A framework to capture and share knowledge using storytelling and video sharing in global product development

In global engineering enterprises, information and knowledge sharing are critical factors that can determine a project's success. This statement is widely acknowledged in published literature. However, according to some academics, tacit knowledge is derived from a person’s lifetime of experience, practice, perception and learning, which makes it hard to capture and document in order to be shared. This project investigates if social media tools can be used to improve and enable tacit knowledge sharing within a global engineering enterprise. This paper first provides a brief background of the subject area, followed by an explanation of the industrial investigation, from which the proposed knowledge framework to improve tacit knowledge sharing is presented. This project’s main focus is on the improvement of collaboration and knowledge sharing amongst product development engineers in order to improve the whole product development cycle

Capturing and sharing product development knowledge using storytelling and video sharing

In today’s global marketplace employee knowledge is seen as a crucial asset for organisations, which enables them to gain a sustainable competitive edge over competitors. Much of the knowledge generated during New Product Development (NPD) and NPD testing can be categorised as tacit knowledge, developed from employees’ personal experiences and perceptions during Product Development (PD) projects; this makes it more difficult to capture and document for future sharing. This research explores whether storytelling and video sharing tools are capable of facilitating the capture and sharing of employee knowledge during the PD cycle. It also considers the creation of a knowledge framework that is directly driven by the knowledge user, providing both knowledge direction and content

Knowledge as Culture

Culture must not be seen as something that merely reflects an organization’s social reality: rather, it is an integral part of the process by which that reality is constructed. Knowledge management initiatives, per se, are not culture change projects; but, if culture stands in the way of what an organization needs to do, they must somehow impact

Europeana communication bug: which intervention strategy for a better cooperation with creative industry?

Although Europeana as well as many GLAMs are very engaged - beside the main mission, i.e. spreading cultural heritage knowledge- in developing new strategies in order to make digital contents reusable for creative industry, these efforts have been successful just only in sporadic cases. A significant know how deficits in communication often compromises expected outcomes and impact. Indeed, what prevails is an idea of communication like an enhancement “instrument” intended on the one hand in purely economic (development) sense, on the other hand as a way for increasing and spreading knowledge. The main reference model is more or less as follows: digital objects are to be captured and/or transformed by digital technologies into sellable goods to put into circulation. Nevertheless, this approach risks neglecting the real nature of communication, and more in detail the one of digital heritage where it is strategic not so much producing objects and goods as taking part into sharing environments creation (media) by engaged communities, small or large they may be. The environments act as meeting and interchange point, and consequently as driving force of enhancing. Only in a complex context of network interaction on line accessible digital heritage contents become a strategic resource for creating environments in which their re/mediation can occur – provided that credible strategies exist, shared by stakeholders and users. This paper particularly describes a case study including proposals for an effective connection among Europeana, GLAMs and Creative Industry in the framework of Food and Drink digital heritage enhancement and promotion. Experimental experiences as the one described in this paper anyway confirm the relevance of up-to-date policies based on an adequate communication concept, on solid partnerships with enterprise and association networks, on collaborative on line environments, on effective availability at least for most of contents by increasing free licensing, and finally on grassroots content implementation involving prosumers audience, even if filtered by GLAMs

Digital Storytelling and History Lines: Community Engagement in a Master-Planned Development

The introduction of new media and information and communication technology enables a greater variety of formats and content beyond conventional texts in the application and discourse of public history projects. Multimedia and personalised content requires public historians and cultural community developers to grasp new skills and methods to make representations of and contributions to a collective community memory visible. This paper explores the challenge of broadening and reinvigorating the traditional role of the public historian working with communities via the facilitation, curation and mediation of digital content in order to foster creative expression in a residential urban development. It seeks to better understand the role of locally produced and locally relevant content, such as personal and community images and narratives, in the establishment of meaningful social networks of urban residents. The paper discusses the use of digital storytelling and outlines the development of a new community engagement application we call History Lines

Master\u27s Project: DASHBOARD 2.0: A Visual Storytelling Mechanism to Inspire Relationship Building, Participation, & Collaboration for Storytelling

The Aloha+ Challenge Dashboard 2.0 project explores an inclusive, decolonizing approach to advance sustainability in Hawaiʻi through the value of data and communications to inspire action. Due to its isolated location, rich biodiversity and natural and cultural resources, and strong and committed leadership and communities, Hawaiʻi is uniquely positioned to be a leader in sustainability, and to develop placed-based practices for sustainable living that can inspire others to create unique sustainable practices for their communities. This project seeks to advance sustainability outcomes through developing innovative community data capture mechanisms and compelling data visualizations for the State’s online open-data Dashboard which tracks Hawaiʻi’s sustainability goals - the Aloha+ Challenge - and serves as a mechanism for transparency, accountability, and action. This next phase of the Dashboard will be called “Dashboard 2.0”. The increased interactivity and engagement of communities and the next generation in sustainability efforts will advance these sustainability goals that have global context and prepare the next generation of leaders to continue to create a more sustainable future for Hawaiʻi and beyond. The success of the innovation and development of the new features for Dashboard 2.0 will be measured by feedback from users including Hawaiʻi practitioners, government, students, educators, and civil society

How do entrepreneurs learn and engage in an online community-of-practice? A case study approach

This paper investigates the ways in which entrepreneurs use communities of practice (CoPs) to express themselves, using narrative theory and rhetorical analysis, to gain insight into an electronic social network medium, namely, YoungEntrepreneur.com. In particular, the study focuses on CoPs themes, including why entrepreneurs engage in CoPs, what role the moderators and resident entrepreneurs can play in managing online CoPs, on communication rituals of the knowledge sharing through interactivity, and on ‘how to develop an intervention’ to maintain and stimulate entrepreneurs for engaging in an online community. Findings reveal that the topic title plays a major role in attracting people. Successful topics with successful conclusions (in terms of the original query that was answered) will not necessarily get high responses and vice versa. It is observed that the domain expert does not play a big role in keeping the discussion going. Finally, the study also discovered that entrepreneurs like to communicate in a story telling genre. A comprehensive set of engagement measurement tools are introduced to effectively measure the engagement in a virtual CoP, along with a classification to define and categorise discourse of messages in terms of content and context, which allow practitioners to understand the effectiveness of a social networking site

Storytelling snaps

I am curious how a snapshot captures a moment that can trigger a memory and release a tale. My project will be to create a series of digital images and their stories that trace my case study’s life over his eighty years. Through Jim’s archive images I will select photos of his life, show them to him and record stories from his memories. Jim’s self narrative will be my digital storytelling project created to evoke a time and place linking the past into the present. My work is about storytelling through archive photos. This art form has evolved over time with the landscape of computerisation. Our private images and stories are now being shared across public digital media platforms. I can define my passion through the description used by the Centre for Digital Storytelling (1998) “anyone who has a desire to document life experience, ideas, or feelings through the use of story and digital media

Fuzzy Front End of Innovation Process Management in High Technology Companies: Knowledge Sharing in Virtual Communities of Practice.

This thesis seeks to examine the challenges inherent in creating and managing knowledge at the front-end stages of innovation. Specifically, the work develops new knowledge to understand how the formation of Virtual Community of Practice (VCoP) informs the front end of New Product Design (NPD) and the use of uncodified knowledge to achieve Fuzzy Front End (FFE) innovation outcomes. The ‘fuzziness’ comes from the fact that this cannot be codified and therefore predicted. This is relevant because a lot of new product failures have been attributed to the lack of management at the Fuzzy Front End of Innovation (FFEI) and the technologies at play in this stage. It is for these reasons that the FFE is a very important aspect of potentially successful innovations (Coates, 2009). Studies have shown that ‘speed to market’ and ‘product quality’ play a role in the positive impact of investment at the FFE phase on subsequent profitability (McNally et al., 2011). This is particularly significant, as it has also been established that expenses incurred in the later stages of the innovation process do not have any significant effect on the profitability of new product innovations (McNally et al., 2011). The ‘fuzziness’ and intangible nature of the FFE phase of NPD creates and adds to the complexities and challenges experienced in the management of these activities. Scholars have therefore called for a richer understanding of this phase through more extensive research at the FFE to advance the innovation management discipline as a whole (Bertels et al., 2011). In order to identify the problem areas at the FFE, the researcher has uncovered recurring themes and concepts in the knowledge management field, observing a positive connection between tacit knowledge, knowledge transfer and Situated Learning Theory (SLT) of Community of Practice (CoP) at the FEI within high technology organisations. This is supported by empirical evidence, which states that individuals or groups with more social connections are more likely to be innovative, creative and share knowledge than isolated people or groups (Bjork & Magnusson, 2009). This in turn points to the knowledge transmission benefits of a CoP, particularly in relation to the transfer of tacit knowledge. However, understanding remains undeveloped theoretically, conceptually and empirically with regard to how a CoP in a physical environment, and in particular within a VCoP in a virtual environment, can operate effectively to resolve problems at the FFE of the innovation stage. Findings from the research suggest that the FEI should not be structured, and that businesses need to build an enabling environment to sustain the FFEI. Innovation on the front or back end should not be left to itself either, it has to be managed or governed in some way. In order to develop and manage VCoP at the FFI, this research recommends a sustainable, flexible and adaptable innovation process. This may be understood as creating a vehicle for the innovation process filtered through several gates where all experiences and the innovation journey itself is properly scrutinised. It is further proposed that this approach can also assist in the mitigation of risk. Finally, the use of virtual communication tools such as emails, online repository, virtual workspace and video conferencing for VCoP activities has become standard working practice for many businesses. Organisations who pay close attention to finding better ways to utilise, adapt and apply these tools to specific VCoP projects will be more likely achieve positive results

An overview of manufacturing knowledge sharing in the product development process

This paper provides an overview of reported research relevant to the management of manufacturing related knowledge and highlights the sharing of knowledge in the product development process. Previous research and concepts reported by international researchers and examples of the research projects carried out by the authors’ research teams will also be introduced. Publications reviewed are in the scope of information, communication and knowledge management technologies in product development and manufacturing. Some key concepts and issues in knowledge management are introduced first, as a foundation for the remainder of the review. The different approaches to knowledge management and knowledge sharing, and the different types of knowledge and key issues in the product development process are discussed. Then manufacturing knowledge and its application in the product development is reviewed. The focus is given to the discussion of the approaches to sharing manufacturing knowledge relating to the product development process and indicating the future challenges and research directions