Knowledge Harvesting
Experts have implicit knowledge that is difficult to articulate, as they rely on automaticity in their decision-making. This can limit their ability to effectively convey what they know about their intuition-based learnings. As a result, capturing and codifying this implicit knowledge through Knowledge Harvesting methodologies is crucial to preserve their expertise and delivering actionable guidance for others.
EXAMPLES
Examples of mission-critical knowledge harvesting projects:
Troubleshoot a nuclear (pressurized heavy-water) reactor (CANDU reactor)
Make breakfast cereal
Design or optimize a chemical plant
Market and sell term and permanent life insurance and conduct financial planning
Design fusion-reaction experiments based on high-energy particle accelerators
Manage strategic communications
Accomplish pharmaceutical product approval in three countries (FDA, …)
Interpret stages and coordinate military operations during a pandemic (H5N1)
Create varieties of adhesives that bind different types of carpet fibers
Consider physical, cognitive, and organizational ergonomics and design an office space
Derive formulae for insecticides
Devise analogue basins for hydrocarbon exploration
Produce huge amounts of toilet paper
Design customer service operations to enhance customer experience and to capture customer knowledge
Write claims for a patent application
Consistently bake sandwich cookies with different types of cocoa, sugar, and oven configurations
Evaluate compatible devices for a smart grid
Systematize intelligence gathering
Design a state-wide, K-12 curriculum
Automate the steering of a drill string
Achieve compliance with ISO 9000
Develop and organize a strategic communications campaign
Embed artificial intelligence about drilling capacity into a handheld drill
Design and implement an enterprise risk management system
Design a honeypot
Craft and coordinate product management workflows
Augment machine learning (supervised learning using artificial neural networks)
Achieve well integrity
Calculate expenses of the life of a well
Define market segments
Manage prediction markets
Conduct geothermal exploration
Design system for harmonizing standards
Shutdown and startup a chemical plant
Debottleneck plant operations
Devise framework and technology to integrate institutional, human, and technological goals and functions of a smart city
Systematize and scale lessons learned
Synchronize global partnering and design digital ecosystems
Digitize products and services
Conduct scenario planning
Implement mixed reality technology in manufacturing settings
Meld emergency assistance and pandemic mitigation tasks to yield actionable guidance
Extend procedures by holistically integrating cross-functional, collaborative business relationships for managing suppliers
Articulate, integrate, and manage process variables and operating windows
Envision, codify, and visualize a system of systems
Model complex interrelationships among sustainability goals
HISTORY
Knowledge Harvesting® originated in a company called LearnerFirst, which delivered technology to improve individual and team learning.
1989: Driven by Englebart’s 1962 Augmenting Human Intellect, Wilson described intellectual augmentation technology in a Master's Thesis. “Digital Performance Support Application” functions were described and illustrated for engineering, business management, architecture, nursing, industrial design, ...
1992: Pioneered a new genre of commercial software applications – “learning-while-doing” software. Delivered applications to over 4,000 organizations. Titles: Benchmarking, Process Management, Implementing ISO 9000, Software Engineering Risk Management, Knowledge Innovation Assessment, Work Profiling, Performance Measurement, Smart Meetings, Smart Writing, Smart Goals, ...
1995-1996: Produced custom learning systems and applications for large organizations.
1996: Began to extensively document how to make implicit knowledge explicit. Psycholinguistic discoveries led to the method, Knowledge Harvesting, for addressing automaticity and yielding unprecedented insights and guidance.
1997: Further discoveries yielded a means of automating rapid application development, thus fulfilling the principle of linguistic relativity. Where Whorf reasoned that the experience of a language controls thoughts expressed by a speaker of that language, Wilson proved that technology influences information processing and that influences our ability to develop solutions to complex problems.
1998: Began mentoring knowledge management professionals.
2000: Globally deployed Knowledge Harvesting methodology via professional consultants.
2002: Delivered Knowledge Harvesting Kits to enable business functions, departments, and teams to effectively capture and leverage vital knowledge.
2003: VirtualCollaboration.com - Method embedded in social media used to launch online communities. Designed infrastructure and initiated over 100 online communities; captured guidance about effective online collaboration practices.
2004: Began integrating Knowledge Harvesting into enterprise-wide, knowledge management programs.
2009: Reintroduced Work Profiling as a scalable form of “knowledge harvesting lite.”
2010: SmartGridView.com - Mappings of standards and technology value propositions for interconnecting smart grids.
2013: Contemplative View - Revelations of unprecedented spiritual insights.
2014: Long Term Zonal Isolation - Improvements to compliance and risk mitigation of industry risks, especially oil spills
2015: Interconnecting.org - Tangible, value-add interlinkages among the Sustainable Development Goals; emphasis on (14) Life Below Water, (17) Partnerships for the Goals.
2016: Knowledge Harvesting Live - Demonstrated real-time knowledge capture.
2018: Interconnecting.com - Delivered method for augmenting associational thinking with contextually-interoperable information.
2018-2022: Neoholism - Documented principles and practices for systems thinking.
2019: Spiritual Learning - Delivered workshops and guidance for skills to elucidate the dynamics of spiritual transformation.
2019: AIable.org - Practical method for determining if a work task is susceptible to machine learning.
2021: Digital Operating Models - Applied interconnecting technology to model plant KPIs, processes, and ISO 9000 quality management standards.
2022: Transition to knowledgeharvesting.ai!
DESCRIPTION
Knowledge Harvesting is a structured method and toolbox for capturing vital knowledge of systems, conditions and variations, and actionable guidance.
Focus: Define critical knowledge to capture and reintegrate for improved performance.
Find: Select participants and information.
Elicit: Conduct elicitation sessions.
Organize: Tag and utilize the information for optimal decision-making and learning
Package: Select and deliver guidance derived from elicited knowledge.
Evaluate: Measure the effectiveness of guidance derived from elicited knowledge.
Adapt: Update the knowledge base.