by Galen McPherson

   This article was published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

As an old movie buff, I still remember that line from a John Wayne movie, probably “The Alamo”, where he had just been witness to a parade of dandily-attired spit-shined troops marching in front of the reviewing stand.  That question should ring through the ages in all of its allegorical glory, no matter what you undertake.  When it comes to deciding whether or not to create a knowledge product [or any product, for that matter], the question instead becomes:

“Very pretty, but does it add value that the customer will pay for?

If you are a frequent reader of my articles, please forgive this brief restatement, but for the newcomers to my work , one of the founding principles of my KnexusTM model of knowledge exchange is that: “The knowledge economy is, first and foremost, an economy.”  The meaning and value of intellectual capital can only be realized in the marketplace.  Even internal processes must be managed so that they serve markets and customers as directly as possible.

Not only is the knowledge economy an economy in its own right, it also fosters other “economies”, similar to what we see in other industries:

• Economies of scale in allowing the same information to be used in mass settings as a knowledge consumable within a product,
• Economies of scope in allowing the same information to be transported to other products, and
• Economies of skill in allowing intelligent customized solutions to be delivered more cost effectively by increasing their knowledge content.

The frontiersmen at the Alamo could all fight, never mind looking pretty.  Among these defenders, there were no buglers [only], no flag bearers [only], no drummers [only].  This force of men included all of, but only, the necessities to fight.  No bells and whistles and no unnecessary “features” were to be found within the mission walls.  But each man there could shoot a musket, each man could reload, each man could handle the light cannon, most men had a knife- these were multi-purpose fighters.  The “fighting knowledge” within the Alamo was as widely dispersed as possible.

So it must be with your knowledge- as widely dispersed as possible.  Within my consulting practice, I have a motto that we all live by: “Never sell any knowledge only once.”  The beauty of the knowledge economy is that it doesn’t have to follow many of the rules of scarcity economics.  Forget the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith, to a degree.  The beauty of the knowledge economy is that none of the raw materials, knowledge, are ever consumed, only replicated.  For the first time in an economy, mass production has virtually NO incremental cost.

At the Alamo, if we only had seven hundred musket balls for 183 shooters, every musket ball that I “dispersed” to a comrade was one ball fewer for me.  But with knowledge, even though I give ALL my knowledge to my comrade, I still have all that I started with, maybe even more if I learned something during the exchange.  Knowledge is a true non-consumable resource.

That’s not to say that it is non-perishable, because it is.  There is not much call for the detailed knowledge of buggy whip manufacture these days.  The need for a specific application of knowledge may be overcome by events, but if there becomes an application for that knowledge in the future, it is still there and still true and still non-consumable.

All is not utopia in the knowledge product economy: unlike our manufacturing brethren, since we are dealing with an invisible and intangible product, we have significantly higher front-end costs on our product development.  The need for “thorough” design and for even more thorough testing, especially for critical decision-support knowledge systems, requires an ability to anticipate almost beyond human measure.  Test marketing of knowledge products tends to be long in duration and convoluted, as myriad scenarios, many even highly improbable but still present, must be validated. 

All the issues of product marketing apply to knowledge products, just as they do to any other.  Knowledge product market segmentation opens up two strategies:

• Knowledge “consumables”- upgrades or updates bought to refresh earlier knowledge products, much like the continual releases of Microsoft Office applications and other software products
• Popular first, then specialist – early knowledge “products” used to trickle down from professional user or corporate gurus, including specialized analytical techniques and models; now they are often just as likely to be have been created by a user and then percolated upward, especially with wiki and so-called “Web 2.0” approaches

The biggest source of frustration in determining a knowledge product development strategy lies in determining whence the inspiration for new products comes.  Oftentimes the answer, and it’s the wrong answer, is that is comes from looking at our [knowledge-producing company] capabilities.  We become enamored of our own expertise, and we refine that expertise, becoming smarter and smarter in a select area.  It only makes sense that we will know more, and therefore find the better solution more easily, than an outsider.

You will find new knowledge product opportunities, not by looking at your own value chain, but by looking at that of your customers.  Otherwise, you will have “very pretty” solutions that look good on the parade ground, but cannot fight.

Until next time… what are you thinking?

Galen McPherson is an unabashed Intellectual Capitalist, and developer of the KnexusTM model of knowledge exchange.  He believes firmly that every company’s most important asset walks out the door every night, and the owners only hope that it returns in the morning.  With over thirty years in training and adult education, coupled with strong business process improvement credentials internationally, Galen brings an interesting, refreshing, and, most importantly, profitable angle to how you will view the brainpower of your employees in the future.  He can be reached at (832) 298-4940 and galenmcp@att.net, and his profile is available on www.linkedin.com.

by Galen McPherson

     This article was published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

“I was thinking the other day…”  I hear that very expression many times throughout the day, or in a professional setting, and it makes me comment to myself, “Were you?” because invariably the person seems almost surprised.  Then, when they explain to me their “thought process”, I understand their confusion.  What often passes for “thinking” is no more “thought” than falling down a steep slope and rolling to the bottom is “walking down a hill”.

Consider this: I was out walking in my neighborhood the other day, a beautiful partly-cloudy mild January day in Houston, thinking about nothing in particular.  Suddenly, I thought that the wind felt cooler.  I thought to look up at the sky.  I thought that the clouds seemed to be darkening.  I thought that it might start to rain soon.  I thought that I had an umbrella just inside my garage door.  I thought that I ought to start walking faster.  I thought that I was pretty stupid for not having brought the umbrella nor a jacket with me.  I thought that the back door was open, but it wasn’t.  I thought that I had a key in my car, but I didn’t.  I thought that my wife would hear me pounding on the door, but she didn’t.  How many different types of thinking were evidenced here?  In order, let’s try some “substitutions”: day-dreaming, perceived, decided, judged, concluded, remembered, told myself, determined, believed, hoped, and suspected.  All different nuances but the same word.

Such is our dilemma in exploring training, adult education, intellectual capital, or any of the facets of the workings of the human mind.  We have an inconclusive vocabulary, except for specific and isolated pockets of specialization, each of which would never consider sharing, let alone agreeing, with another.  But it stimulates the brain, don’t you think?  Oops, sorry.

Having read a similar passage by Thomas Dewey [yes, THAT Dewey, the decimal guy] from his book “How We Think”, I was forever changed in my own approach to thinking, and to all mental processes.  With a minimal background in software engineering, I knew that the best way to design a database was to look at the way that the information would be retrieved, not at the best way to store it, and so I began a quest to understand more fully the whole notion of thinking.

Twenty-plus years thence, and I admit that I am still a student of these processes and ideas, although an accomplished one.  I have adopted the moniker of “Intellectual Capitalist” to describe what I do.  I have developed a specific taxonomy that integrates cognition [knowing] with performance [doing] and with application [achieving results].  I have developed a model for managing intellectual capital “from cradle to grave”, and I have pushed the edges of what we understand about what we understand.

I don’t say this to impress you or to solicit your business, but to encourage you to pause and consider: how well do I understand all that I think I understand?  Do I have the “right” to believe what I believe?  And these question lead to my second “thought” about thinking, taken from W. K. Clifford’s essay “The Ethics of Belief”: “…it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”

I would recommend that you take the time to read, and consider well, this piece.  Clifford was primarily known for his mathematical contributions, but his insight into this particular discussion is cutting.  You can Google it and save it to your hard drive, as I have done, and look at it from time to time. In a “sound byte” world, it stands as vigilant reminder always to ask questions and to understand fully before accepting what is put to you as fact.  Another principle that I have applied to not only my consulting practice, but also to my life in general is that: “There is no bad outcome to a legitimate well-intentioned questioning of your position.  Either the answer supports your position, reinforcing your belief, or it exposes something you had not considered which allows you to re-build that belief to become even stronger.”

This does require diligence, and it does require effort, which leads me to my third “thought” about thinking.  John Erskine, in a work parallel to that of Clifford, insists that knowledge is not something we can choose to have or not to have, according to our whim, but that, since others are affected by our actions, we owe it to them that they will not be harmed by our ignorance, that we have a duty to be intelligent.  This notion is expanded in his essay titled, appropriately, “The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent”.  In this treatise, he concludes that we seek intelligence, not for what it can bring us in life, but because it is life, that it is simply another name for “virtue”.

I will contribute regularly to this newsletter, and I hope that my musings and my proddings can inspire some of you readers to undertake more diligence, to seek more questions, and to be patient with those who do not share your passion for learning.  I invite questions and conversations from all over the world, and I look forward to hearing from many of you over the course of time.

Until next time… what are you thinking?

Galen McPherson is an unabashed Intellectual Capitalist and developer of the Knexus model of knowledge exchange.  He believes firmly that every company’s most important asset walks out the door every night, and the owners only hope that it returns in the morning.  With over thirty years in training and adult education, coupled with strong business process improvement credentials internationally, Galen brings an interesting, refreshing, and, most importantly, profitable angle to how you will view the brainpower of your employees in the future.  He can be reached at (816) 678-5163 and galenmcp@att.net, and his profile is available on www.linkedin.com. Come join the fun!!