Knowledge Worker : Worker 2.0

The explosive emergence of Internet as information revolution has changed the way people live today. The Internet enables interaction from people around the world and creates a network age. In this network age, we are freely having an access to all human knowledge and this why we are becoming a knowledge worker. Drucker (2007) states that “Today the corporation needs them (knowledge workers) more than they need the corporation”. A knowledge worker is as one who works primarily with information or one who develops and uses knowledge in the workplace. However, sometimes a knowledge worker may have many problems with the information overload (included text, audio and pictures) that comes from many communication channels or devices such a desktop computer, mobile phone, and fax machine. These problems may affect the efficiency and effectiveness of knowledge worker in the workplace while they have an important role in their company.

Thus, assuming a knowledge worker as a person that using many internet services such as email, instant messaging and VoIP, a knowledge worker needs a communication technology that is able to handle many forms of information/messages. That communication technology is called Unified Communication. Carter (2008) explains that “Unified Communication is a continuously evolving technology that impacts people from both the private and business sector; it is a structure of communication technology that allows for the automation and unification of all types of human communication tools and devices within the same context”. Unified Communication helps knowledge worker or manager in a company, to handle much information that comes from many communication devices to be integrated in one single communication system. This will help a knowledge worker or manager to make a better decision making.

On the other hand, Tapscott (2006) sees a strong, on-going linkage between knowledge workers and innovation. He describes social media as a service or tool on the internet that now drive more powerful forms of collaboration. Knowledge workers engage in ‘’peer-to-peer’’ knowledge sharing across organizational and company boundaries. With an Internet service like social media, a knowledge worker could even create many new innovations that give a competitive advantage to a company.

Then we understand that the Internet service plays as a backbone for shaping a good knowledge worker for business competitive advantage. People using Internet service provider to have an internet access. Some people using free public Wi-Fi connection for accessing Internet service such as checking email, instant messaging and engaging with people around the world with social media/ social networking sites. In the future, Internet service will be supported by IP-NGN (Internet Protocol Next-Generation-Network). The main idea behind NGN is that one network transports all information and services (voice, data, and all sorts of media such as video) by encapsulating these into packets, like it is on the Internet.
Internet services and its infrastructure are very important to support information management in a company. Some company using fast connection Internet Service Provider to enable its employee working effectively and efficiently. If I am the information manager, I will allow and trust the employees to access information from Internet and using the services, and I will encourage them to access multimedia content though it will cost the bandwidth heavily. The Internet Services will help the company to manage the employee’s knowledge and become more competitive.



References
Carter, Jeff. (2008). Unified Communications 100 Success Secrets Discover The Best Way To Unif Your Enterprise, Covers Unified Messaging, Systems, Solutions, Software and Services. Published by Lulu.com. (pp.24). (Digital Version)

Drucker, Peter and Elizabeth Haas Edersheim. (2007) The Definitive Drucker. McGraw-Hill Professional. (pp.11). (Digital Version)

Tapscott, Don and Anthony D. Williams. (2006). Wikinomics. Penguin Group, New York, NY. (pp.324). (Digital Version)

Transactional Level in Information System

A company is consisted into many levels based on the working area and its role. Its level is mostly distinguished by operational and managerial level. In managerial level, their role is to make a decision based on the data that has been processed in operational level and becomes useful information for management. More specific, the company is consisted in transactional, operational, tactical and strategic level. In these levels information is transferred, analyzed and used to make a decision. However, in the big companies where they have an hundred of employee, they need an information system to manage the information and information technology as an infrastructure to make information system work in a company.

A modern company that has been computerized its information system may use transactional information system, management information system, decision support system and executive information system. Transactional information system is in the lowest level where executive information system is used by the top management in a company. These information systems help company to collect, gather, analyze and report the information from lowest level to the highest. The information is processed by computer and the software. The quality and accuracy of the information is depended on transactional level because that is the place where the raw data is being input and later will be used for important decision making. However, a company or management may not give a good attention to appreciate the employee that working in this level and this will affect the quality and accuracy of information that will be used for decision making in management or executive level.

Employee in transactional level may have a low education level and easily bored by inputting data everyday. That is one of the main problems that occur in transactional level. This is management responsibility to solve these problems because the information that comes from the database should be accurate and reliable. Management should provide the better incentive mechanism and understand what they need by communicating with theme more intense. This explain how communication is needed among the management and operational level even a modern company now actively using computers as a medium of any company activities.

After we understand how important data is collected in transactional level now another important aspect in information system is in decision support system, the information system that helps the management to take the best decision for company performance. DSS is classified into 5 classes such as a model-driven DSS, a communication-driven DSS, a data-driven DSS, a document-driven DSS, and knowledge-driven DSS. Those classes provide management particular information needed for decision making activities done by management.

The information system and information technology is a backbone for a modern company because they enable company to use information efficiently and effectively. A company should see them as an investment that in a long-term will give a sustainable competitive advantage to compete in business world today. It also indicates why company now begin to open the Chief Information Officer position as the one who responsible of information process and support management in decision making activities.

Reference
Indrajit. Richardus Eko. Manajemen Sistem Informasi dan Teknologi Informasi. E-Book.

Knowledge Management as a Learning Organization Foundation

As the new economy demands the faster information processing to produce a better strategic decision, the knowledge management is one of the most important things that the organization should have to adapt the hyper competition in business world today. According to McElroy (2003) there are 2 perspectives of knowledge management, the first one sees knowledge management as a knowledge sharing (organizational learning) and the second one as a knowledge making (innovation management). This article focuses on the first perspective where knowledge management is used as a organizational learning.

Then first we should know the definition of the organizational learning,

Organizational learning as known as organizational development is an area of knowledge within organizational theory that studies models and theories about the way an organization learns and adapts. For Organizational development (OD), learning is a characteristic of an adaptive organization, i.e., an organization that is able to sense changes in signals from its environment (both internal and external) and adapt accordingly. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_learning).

In that definition, we identify the characteristic of learning organization as the adaptive organization. That means the organization is able to response very well from stimulus either comes from inside or outside. But in fact, the organization or even a big organization like corporations, don’t have the ability to accept the changes that happen from inside the body of organization nor from the outside. This problem is the manager’s responsibility and requires a good leadership to solve it. Kasali (2007) mentioned 5 things that changes demand to the organization to have, they are vision, skills, incentives, resources and action plans. Those 5 things are the area of manager should be concerned to support the learning organization.

Toyota can be the best practice of the organizational learning. Liker (2004) described how Toyota manages its organization to be the learning organization. Toyota made an internal document as its sharing knowledge called Toyota Way, the document contained 14 principles and famous with its 4 main points, which are philosophy, process, people and partners, and problem solving. The document also focuses on Kaizen, a continuous improvement and learning philosophy. Then we can identify Toyota as a corporation that use knowledge management for sharing knowledge.

Knowledge Management is a foundation for every organizations or companies to survive. It helps organization/company to grow with continuous improvement and adapts with the changing business environment. The concept of knowledge management as a sharing knowledge should be clearly understood by top management in a company. The good sharing knowledge in a company may enable people in organization to make an innovation as a making knowledge. The sharing and making knowledge in organization enables a company to stay competitive in changing market environment.

The information manager should first identify and understand the characteristic of a company and people where he/she works. There are 3 areas how we implement in an organization; they are Techno-Centric, Organizational and Ecological approach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management). A company using techno-centric approach may establish the strong intranet and internet connection and permit people in organization using mobile devices frequently. After selecting the approach, the information manager could create or design the system and distribute it to whole organization members to enable continuous improvement as a learning organization.

Reference

From Wikipedia. On April 28, 2009 – 3:02 pm

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management

From Wikipedia. On April 28,2009 – 3.05 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_learning

Kasali, Rhenald. (2007). RE-CODE your change DNA. (pp.18-27). Jakarta: PT.Gramedia.

Liker. Jeffrey K. (2004). The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer. McGraw-Hill Professional. (digital version)

McElroy, Mark W. (2003). The new knowledge management: complexity, learning, and sustainable innovation. (pp. xxi). Butterworth-Heinemann. (digital version)

Managing Your Information by Media Monitoring

For communication practitioner, managing information is one of the most important jobs. Whether we are a PR or Marketing Manager in a multinational company, we should understand how the meaning and perception is constructed by the mass media. Specifically, we have to identify how the information is processed in information systems from input to the output as a result. Usually, we identify the public perception by doing media monitoring everyday to find out what issues that considered important in public.

It also said in information-processing model proposed by Mcguire in 1989 that explained the six stages in information processing. Starting from message exposure, attention to message, comprehension of message content, acceptance of the premises contained in message arguments that lead to opinion change and ended to attitude change. This concept is similar with media monitoring activity to understand how the message exposure in mass media as the input and will lead to create output which is changing people’s attitude.

As we understand how the information is disseminated and processed by public, communication practitioner needs to be proactive in communicating messages with the public rather than to be reactive with uncertainty upcoming issue. Moreover, in open system public and the free access information by Internet today, we should monitor the media either offline and online. When we understand how information is processed in certain information systems, we can communicate with the public effectively and efficiently.

Information Dissemination by Mass Media

Everyday people are overwhelmed information produced by the mass media. TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and now Internet that bring us into the revolutionary information era where information are easily to access anywhere and everywhere. However, before Internet comes in 1990’s the television was a medium of the socialization of most people into standardized roles and behaviors (Gerbner and Gross: 1976). The television also was known as the perfect tool for modernization process at that time to cultivate people’s mind about the modern thoughts.

In other hand, TV also brings the negative aspects in people’s life. Sometimes, TV journalist exaggerates the story in order to make it attractive to the viewer. For example in criminal news/stories, TV journalist may exaggerate the criminal events in a bad way. That somehow, is giving people a trauma and creates the mean world syndrome where the life becomes very harmful than the fact. It shows how important the role of media that constructs perception in people’s mind.

Mass media in the future may involve more people participation to co-create the meaning and understanding among each other. The mass media will become more horizontal where the journalist will be no longer as the main point in creating news. The citizen journalism may one of the examples of the mass media in the future. One of the examples is I-report program, in CNN, the program allows people to send their news report to be broadcasted widely.

Online Customer Behavior

Dentsu, a Japan advertising agency, develops the AISAS concept to explain the online user behavior in Web 2.0 era. AISAS stands for Attention-Interest-Search-Action-Share. This process explains how online user usually behaves when they are using Internet especially in decision making of buying product. Web 2.0 enables the web designers to provide a rich communication environment such as multimedia to foster interest level among online user. At the first level, Web 2.0 technology can generate interest to online user comparing to Web 1.0 that only attract simple attention from online user.

When the online user has reached the high level of interest, they will search the product or company that they are ready to buy in order to search a cheapest price and the retail store. But somehow, in search level online user may find the other competitor offering the better product or finding the bad news/comments about the product that the online user wants to buy. That is why recently the term of Search Engine Optimization/ Marketing begins popular in virtual world. SEO/SEM is an effort to put the company/product website not only at the top of the search engine list but to put the best content at the top of search engine top list.

If online user has decided to but (action) and already used the product then the online user will share their experience of using the product in social networking or in their blog. This last level will directly effect in Search level because the sharing content of online user will be put in search engine top list and this is how PR should always the monitor the result the product/company in the top search engine like Google.

Internet and Digital Economy

Internet has been kind of revolutionary thing in our world today. Internet has changed our habits in playing, learning, and collaborating with other people. It is now easy for me to access much information for my assignments / research. That is a simple example on how Internet has created the information revolution era. It is the era where the information is the most important thing to have in order to survive especially in business environment. The old economy says that the bigger will defeat the smaller but now in new economy information-based, the faster will defeat the slower.

E-Commerce becomes popular in previous year, people now can sell and buy the goods from all around the world. Although the e-commerce is still considered the less secure to do the trade but still it is one of the promising way to do a business. Social media and networking that enables user generated content or consumer generated media has been the best example of Web 2.0, a new form of web that has many more interesting features like interactivity between peer to peer, attractive web content such as multimedia.

In conclusion, Internet is not about the substitution of the physical real life but it is a tool to improve our life. It is not important on how good we are in using Internet but it is very important on how Internet can be used to improve our quality of life. Therefore, we don’t have to be so dependant on Internet, but we should know when and how Internet is needed to solve the problems in our life.

Cultural Diversity againsts Globalization

The globalization helps to reduce uncertainty in communicating with people which has different cultural background. Communication and transportation technology enable people around the world to live and understand the life of other people culture. This may be good for some reasons but on the other hand the globalization may threat the cultural diversity into cultural extinction. For example in Indonesia, our people are influenced heavily with westernization brought by fast food, TV cable, Internet, and MTV culture for the teenagers. Those things can be a serious threat for our national cultural diversity.

Intercultural communication is not only about communicating with people between nations or continents, it can also between the ethnic in one country or even between different company / organization. Ethnocentrism is still one of our sociocultural issue until now. People in Indonesia are depended on stereotype that people used to believe long time ago. We may hear about this following stereotype such as Padang known as “pandai berdagang” and stingy, Sunda as “suka dandan” and materialist. This stereotype may create a gap between one ethnic to another ethnic in Indonesia.

Therefore, communicator should have intercultural competence to be able communicate with other culture. The basic competencies that communicators should have are sensitivity and self-consciousness. These two things can help communicator to start a conversation and maintain relationship with other people background.

Coordinate Management of Meaning

Theories in interpersonal communication have been evolved into many forms and it becomes deeper from macro-social context into micro-social context. It starts from social influence, relationship development and recently interpersonal theories using cognitive psychology approaches to explain how humans process the information flow and the construction of meaning in interaction.

In Coordinate Management of Meaning theory, it is said that the communication is about a meaning. In daily interaction, people try to prepare/ coordinate their meaning when start communicating with other people. It looks at how individuals within a society create their own realities through communication. With that being said, realities are made, not found, meaning that communication interactions dictate what realities are created within a society and how they are affected by others. This reality is constantly evolving and adapts itself due to interactions. This theory also sees a conversation as process in which each participant affects and is affected by the other

Today, the Web 2.0 technology offers the social media/networking that enable human-computer interaction more entertaining and educating. I understand if computer-mediated communication is less socio-emotionally than face-to-face communication, but now as the internet user is increasing, the computer-mediated communication becomes a routine social interaction.