why trust is essential in the knowledge age

I am currently trying to "manage" years of information and old files (creating an archive of resources on Penelope, our Academy28 internal wiki via Google sites), I just came across some notes on knowledge - and so was provided with a great distraction and topic for a blog entry.

We have to be able to rapidly distinguish between information and knowledge. Information just "is" - however well organised it might be. Knowledge is what happens when we inform others, when we pass on the relevant information. And wisdom is probably knowing what to pass on, to whom, when and why.

Because the context of knowledge transfer and sharing is crucial, it has to be built on trust. We have to choose to volunteer information. We've all known organisations and departments where holding onto information is seen as protecting power. So choosing to share is choosing to trust.

We also need to be able to trust ourselves in managing information. It's almost impossible to avoid information overload in this 24/7 knowledge age. So we have to trust that we can decide what to read, and what to skim; what to keep, and what to let go of.

"Letting go of" is particularly important for change, for getting rid of old "baggage" and moving on.

I was once on the committee of a professional network that was 10 years old. We had serious issues we needed to address: to define strategy, future direction, the needs of the membership - all the normal stuff that is repeated in committees across the world.

We were discussing office space - we were losing our shared space for our part-time administrative support. I questioned why we had to have a physical place - it would be easier and cheaper to outsource it to a "virtual" resource. Wow - I was struck (metaphorically, of course!) by the passionate defence of the status quo. Basically, it boiled down to 2 main things, both of which could be seen through the lens of type:

1. an introverted Feeling response that wanted to hold onto the "shared history" of the organisation - which it felt that the 10 years of paper archives represented. This position was defended both from the sensing/past experience perspective (we need the information to make sure that we have continuity with past discussions and decisions that have been made) and the iNtuitive future orientation - we have to have the archives in case someone wants to write up the history of the organisation in the future.

2. someone in the past had made the decision to buy hundreds of folders for conferences - and these needed to be stored. We couldn't just get rid of them. This was a Sensing response - but again based on feeling, not logic. (Logic would say - they've already been paid for; we don't use them; we need to rebrand anyway and they have the old branding; and we'll be paying for them 10 times over, again and again, if the reason we can't change our structures to meet our needs is that we can't discard the results of bad decisions.

So having information is not always about knowing what is required.

Also, we often only know what we know when we need to know it. And that "knowledge" usually comes from within us. And we always know more than we say, and more than we can write down.

So - trust and knowledge:

1. if you have trust in the context, the environment, and the people around you, you will be more likely to freely and openly share information, so creating knowledge, and developing shared wisdom
2. trust yourself to let go of holding onto "stuff" - if it's not at hand, or in your head, you can either ask someone else, google it, or not bother
3. help build trusting, sharing and supportive collaborative ways of sharing knowledge and meaning

Type and wikis

Working as part of a virtual / dispersed team, I have to take responsibility for keeping my motivation and my engagement energy high enough to do what I need to do and want to do - especially when we are moving forward with developing Academy28. As a person I get energised by my interactions with people and other stimulus in the outer world, through my engagment with things that are external to me (an extravert, in Jungian terms).

What I do in the outside world is to explore ideas, possibilities for the future, and connections between things (this is my dominant function of extraverted iNtuition). But obviously, I'd be a complete pain to my team if I kept phoning them up to bounce off ideas with them; it's a waste of time and energy to be permanently travelling to meet them. And anyway, if I did that, how would they be able to concentrate on their work?

So I was delighted last week to get hold of Google sites - a new collaboration wiki-style tool. A new toy to play with - but not totally new, as I'd "played" with various different wikis last year, and even used one as a collaborative action learning tool in a leading virtual teams programme.

But the notification of Google sites came just at the right time for me. It gave me a new way of interacting with the content I'm putting together for Your Preferences - our set of type application packages that we are developing to help people solve essential business challenges.

Last year I knew "conceptually" (so iNtuitive / big picture) that wikis would be a useful and important tool for collaborative working and knowledge management in all sorts of virtual (and co-located) teams. Now, after a week of using it "at the coal face" to work with my own business requirements, I can see how wikis work well for my personal type preferences.

I can create links between ideas, information and concepts, underpinned by a strong logical framework and structure. It's a tool to get input and feedback and share ideas, knowledge, process and progress with my colleague - so a collaborative space that we can all access and use equally. Through its inbuilt, easy to use features such as filing cabinets, commenting, viewing history, links and lists and attaching and updating files - I can manage the detail of what is often for me a shamble of previously created files, drafts, materials.

So I can get my energy (extraverted energy) from my interactions with something that is "out there". I can explore ideas and create connections while I design and develop new products for the future (iNtuition). I underpin this with a strong logical framework (introverted Thinking). It's a collaborative space (extraverted Feeling). And I can manage data and past knowledge to ensure consistency, accuracy (introverted Sensing) and to save me from my natural instincts to constantly re-invent and look for new ways of doing things.

In terms of closure and organisation, I can follow my natural "go with the flow" - doing whatever takes my fancy in the moment (perceiving) - while knowing and seeing that it is all coming together to achieve the required results (the business imperative of closure - Judging).

However, my type preferences (ENTP - Innovator) is only one of 16 possible types. And it's a type preference only shared by about 4% of the general population (statistics generally referred to in research based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (r) and type temperament research.

But I believe that everyone can use wikis to help them work to their strengths, and yet create fully rounded results. This can be true whether we are a "collaboration of one" - tapping into the strengths of each of our type functions, and not just sticking with our dominant function, or a team. As long as the process the team uses is open, trusting, and is based on a learnt or experienced understanding of valuing type differences, a group collaborative wiki can create and sustain a dynamic and empowering environment where we can truly build shared knowledge and results that are far more powerful than they would be using traditional, hierarchical "command and control" methods that control knowledge rather than share and collaborate in building knowledge.

To summarise, we can all get our needs personal preferences met through wikis:

• Extraverted Energy - gives you something external to you to interact with, and which you can see grow and develop in front of your eyes
• Introverted Energy - no verbal, real-time interactions to distract you or stop you from thinking through what you are doing
• Perceiving - exploration, taking action, following your fancy, going with your own flow
• Judging - creating structure, seeing results

• Extraverted iNtuition - exploring possibilities, ideas and links and creating new approaches to invent the future
• Introverted iNtuition - allows you to work privately with your ideas until you are ready to share them
• Extraverted Sensing - you can just get stuck in, taking action, moving items, building features, exploring who, what, where, when, how
• Introverted Sensing - you can file and organise data step by step, and methodically, knowing that important knowledge and past experience will be available when it's needed, and not lost
• Extraverted Thinking - taking action to achieve results
• Introverted Thinking - creating a logical framework and structure to underpin and provide a robust foundation to knowledge
• Extraverted Feeling - a shared collaborative non-hierarchical space where everyone can have their say, and their contributions can be expressed, listened to, and valued
• Introverted Feeling - allows expression of your values - without having to defend them against critique and criticism

How do you use your wikis?