Sunday, 15 February 2009

Article - 3 DATA, INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE

DATA

According to Jon-Arild Johannessen, Johan Olaisen, Bjorn Olsen; (2002) Data can be regarded as bites of potential information, which on its own does not provide any meaning, or “bits of information about particulars” expressed something similar: “Coded events operate as information in the communication process, not coded ones as disturbance (noise)”. It is only when an observer understands the code for the data, and when the data is systematized and structured that data becomes information for the observer.

INFORMATION

According to Jon-Arild Johannessen, Johan Olaisen, Bjorn Olsen; (2002) Information is defined as systematizing and structuring of data, given that the code is known and understood, it is referring back to a reference foundation.

KNOWLEDGE

According to Jon-Arild Johannessen, Johan Olaisen, Bjorn Olsen; (2002) Knowledge can be divided into two main categories: explicit (codified) and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge can be formulated relatively easily by means of words, numbers and symbols, and can thus be digitized. Hence, this type of knowledge can relatively be easily transferred to others by the use of, e.g. information and communication technology (ICT). Tacit knowledge is deeply rooted in action (practice) and is connected to concrete contexts. This type of knowledge is difficult to transfer to others as information and is difficult to digitize, i would define management as strategized processing of any function in an organised manner to gain the maximum output.( according to my article on Knowledge management )





My view on the relation between data, information and Knowledge

I accept with the statement above and also have experienced the same that data, information and knowledge are related to each others would like to consider the mortgage application processing in a bank as an example to make it more clear. in an mortgage process, the applicant submits the application and after which most of the people doesn’t know what happens actually, let me discuss it with regards to data, information and knowledge. the application as a scanned copy goes to the data entry department where a data entry operator enters all the data's in to the banks official data base from the submitted application and registers it with a unique number called as account number, here the employee dealing with the data transfer does not know what it is actually and how is it going to be processes in the future to sanction the mortgage, after the completion of this process the official application is ready in the data base, then goes in to the underwriter’s queue, here an underwriter picks this application for processing, this person also views the same details that was seen by the data entry operator where the script was just viewed as a data, but here with the underwriting team, the same data is being looked in to as the information of applicant(eg: the credit score, property value, applicants age, applicants income, applicants social status, number of dependents applicant has) who has applied for the mortgage, this doesn’t stops here just with the data being turned in to information , but the information viewed becomes knowledge when the underwriter starts assessing the application by analysing in all the required respective aspects according to the underwriting policies which makes the underwriter to sanction the mortgage loan, and this information is true to my knowledge with my experience as a mortgage underwriter...and i consider this would be a good example that co-relate data, information and knowledge.

Refference:

[1]Jon-Arild Johannessen,Johan Olaisen and Bjørn Olsen,2002:"Aspects of a systemic philosophy of knowledge: from social facts to data,information and knowledge"pp:2-15.
[2]http://madhusudhananvadivel.blogspot.com/

Sunday, 8 February 2009

Article-2, Knowledge management in organisation

Knowledge management in organization

This article would explain about what is knowledge management and how is being practiced in organisations, also have included my own views that i have learnt from my own experience of two years in an multi-national organisation,
To start the article on knowledge management in organisation, i would first like to give or explain about what is knowledge, management and organisation are.

What is Knowledge:

According to Roelf p and Uit beijers(1999), they have said that knowledge has two different basic ways of interest in which it can be definition, one of which is in accordance with the body of information, where body of information may comprise of facts, opinion, ideas, theories, principles and models and the other way of definition depends on the subject matter.

And also the term knowledge is being explained in different ways by many other authors to, among that with reference to weggeman(1997), knowledge is a personal potentiality of an individual which is the product of any information acquired by that individual and also according to Den Hertog and huizeuga(1997), knowledge is a collection of information that can utilized to manipulate certain functions.

What is management:

With reference to Roelf and Beijers(1999), management is a strategy driven motivations and facilitation of people aimed at reaching organisational level. Daft(1993), states management is achievement of the goals set by the organisation in an effective and efficient manner by the means of planning, organising, leading and having control over the organisational resources.
According to me, i would define management as strategized processing of any function in an organised manner to gain the maximum output.


What is organisation


Organisation is a group of people or a community working towards the same goal and to achieve it.
According to Stinchcombe(1964), organisation is a set of social relations deliberately created with explicit intension of continuously accomplishing same specific goals or purposes.

Knowledge Management

The term knowledge management itself makes people make their own assumptions of what it means, and may be so, there are a lots of definitions for this term, according to Ponelis and Fair-Wessels (1998), knowledge management is a new dimension of strategic information management.Davenport and Prusak (1998) defines knowledge management as a process where knowledge is being captured, distributed and is used effectively. Also according to Skyrme (1997) knowledge management is the explicit and systematic management of vital knowledge along with its associated processes of creating, gathering, organizing, diffusing, using, and exploiting that knowledge.

My view on knowledge management

I have been working in an Multi national organisation for more than two years, with my experiences and knowledge i have acquired and also with reference to the articles and journals listed below i feel knowledge management in an organisation is a one among the most important factor that improves the organisation with respect to the revenue earning and to withstand in the competitive market, and to define it in a simpler way, i would tell it to be the interdepartmental knowledge sharing in order to improve the performance level and for the smooth operations of all the departments or groups of an organisation and this may not be restricted within the organisation, rather sharing of knowledge with other organisations too. for an example , let us consider A-team and buffalo organisation, where Buffalo organisation may be the client of A-Team on a particular project and now there comes a situation where A-Team lacks knowledge on that domain in some aspect that they have to deliver the products to their client, at this instance, here comes a common co-operation between both organisation where they share their knowledge with each other in order to attain the goal, where both the organisations are benefited by improving their efficiency and revenue earnings.

if u ask, is there any good and adverse of knowledge management to the organisation practising it, then i would tell yes, there are good and bad about this in organisational operation, to consider some of the good factors from the example given above, the efficiency of the company increase, improves the profitability of the company, improvement in interaction of product developing and marketing, improves interaction or communication of knowledge workers, helps in the organisation focusing on the core business and critical organisational knowledge, helps withstand in the competitive market.
and about the disadvantages, there comes a problem when the organisation rates their employees (appraisals) on the basis of knowledge, there arises a situation of employees holding their knowledge within themselves

According to my opinion, knowledge management is one of the very important factor for an organisation in order to improve the company and hence is necessary for all the organisation to adapt this strategy in order to improve themselves in all the aspects discussed above.




References:

[1] Roelf P and Uit Beijers(1999):Questions in knowledge management: defining and conceptualising a phenomina.journal of knowledge management vol 3(issue-2)page98-99.


[2]Barclay R and Murrey P.,R.,ed.1997.knowledge praxis. Knowledge Management Associates.

[3]Stinchcombe, in J.March, ed., Handbook of Organizations, 1964, p.142.

[4]http://www.media-access.com/whatis.html( accessed on feb5 2009).

[5]Ponelis, S. and Fair-Wessels, F. 1998. "Knowledge management: a literature overview".South Africa Journal of Library Information Science. 66(1), 1-10

[6]Davenport, T. and Prusak, L. (1998). Working knowledge: how organizations manage what they know. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Thursday, 22 January 2009

Article-1, GANGS

Gangs


The word Gang actually refers to a group of people joined together with common identity. in the earlier days dated back to 19th century the word GANG referred to group of workers in united kingdom and also they are still mean the same what they were, and later the name ,,GANG referred to the group of criminals or the word gangster, that refers to a criminal of an crime organisation(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang),
The concept of gang is not new or latest and this dates back to number of centuries back starting from the formation of pirates in olden days.
The definition for gangs according to the police is gangs being a collection or group of individual where the individual may either be juvenile or an adult, who joint or meets together on an regular basis to decide on a common goal or a purpose and involve in that planned criminal activities.

Classification

If we are to look in to classification of GANG then the this also being reffered to as WANNABES

School-yard Gang

the dissimilarity between different gangs can be categorised based on age, finance, activities and also on the level of Knowledgeableness and refinement. This also being referred to as WANNABES, the gang activities also takes place in some public schools


Scavenger Gangs

As the name itself states ,,, these gangs are not much effective and are least successful out of all the gangs, the gang members are like a sort of low level achievers and they go in to some illegal activities like violent and erotic behaviours, as they are not well organised. these gangs don’t plan anything and go ahead with their activities spontaneously and the crime they do are at a lower level only, however, if the scavenger gangs start organising themselves properly may lead them or promote them to become a Territorial gang


Territorial Gangs

This gangs are well organised compared to Scavengers gang , the purpose of this gangs are social. many may also sell drugs these gangs go with violent behaviour for the defence of their territory , the gang members are mostly attracted towards the gangs due to difficult home lives.


Corporate Gangs

These gangs are most effective ones and the members are far inteligants compared to other gangs and also they plan their work and in a very wel organised manner to achieve their targets, the members have to follow a particular ethics of the organisation and all. The purpose of these gangs marketing drugs are to make maximum gain, these leader of this gang will be an intelligent person, and the boss in these such a gang will be an highly success full career criminal.


Street gangs

This could be defined as an ongoing organisation or group of three or more number of individual performing either formal or informal primary activities like Robbery, homicide or manslaughter, sale or something relating to narcotics and illegal practices, etc...


My View on gangs in accordance with organisation

the word gang to most of the people refers to an illegal group and that is what comes to every one’s mind by hearing the word.and this kind of gangs stated above dont store their knowledge or information in th form of data or in other forms as every thing is just tacit and always these gangs deal with tacit knowledges as the measure of their safty and the secrets maintained. according to me i accept that mostly gangs refers to an organisation or an association doing illegal activities however, it also includes associations working for mankind and human welfare ,,even there are many gangs that do social works that benefits people without harming any one, and some helps to improve the mankind too. for example i myself was and in a gang where my gang consists of five members whose primary professions varies but we join to form a gang to achieve a similar goal and work with an objective of improving the standards of children in slum area by educating them and making them understand the outer world, for which we five work as an organisation, we plan in the way how the children are to be educated, we strategise what kind of knowledge is to be delivered to them, we analyse each and every children to understand their mentality and their grasping power of any information, we also educate them in the means of games, and take them to various places to create a change in their mind. we make a record of all the instances and events and later we again look in to this data’s of information that we have already recorded and use it to build an improved strategy with respect to the teaching procedures for the next batch of children, and this is how my gang works and hope this would have been proper example to support my view and also to show that there are gangs that also stores their information in the form of data and here explicit knowledge is also used.

Reference
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang[accessed on 26th january,2009]
[2]http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4111/nogangs.html(accessed on 30th january 2009)
[3]http://www.safeyouth.org/scripts/facts/gangs.asp(accessed on 4th feb 2009)
[4]http://www.gangwar.com/dynamics.htm(accessed on 7th feb 2009)