Harnessing the power of the information flood

Air Force Comptroller, Spring, 2008 by Jo-Ann Hague, Rajiv Verma

In today's Air Force, ever-accelerating worldwide demands produce unforeseen challenges. Yesterday's solutions are ineffective today, and today's solutions are insufficient for tomorrow. In this issue's lead article, Col Gilchrist outlines a vision for the future of Air Force education and training that will help us meet tomorrow's challenges. Here we expand on how knowledge management tools meet the continuous and precision learning needs Col Gilchrist describes.

The Lesson of the Melting Iceberg

Depictions of KM often use the image of an iceberg to illustrate how explicit knowledge (rules, regulations, guidelines, and directives) forms the top, visible 10 percent of knowledge while the hard-to-capture tacit knowledge (wisdom, inspiration, intuition, experiential learning) composes the other hidden, submerged 90 percent.

Traditionally, people gather explicit knowledge from coworkers or specialized training programs, and they accumulate tacit knowledge through years of experience. Today, we do not have 20 or 30 years to become experts; sometimes, we have only days, and the wisdom we rely on might be valid for only a short time. Explicit and tacit knowledge are both melting in the sea of information; consequently, the military, including the Air Force, faces a knowledge meltdown akin to global warming. How do we transfer knowledge when traditional containments are melting? This is the new challenge for education and training.

Air Force Knowledge Now

Air Force Knowledge Now (AFKN), the Air Force's Center of Excellence for Knowledge Management, defines knowledge management (KM) as a systematic process of identifying, capturing, and transferring personal practices, experiences, and expertise that can be used to enhance performance or improve related tasks or processes. KM is an important component of education and training whether Airmen learn in a classroom, an office, or in the field. Recognizing the need to compile and disseminate information and knowledge is only the beginning. Determining, developing, and using tools that make this information quickly accessible to those who need it, when they need it, is the ever-evolving KM challenge.

In today's ever changing learning environment, Airmen must have access to experts and crucial information to support them in managing resources for their own education. AFKN continuously evolves to meet these KM demands; it makes information accessible to the learner, facilitating the reshaping of this pool of knowledge as it forms and reforms itself.

To improve access to expertise, AFKN recently revised 'My Profile' so users can add professional details, including My Biography, My Resume, My CoPs, My Favorites, My Transcript, and My Preferences. Another expertise locator is Wisdom Exchange, a forum for experts to share their wisdom upon request. For example, seasoned experts in Air National Guard (ANG) use Wisdom Exchange to answer questions dealing with pay and entitlements issues. On average, experts respond in less than two hours. This virtual transfer of information is visible to all AFKN users through threaded dialogue.

Strategic Support of FM Knowledge Management

Making information and resources available is only the beginning of the KM process. Helping people to collaborate in that environment must be ongoing. In 2003, SAF/FM recognized this need and undertook a global KM strategy on behalf of the financial management community. AFKN became the forum for the new knowledge management program, Financial Management Knowledge Management (FM KM). Under the leadership of Mr. Richard P. Gustafson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Operations, FM KM provides an organized environment for sharing financial management knowledge in cyberspace. This effort is unique in the Air Force.

Warplanners' Wiki: A KR&T Repository

A prime example of how FM KM contributes to continuous and precision learning is the FM Combat Comptroller neighborhood and its use of wiki technology. The Communities of Practice (CoPs) that make up the FM Combat Comptroller neighborhood provide training material, pictures, lessons learned, regulations, and protocols to approximately 900 members. FM Combat Comptroller's effectiveness depends upon the collaboration of its membership to facilitate the transferal of knowledge as personnel move through every deployment phase.

A wiki is a website where members can easily add, edit, customize, and remove information. Maintained by community members, wikis have the potential to become the containers in which bodies of knowledge are collected. A wiki provides a venue for continuous learning through career-long participation in online community building. As important, it is a highly effective tool for capturing inputs to a body of knowledge and vetting those inputs through a community of experts, a critical aspect of precision learning.

The Warplanners' Wiki, which resides in the Combat Comptroller neighborhood, managed by SAF/FMPW, came about in response to a knowledge retention and transfer (KR&T) challenge within FM. Six of FM's twelve warplanners become eligible for retirement in 2008 and will take with them more than 100 years of combined knowledge when they depart. To mitigate this loss, FM's departing warplanners are helping to build an online body of knowledge by providing inputs to the warplanners' wiki. The wiki will serve as a repository for their knowledge and expertise. In his "Notes From" section of this issue, Mr. Gustafson further discusses how FM uses the wiki to meet the just-in-time education and training needs of today's Airmen.