Speech by Mr. Stephen Mak, Deputy Government Chief Information Officer, at the Workshop "Knowledge Management for the IT Industry -
How to Turn Intellectual Capital into Profit" Organised by Hong Kong Information Technology Federation
23 - 3 - 2005
Mr Ng, Dr McConnachie, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is an honour for me to address the Workshop today entitled "Knowledge Management for the IT Industry - How to Turn Intellectual Capital into Profit". I would particularly like to thank the Hong Kong IT Federation for organising this Workshop to promote and foster the concept of knowledge management, or KM in short, within the IT industry, and for studying the feasibility to form a KM Chapter within the Federation. This is both a cause worth pursuing and an action of commitment. The benefit, or in a more trendy and financial terminology, the Return on Investment will certainly be enormous.
Recent decades have seen the changes in terminology in the IT industry. In the 70's and early 80's, we were talking about data, and hence data processing. Around that period, our Office was known as the Government Data Processing Agency. Starting from the mid-80's, we entered into the information age, and our profession was named information technology, or IT. In the late 80s, with the rapid development of IT, our Office was upgraded from an agency to a department, called the Information Technology Services Department. To this day, the full name of our Office, i.e. the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, or OGCIO, has the word "Information" embedded in it.
Nowadays, information is crucial, knowledge more. The compiler of the first comprehensive English dictionary, Samuel Johnson, said in the 18th Century, "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it." This definition still has some truth in it even after almost three centuries, and in fact reflects to a certain extent what our Office has done about KM. I will come to that later. To an organisation or business enterprise, knowledge tends to connote possession of experienced "know-how" as well as possession of factual information or where to get it. Organisations and enterprises have recently started to treat their accumulated knowledge as an asset, or intellectual capital. Tom Stewart in his 1991 article "Brain Power - How Intellectual Capital Is Becoming America's Most Valuable Asset" defines intellectual capital as "the sum of everything everybody in your company knows that gives you a competitive edge in the market place." Knowledge management or intellectual capital management was brought onto the management agenda. There arises the need to manage knowledge or intellectual capital, so as to benefit from it, either helping to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness, or turning it into profit.
Against this backdrop, the Government has actively been promoting KM among various bureaux and departments. Some of them have already implemented their KM initiatives. The Civil Service Training and Development Institute of the Civil Service Bureau is forming a KM Network of Government bureaux and departments. So far we have over 20 bureaux and departments joining the Network. The Information Technology User-Managers Group, comprising IT managers from over 70 bureaux and departments, also provides a forum for them to share experience in the planning and implementation of IT initiatives.
As a leading and proactive organisation within the Government to promote the sharing of and collaboration on IT-related knowledge, the OGCIO has put heavy emphasis on KM. Our vision on KM is "to leverage on the corporate knowledge network built up by the KM framework to turn the OGCIO into a world class IT organisation". The objectives of the KM framework are to facilitate the creation, aggregation, sharing and utilisation of IT knowledge in the Government so as to foster the development of a stronger "Government IT community" for further development of E-government, and to facilitate IT practitioners' getting hold of the necessary information and knowledge across various business domains, or so called silos of knowledge, to support their bureaux and departments in planning and implementing IT initiatives. Far from being restricted to our Office alone, our KM framework has already been extended to other Government bureaux and departments. Here I would like to share with you the KM framework that our Office has implemented in the past two years.
Our KM framework consists of five components, i.e. governance, technology, contents, culture and behaviour, and measurement.
First, governance. A two-tier management framework for KM has been put in place, i.e. a Steering Committee and a Working Group. The Steering Committee steers and drives the adoption of KM, while the Working Group oversees the overall implementation of the KM framework and recommends new KM initiatives for continuous improvement. Besides, we have a small but dedicated Knowledge Management Unit to carry out the day-to-day implementation of the KM framework.
Second, technology. On the technology side, we developed an OGCIO Portal to provide a single entry point for accessing the knowledgebase, online discussion forums, various IT applications, commonly accessed websites, etc. Currently, there are around 1,700 IT managers and practitioners in the Government having access to the Portal. The Portal is also equipped with content management software to facilitate deployment and retrieval of knowledge contents to and from the Portal. We can view the Portal as a mega-store of our accumulated knowledge assets. Allow me to recap the definition given by Samuel Johnson: "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it." The mega-store of the Portal contains what we know about a subject, and the content management software with search engine enables us to know where we can find information from it.
Third, contents. For explicit knowledge that is well structured, a taxonomy has been built under the OGCIO Portal. Owners of knowledge contents can deploy their contents according to the taxonomy.
For implicit or tacit knowledge, we have formed around a dozen of Communities of Practice, or COPs in short, covering various strategic focuses of our Office, ranging from 'IT and E-government Strategies' to 'IT Cooperation with the Mainland' and from 'Wireless Technologies' to 'IT Security'. More COPs will be formed when situation warrants. Through the operation of the COPs including face-to-face gatherings and online discussions, knowledge and experience is shared among the COP members. This also helps transform tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, and above all, helps to create knowledge through the various projects initiated by the COPs themselves.
To learn from the brains of others, we have also organised COPs activities such as visits to public and private organisations both locally and on the Mainland, and experience sharing with the academia.
Fourth, culture and behaviour. We have implemented a number of measures to help develop a knowledge sharing culture and encourage sharing behaviour in our Office, including -
(a) training programmes to promote the awareness of KM;
(b) facilitation measures such as forming COPs and organising regular activities, setting up and maintaining virtual forms, etc. to cultivate a culture of knowledge sharing in the Office; and
(c) awarding knowledge sharing behaviour through organising election of the best contributors among COP members and presenting prizes to the elected best contributors at our staff functions as a token of our appreciation of their contributions to KM.
Fifth, measurement. As regards measurement, we make reference to participations in the various COP activities and in the online discussion forums with a view to further promoting the KM framework. For example, through our dedicated efforts on recruiting new COP members, the number of members has more than doubled three months ago and is approaching 300. We have also made use of client satisfaction data to gauge our clients' views on the importance of KM and measure the overall effectiveness of the KM framework.
In addition to the above, we understand that sharing of knowledge and experience with IT industry players outside the Government is equally important. Being both a major purchaser of IT services and products and a facilitator of the IT industry, we wish to foster the development of a synergistic relationship between the Government and IT suppliers. This calls for a support structure to establish new relationships, to enhance mutual understanding and information exchange, and to enhance the market potential of the suppliers as a result of their work for the Government. Indeed, we have already set up the IT Solution Centre in the Cyberport for IT suppliers to introduce their products and services to the Government. In addition, IT suppliers can register with our IT Promotion Database and supply relevant information about the IT products and solutions of interest to the Government. The information will be posted onto the Government's Intranet and used as reference when inviting participants in Government's IT promotion events.
As a further step, under the Quality Professional Services framework, or QPS to be introduced as a replacement of the IT Professional Services Arrangement by the end of this year, we will set up a Suppliers Community Portal for the purposes of, among other things, providing a more interactive channel through which suppliers can introduce themselves to potential clients in the Government, and facilitating access by the Government to information about what technological and professional capabilities are readily available and access to based on the suppliers' track record of working for the Government.
In addition, the COP on "Project, Service and Quality Management" will be opened up to the IT suppliers of the Government. This, together with the Suppliers Community Portal, will serve as a valuable source of knowledge of Government practices and guidelines for the suppliers, and will provide a channel for information exchange and knowledge sharing between the Government and the IT industry.
As seen from the above, we have devoted efforts and resources to making the Government as a whole and our Office specifically a knowledge-based organisation. We have already reaped from it the benefit of enhanced operational efficiency and effectiveness. No doubt, with the implementation of our KM framework, IT managers and practitioners in the Government can get the necessary information and knowledge to support various bureaux and departments in planning, managing and implementing IT initiatives more rapidly and effectively.
Hong Kong as an early adopter of new ideas and innovative technologies should never be left behind, and in fact cannot afford to be so. It has been said that when substantial differences between company book values and market values indicate the presence of assets not recognised and measured in company balance sheets, intellectual capital assets account for a substantial proportion of this discrepancy. The concept of knowledge management or intellectual capital management has been close to the heart of those who wish to turn intellectual capital into benefits, either profit or more efficient and effective operation. I am sure Dr McConnachie will give you more insights in a short while.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Government is committed to making Hong Kong a leading digital city in the 21st century and a knowledge-based society, with intellectual capital fully utilised for economic growth and for the betterment of our people's livelihood. But Government action alone is not enough. We need the full support of the IT industry and the community. The workshop today will surely provide a valuable and effective forum for us to exchange views, to share experiences and to create opportunities for co-operation in managing intellectual capital and finally give us useful pointers on how we should move forward in the knowledge-based society.
Thank you.
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