Meetings. Conferences. Dinners. Gatherings. Scheduling. Airlines. Hotels. Expenses. Such is life on the road.
Why do we do this? What draws us to go far out of our way to convene face to face? Is it the thrill of travel? The exotic locations? Meeting friends and colleagues in person? The ease of brainstorming in real time? Probably all of the above. They are key elements of convening great minds to address a challenge and at least in part, why we continue to do it.
What about the information to come out of these events however? Where does it all go? Given the vast number of meetings/conferences/dinners/gatherings that take place globally each year, why do we not have an equally tempting way to share all of the knowledge and insight derived from these discussions? In our case, monitoring and evaluation is top of mind for many organizations. Some great advances in thinking and process have been made. Why, then, does the community not know about them and therefore continue to trudge down the same road as always?
Knowledge can be described in several ways. Here I will use a simplified means of description in two categories. The first is knowledge as wealth—units of knowledge that carry a value and a person with that knowledge can use it at another’s expense. In other words, the fewer people holding this information, the better off each holder as he or she can sell/trade/capitalize on it. Examples range from stock market analysis techniques to secret recipes at trendy restaurants. The second category is knowledge as a public good. In this scenario, information (though still valuable) is freely accessible and the more people have access to it, the better off everyone is. The value is derived not from how much you can sell knowledge for, but how you use it to build new products and services, help people, protect the planet, etc. Examples here range from open-source software to biology to the evening news. Despite their opposite natures, both types of knowledge can align well in certain circumstances (such as the development of non-Apple applications and on the proprietary Apple iPhone).
In the world of performance management, both types of knowledge are present. Though we have a long way to go, we are getting a better handle on knowledge as wealth as we build new and better organizations with social and environmental goals, as investors look for the next big thing, as funding-seekers look for novel ways to gain a competitive edge, etc. But what about the public good knowledge? Where is it and how to do we access it? The answer to date is to attend every meeting/conference/dinner/gathering and then commit it all to memory, hoping to dig it out of your head when it is needed. This is not effective. Anyone who has ever studied a language knows the frustration of not using that language in a real setting for years, only to forget everything learned when the time finally comes.
The question now is how do we compile and access public good information that is derived from all these events? To do so will require three key things (at least):
1) A low (or zero) cost and easy to use place to house information with an entity to manage it
2) The incentive for those who have the knowledge to share it
3) Awareness of its existence for potential beneficiaries who can access the knowledge as needed
Like many public goods, however, there is a network effect of usefulness. In most situations, those who already possess the most knowledge have less incentive to contribute as there is little for them to take in return. It is only once a threshold of useful information exists that others have the incentive to join in. A basic example of a network effect is the familiar telephone. Originally there were two people talking- Alexander Graham Bell and his associate “Mr. Watson.” If someone came to sell you that third telephone, would you buy it? Unlikely as there are not many other people to talk to. But, if someone built the infrastructure (phone lines) and gave away the phone for free, soon there would be a greater incentive to join as your friends would soon be there too. Similarly, to have a functioning warehouse of institutional knowledge, the more people that are sharing the information, the more enticing it is for new users to contribute. So, how to get people to share.
The challenge now is twofold: a) who should build the infrastructure (e.g. NGOs, governments, private enterprise, universities) and b) what is the business model for maintaining this network (e.g. a subscription fee, charge per use, foundation grants)? To ease the burden of the network effect, an entity will have to take on the initial risk of setting up the means of housing knowledge, maintaining it, and creating something that’s very existence facilitates continued use by both those who have knowledge and those who need it…
Any ideas?
This entry was originally published on the Skoll Foundation’s SocialEdge.org website on our other blog – SVT on Impact.