By Sander Spek

Science and business is not always a good marriage. Even at EC/DC, an institute that in its work tries to connect the fields, we see friction between the two sides occurring in many projects. Business partners only care about what is in it for them, and are very reluctant to publish or share research results. Academic partners, on the other hand, only care about fundamental research, that has no practical application whatsoever. These are, of course, exaggerated clichés, and the world is not so black and white, but we cannot deny that conflicts of interest, and thus conflicts of action, exist. Which is a shame, since co-operation between science and business can benefit the both.

In this respect, it is a good step that more and more academic partners are not keeping research results to themselves and their academic peers, but actively try to present their conclusions to society in general and the industry in particular. This often even rewards them with good feedback. From a linguistic perspective we would expect Flanders to be a front-runner, since they even have a word for this: valorisatie. It means interacting academic results with society and industry. In the Netherlands, speaking the same language as Flanders, this word is nearly unknown. And also an English speaking person will look puzzled when you coin the word valorization. Except when this person is an economist, because in this field valorization does exist, albeit with a different meaning.

Although…

The economic term valorization originates from the works of Karl Marx. It refers to the surplus-value that is created by capitalists. Putting labour and other resources into a product increases it’s value. But to the capitalist, this is not enough, argued Marx. The capitalist wants to raise the value even more, to make a profit out of the product. Creating this over-value is called valorization.

Academic valorization is not that much different, although it loses the negative connotation Marx put on the word. After all, when the traditional academic work is done—meaning results have been generated, they have been presented at academic conferences and published in scientific journals, and the financiers have been satisfied—the fundamental scientist might argue that the work is done and lean backward contented. All possible value has been created. But with a valorization plan, we can create an over-value. We can not only satisfy our primary stakeholders, but also create a value to businesses being professionally active in our field.

Anyway, this whole story served no other purpose than to inform you all that we proudly present one of our valorization products. The FLEET project, a multidisciplinary research on Flemish e-publishing trends, has resulted in am online interaction environment. On this site, specifically aimed at the Flemish media industry, academic researchers describe trends, provide practical tools, and give executive summaries of their studies. And moreover, together with several specialists from the industry, they blog about current issues.

Why are you still here? Take a look: www.fleetproject.be.

By Nadine Huijnen

During the former week several Dutch media channels intensively discussed the virtual thefts that led to the arrest of a Dutch teenager. The 17-year-old is accused of stealing 4000 Euro worth of virtual furniture from “rooms” in Habbo Hotel, a 3D social networking website.

Six million people in more than 30 countries visit Habbo Hotel each month. Here they can design their own rooms, create their own characters and play games with Habbo Credits. These Habbo Credits can be bought with real money. The Dutch teenager is suspected of moving furniture from others into his own room. By creating a fake Habbo website he would have lured victims into handing over their Habbo username and password.

Virtual security is a growing issue in virtual worlds but this is the first case in which the Dutch police has taken legal action against virtual theft.

Internet social networking sites like Habbo Hotel and Second Life are now extremely popular, and many of them are among the most visited websites globally. They attract hundreds of thousands of users who are eager to establish new friendships. These social networking sites are often referred to as “friend-of-a-friend” sites, build upon the concept of traditional social networks where you are connected to new people through people you already know. In their enthusiasm they forget that they are parting with a great deal of personal information. Most users are not aware of who may access this information or what may happen to it in the future.

The friendly nature of the social networking websites often leads to the fact that privacy and security are not always a user’s top priority. When deciding how much information to reveal many people do not exercise the same amount of caution as they would when meeting someone in person. The Internet provides a sense of anonymity and the lack of physical interaction provides a false sense of security, so that enthusiasm can easily take over. When they tailor the information for their friends to read, they often forget that others may see it too.

So it is time that we call some attention to the fact that social networks do not have to be that social at all. Just remember that the internet is a public resource were you should limit the amount of personal information you post. With the right proportion of scepticism you will have the best chances to only experience the pleasure of social networking!

By Hans Koolmees

In my day to day work at EC/DC I am very much involved in advising organisations how ICT’s can be used effectively in organising their communication, information and knowledge processes. And almost every time I am surprised (and sometimes frustrated) that in these processes people tend to jump too quickly to isolated ICT-solutions. People find it hard to consider the organisational and interpersonal aspects of finding and introducing ICT-solutions. Why is it, that we are generally so much focused on conceptualising and systemising our information strategies from a dominantly technical point of view?

The other day I was in a conference where Daan Andriessen (associate professor intellectual capital) presented the results of an experiment in which he used two different metaphors to discuss ‘knowledge management problems’.

Metaphors are important. They are used to conceptualise abstract phenomena like information and knowledge. We use these metaphors in most cases at an unconscious level. It is the only way we can communicate about these abstract concepts. The dominant way to conceptualise information and knowledge in our society is to make it like a thing or a substance. ‘Thingification’ is not uncommon in management thinking. In our culture we tend to communicate about information and knowledge by using the knowledge as stuff metaphor: we transfer knowledge, we share knowledge, information leaks away, information storage, information flows, information islands etc.

Andriessen found out that knowledge is conceptualized differently in other cultures using different metaphors. In Eastern philosophy, the metaphors that are used to conceptualise knowledge differ from Western management literature. For example, in Asia, knowledge is predominantly seen as spirit and wisdom, as unfolding truth, as illumination, or as enlightenment of an underlying deeper reality. Knowledge is not a thing or a substance, knowledge is far more part of a process. Western metaphors for knowledge predominantly stress the objectification and controllability of knowledge; metaphors for knowledge in Asian philosophy predominantly emphasize the subjective, dynamic, interdependent, and emerging nature of knowledge.

In organisations the use of different conceptualisations of knowledge may have tremendous consequences.

In his experiment Andriessen asked a group of 13 employees and a group of 18 managers in a knowledge intensive organisation to diagnose the state of affairs regarding knowledge in their organisation and to come up with a number of solutions. In each session this was done twice. The first time the participants were asked to use the knowledge as water metaphor (knowledge as stuff) and the second time the participants were asked to use the knowledge as love metaphor (subjective, dynamic, interdependent, emerging).

The knowledge of the water metaphor seems to frame conversations about knowledge in such a way that knowledge is considered a thing that is not always in the right place at the right time. The knowledge of the love metaphor shifts the conversation toward the quality of relationships within organisations and other underlying prerequisites for successful knowledge work.

The ‘thingification’ of knowledge in the knowledge as water metaphor provides the handles for managing and controlling knowledge. During the experiment most solutions that came out of this metaphor were about more or less formalized structures and means to administer knowledge. These solutions were predominantly brought up by managers and strongly rejected by employees. The knowledge as love metaphor seemed to produce solutions for improving the facilitation of knowledge professionals and the relationships and culture of the organisation. These solutions are aimed at humanising the organisation instead of formalising it. In the experiment, these solutions were brought up by both employees and managers.

These results are only based on one case and cannot be generalised. However, the experiment seems to indicate that the choice of metaphor strongly directs the conversation about problems and solutions related to knowledge in organisations.

Can this experiment take away my frustration I mentioned in the first paragraph? It might! When you talk to me in future and I use different metaphors for information and knowledge management, I have probably been successful in broadening the scope for introducing and implementing knowledge management solutions.

References:

Andriessen, D. (2007). Knowledge as love: how metaphors direct the way we manage knowledge in organizations. http://www.weightlesswealth.com/Publications%20and%20downloads_files/

By Anke Eyck

Currently I am working on the MePaper project which deals with the future of the (digital) newspaper. Because of this project I started thinking about my own news habits. I have to admit that I am one of the “young” people, who hardly read newspapers and watch the television news. Although I feel ashamed of it I usually think it is not that bad, because I listen to the radio and check the internet for important news facts, but sometimes I have the feeling that I miss some background information.

According to the author of the book Tuned out: Why Americans Under 40 Don’t Follow the News David Mindich it is necessary that young people follow the news, as news-illiteracy is a danger to democracy. It is e.g. hard to vote when you do not know what is going on in politics. According to him it is the responsibility of society to get youngsters interested in news again.

Another view is the one by Irena Costera Meijer who published the book de toekomst van het nieuws (the future of news) which describes the news consumption of youngsters. Some important conclusions are that young people find news important; it should always be available, but they do not often watch it, read about it on paper or online. They are more interested in entertainment. So they often watch entertaining, news related programs like RTL boulevard (show news) and Dit was het nieuws (something like Have I got news for you). They do not see the items in this type of programs as “real” news. Real, quality news is given by the NOS journaal (television news shown by the public broadcasting channel), but they do not watch this as they find it boring and not interesting.

To improve this situation Costera gives 12 points that could be used to attract young people. The ones that sounded most appealing to me are: present both snack and slow news. Snack news are short items containing the latest breaking news, just to update people, so they can talk about it. Slow news gives an experience to people, so you understand what the news is about. Further the story of the people involved is important, emotions count.

Both Mindich and Costera want to motivate youngsters to become interested in the news again. According to Mindich this should be done by social pressure. This can work as a starting point, especially if it is done by people that are important for the youngsters. But to keep the interest in news it is important that young people are intrinsically motivated, they should enjoy following the news. This is the same as with exercises, if you do it to loose weight it is very hard to adhere (extrinsic motivation), but if you think it is fun to go to the gym it is much easier to continue (intrinsic motivation). To my opinion the ideas of Costera Meijer can have a vulnerable contribution to the intrinsic motivation of being interested in the news.

At the moment I am considering a subscription to a newspaper. Hopefully I will enjoy reading it, because otherwise I will probably not continue. Although then I will feel guilty, but this is probably not enough to continue reading.

References

De Toekomst van het nieuws, Irena Costera Meijer. Otto Cramwinkel, Amsterdam (2006).
No news is bad news, Margot Harrison. http://academics.smcvt.edu/dmindich/Seven%20Days%20Tuned.htm

By Sander Spek

The internet has not only lowered the barriers for publishing, it has also changed people into information junkies. We have become prosumers (producers-consumers) of information. Many of us, those who do not publish on for instance a website or blog, will not really be aware of the information that we create. Still, we are constantly providing others with new information, for instance on so-called social-networking sites, like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or the Dutch Hyves.

Professional publishers always have a certain ‘target audience’ in mind when publishing something. Text characteristics, like the language used (jargon) or the amount of detail provided, are carefully tweaked to a certain group of readers. The text reaches the right audience because the publisher controls the distribution, or because the audience itself selects the right medium based on its interest. A lot of people, for instance, subscribe to one certain newspaper because of its political orientation. The internet opened up the information space, making it more difficult to control the audience of your information. When we type something in Google, it gives us information from all newspapers it can find, without any preference.

Our self-publishing on the web in general, and social-networking sites in particular, suffers from the same problem. We publish information to all our contacts, without discriminating different audiences.

This could lead to dilemmas and unwanted situations. Imagine that yesterday night you met someone, you fell in love, and now you’re so happy and want to shout it from rooftops and let the whole world know. Well, maybe not the whole world, but your friends would be a good start. Enter social-networking sites. But then you realise that it wouldn’t be a good idea if your still jealous ex, who is also in your network, would find out about it.

And what about those funny drunken pictures? Great to share with your friends, but will your boss also appreciate them?

Still somewhat luckily, these different sites have different audiences. Facebook is aimed at informal contacts, whereas LinkedIn is more aimed at business relations. But the borders are not carved in stone. What will you tell the colleague who has just sent you a MySpace friend request? Deny it? And what about your nice aunt, who has just discovered the internet and now wants to be your online friend? A recent article in a Dutch newspaper featured a job hunter, who claimed to not only check his candidates at Google and LinkedIn, but also on other social-networking sites.[1]

Of course, you can avoid social networking altogether. Just like you can still hand in your office reports elegantly typed on your old Remington. Social networks won’t go away, and your boss expects a professional attitude, while your friends require the spicy gossips. So, I wonder how long it will take us until schools offer their students valuable courses for their future professional life, with titles as ‘personal branding’ and ‘online-identity management’.

References

[1] ‘Jeetje, die is ook vaak dronken’ - Netwerken vergt tact en eerlijkheid. Elfanie toe Laer. Dagblad De Pers, 26 september 2007.