What is PKM?

Overview of Personal Knowledge Management

The concept of Personal Knowledge Management, as outlined below, wasdeveloped by Professor Paul Dorsey and elaborated and made concrete ina web site called PKMNet by Jonathon Goade, a Millikin Universitygraduate (2000) and Scovill Award winner (1999), who completed PKMNetas part of his James Millikin Scholar project.  Jason Frand of theAnderson School of Management at UCLA has used the concept of PersonalKnowledge Management to describe a more limited set of information andknowledge management practices that are integrated into the AndersonSchool MBA Program.  Dorsey has had extensive discussions with Frand aspart of his work in developing the PKM concept.

Personal Knowledge Management should be viewed as a set aproblem-solving skills that have both a logical or conceptual as wellas physical or hands-on component.  These are skills that will berequired for successful knowledge work in the twenty-first century. These skills should be interwoven into programs of university generaleducation and into academic major programs; both general purpose (suchas MS Office) and more specialized (such as disciplinary) tools canfacilitate the practice of Personal Knowledge Management.  Teaching PKMentails teaching both intelligent practices that guide the use of toolsas well as intelligent and efficient use of the tools themselves.

The seven PKM skills are:  (1) retrieving information; (2)evaluating/assessing information; (3) organizing information; (4)analyzing information; (5) presenting information; (6) securinginformation; and (7) collaborating around information.  Thesignificance of each of the seven is clarified below:

(1) Retrieving information.  Underlying the PKM skillof retrieving information is everything from the low-tech skills ofasking questions and listening and following up to the more complexskills of searching for information using Internet search engines,electronic library databases, and relational databases.    Concepts ofwidening and narrowing one’s search, Boolean logic, and iterativesearch practices are an important part of the effective exercise ofthis PKM skill.

(2) Evaluating information.  This entails not onlybeing able to the judge the quality of information, but to determineits relevance to some question or problem at hand.  Though this has nonecessary computer mechanism for implementation (though Internet searchengines have crude relevant raters), the greater availability ofinformation in the current information-rich environments makes thisskills of far greater importance.

(3) Organizing information.  This entails using varioustools to draw connections between items of information. In the manualenvironment, we use file folders, drawers, and other mechanism fororganizing information; in more high-tech environments, we useelectronic folders, relational databases, and web pages.  Effectiveorganizational principles must underlie effective implementation ofinformation organization regardless of the environment.

(4) Analyzing Information.  This entails the challengeof “tweaking” meaning out of data.  Integral to analyzing informationis the development and application of models, often quantitative, to“educe” relationships out of the data.  Tools such as electronicspreadsheets and statistical software provide the means to analyzeinformation, but the human element is central in framing the modelsthat are embodied in that software.

(5) Presenting Information.  The key aspect ofpresenting information is the centrality of audience.  Presentinginformation—whether through PowerPoint presentation, web site, ortext—builds on principles of chunking information to enable audiencesto understand, remember, and connect.  Web styles and monographs ondesigning web site usability provide concrete content for this PKMskill.

(6) Securing Information.  While securing informationis a different kind of PKM skill than the other six, it is no lessimportant.  Securing information entails developing and implementingpractices that assure the confidentiality, quality, and actualexistence of information.  Practices of password management, backup,archiving, and use of encryption are important elements of thiseffectively practiced PKM skill.

(7) Collaborating Around Information.  Increasinglyinformation technology tools called groupware are being provided tosupport collaborative work.  To use that technology effectivelyrequires not just understanding how to use those tools, butunderstanding underlying principles of effective collaborative work. Principle of e-mail etiquette are an illustration of importantknowledge underlying the effective exercise of this PKM skill.

(Taken from Goade’s work) “It should be noted, however, thatthese are problem solving skills and not problem definition skills. The PKM information skills take for granted that either 1) the problemto be solved is already defined or (2) the person doing the problemsolving has knowledge enough of the problem to adequately define it.

 “Once a problem is defined, each one of these skills can beseen as a step taken toward the solution of the problem.  Although theskills have a natural linear flow from one to the next, these PKMskills do not necessarily have to be used in any particular order. Also, the PKM skills may be used in an iterative fashion (e.g., afterthe evaluation step you may find the need to retrieve moreinformation).  For the most part, the “solution of a problem” can beseen as an informed decision or series of informed decisions thatremedy the problem.”

The major product of Jonathon Goade’s JMS project is PKMNET, aweb-based set of learning modules that teaches information skills in anin-context fashion.  PKMNet, which will continue to be developed, andused, in Jonathon’s absence under Dorsey’s direction, provides bothsome originally developed materials as well as web links to Internetsites that provide guidance in effective Personal KnowledgeManagement.  While the current focus of PKMNet is to provide supportfor the undergraduate Introduction to Computers course and the MBAworkshop on Personal Computer Skills, its modular nature will makepossible an extended use to support a broad array of curricular uses.