Mr Patrick Lambe, President, Information & Knowledge Management Society;
Conference participants;
Ladies and gentlemen;
Good morning.
I am delighted to join you this morning for the iKMS conference cum inaugural Knowledge Management Excellence Awards ceremony.
Introduction
2 The field of ‘Knowledge Management’ has come a long way from a decade or two ago, when it seemed to be just buzzwords that management consultants bandied around. Today, Knowledge Management, or KM in short, is an established university discipline, with professional and academic journals dedicated to the subject. If we Google the term, we get almost 50 million hits.
3 Given the increasingly knowledge-intensive world we live in, and with increasing globalisation and connectivity, KM will take on even greater importance for enterprises and societies. The ability to capture, share and transfer knowledge through a structured process, and to internalise that process into business practices, is what will give enterprises and societies a competitive advantage.
4 KM transcends industries and sectors. Whether we are in the public or private sector, the manufacturing or service industry, in sales and marketing or R&D work, KM is just as relevant and important. With a technologically-savvy society, a highly mobile workforce and the shortening of product curves, this is particularly so for Singapore.
5 Last year, Singapore received the inaugural MAKCI award, for being the Most Admired Knowledge City. The MAKCI Award is a joint effort by the World Capital Institute and Teleos, to create benchmarks and identify cities and regions that are leaders in bringing together intellectual capital and knowledge workers, supported by an advanced ICT infrastructure, to create knowledge-driven global competitive advantage. In identifying Singapore as the top MAKCI Award Winner, the 2007 report noted that Singapore shows the key traits of a knowledge-based economy, where the key sources of our wealth and opportunities are conspicuously based on our human capital.
4 In recent years, we have seen the emergence of institutions and associations dedicated to promoting the adoption of KM. In Singapore, the Information & Knowledge Management Society, or iKMS, has been playing an active role in creating awareness and promoting the development of effective KM practices.
5 The KM Singapore Conference, for instance, is a laudable initiative as a networking platform, to facilitate the exchange of ideas and experiences in KM practices. In sustaining the Knowledge Management journey, it is imperative that organisations look beyond their internal practices to draw relevant lessons from other examples. Case studies, conferences and benchmarking exercises are invaluable references and platforms that we should tap on.
Infocomm as an enabler for Knowledge Management
6 Another resource that is important, and indeed indispensable, is infocomm technology (ICT), given the exponential increase in knowledge that is being created. A robust ICT system enables knowledge resources to be captured digitally for easy access and quick reference. Such a repository is critical especially in an environment where the workforce is mobile and turnover is high.
7 With infocomm, we can preserve the institutional knowledge and ensure that this could be kept within the organisation for future references. Equally, if not more importantly, technology can help us find linkages and discover new possibilities, from the knowledge we already have.
8 In Singapore, the public sector has been an early adopter of ICT. Infocomm continues to be an important enabler for public sector agencies today. For instance, the National Library Board successfully used Grid computing technologies in their web archival project in 2006. Using idle computer resources from the National Grid Pilot Platform, the Library Board archived more than 1000 websites in just 7 days, compared with the five months it would have taken using a single dedicated computer.
9 Other companies are similarly using infocomm technologies to great advantage. Take for instance Dow Jones & Company. In the earlier half of this year, it acquired the company Generate and with the content and technology provided by Generate’s software, Dow Jones is now able to mine information, spidering from more than 75 million domains, to allow them to identify prospective markets from over 4 million companies online and improve on relationship-mapping.
10 Web 2.0 technologies is another major enabler in recent years. It is not just simply about another new form of media or a better user interface. At its core, Web 2.0 is about connecting people and empowering people. All of us here have probably used Wikipedia, and probably use it more often than traditional paper-based encyclopaedias. I would argue that Wikipedia is probably the successful Knowledge Management project ever.
Diffusion of Knowledge Management
11 However, knowledge management is not just about technology. What is equally important is the people who have to populate and use the knowledge, and addressing individual organisation boundaries and the extent to which we are prepared to break these down. Only when we are able to liberate and consolidate our abundant information repository silos will we reap the full benefits. For businesses with cross-borders operations, this is an even more salient consideration.
12 The World Bank, for example, has been experimenting with collaboration tools to capture knowledge in the organisation, so it can be shared from group to group and from country to country. The process started in Latin America, where World Bank executives used technology to capture procurement information in such a way that it met the transparency guidelines. The same process is now being used to provide transparent information for funding in Thailand.
Conclusion
13 In charting their KM journeys, I would urge organisations to look beyond their respective practices, and share their insights beyond the confines of their organisational boundaries. This will augur well for the growth and diffusion of knowledge management.
14 The iKMS has done well in keeping the KM momentum in Singapore going, and providing its members with opportunities to network, share experiences and grow professionally. As the leading advocator of KM in Singapore, iKMS could take on a bigger role in not just highlighting the latest trends in KM, but also in facilitating the diffusion of KM best practices and expertise across industries and sectors.
15 This year, iKMS has taken a big stride forward in bringing KM practices in Singapore to a new level, with the inaugural KM Excellence Awards. I would like to congratulate the iKMS on the successful organisation of the KM Singapore Conference and the KM Excellence Awards. I would also like to congratulate the award winners, and urge you to sustain your efforts and share your experiences with other organisations.
16 Thank you.