The value of experts in knowledge sharing...

I using the holidays for catching up on all types of reading. This summer David Weinberger wrote an interesting piece on experts in KM magazine. He argues that the traditional way of vetting "experts" has changed with the internet. I agree. Experts are critical to the success of knowledge sharing. Otherwise, we might think that the most important things in life are what people actually search for :)

We can use so many taxonomies to categorize experts. I keeping returning, however, to the division between the first two stages of knowledge: creation and transfer (kc/kt) and the last stage, application (ka). The division between “knowledge having and knowledge applying” has many important implications for experts, such as research vs. application, academic vs. practitioner, theory vs. practice, and R&D vs. operations.
I recall the Aristotelian taxonomy of knowledge theoria (theory), poiesis (production) and praxis (application). With some slight refinement, the Aristotelian model seems to fit experts very well. It is the action of the experts that allows us to move knowledge through these stages. Modern day researchers such as Nonaka and Takeuchi have recognized that organizational knowledge resides primarily in individuals. The idea of collective knowledge centers on the collective knowledge of individuals, not databases or robots. For me, the action taken by these experts is what moves the knowledge through its stages to application.

This is why the Web 2.0 revolution is exciting. It presents the opportunity for the exchange of knowledge between experts who maintain a theoretical, production, or applied perspective. Some experts are theory experts, even across disciplines. They categorize, refine, and explain the meaning of knowledge in terms of postmodernism, structuralism, constructivist, and many other theories that attempt to conceptualize the relationships between humans and knowledge. Other experts explore how we use these theories to explain how things work or why things are. Finally, the last group of experts takes these concepts, possibly with refinement, combination or even bastardization, and apply them to disciplines or tools where action takes place. There is a different granularity mixture between theoretical and applied for each set of experts, but the results move through the kc/kt/ka stages.

We can easily apply the concepts of Isaiah Berlin, who Weinberger mentions in his article, to this taxonomy. Some experts on theory are hedgehogs, knowing all of the theoretical explanations in one area or discipline. Some are foxes, aware of the many theories that explain different disciplines. Some foxes work to apply theories as an explanation across different disciplines. As an example, I posit the cognitive science theories, which span across the fields of learning, communication, Art, and discovery. If foxes leverage their breadth of knowledge, then hedgehogs leverage their depth. Experts are limited by time. Hedgehogs spend years with a focus on a discipline, set of theories, or area.

Ultimately, the categorization of experts as specialists or generalist achieves nothing if the underlying structure is not present to quickly identify these experts and permit  knowledge sharing (with other experts and the community). This is what makes the role of experts so important to Web 2.0. Somewhere, among the clutter, we can identify, embrace, refine or refute, and share the knowledge of experts. It’s a brave new world….err networld.