knowledge, and that some of the graduates become knowledge entrepreneurs not only information or knowledge managers.

Waltraut can be reached at ritter@knowledgedialogues.com

The interview was taken by Naguib Chowdhury from KMTALK.