Why sharing knowledge has not yet reached its full potential
EDACY Team Blog — weekly stories from the EDACY team that we would like to share with you, to help you understand our values better and to meet those behind the scenes that make EDACY possible. This week: Merel Roos van Zelderen, Business Community Development at EDACY.
Sharing knowledge has become a trendy topic and an indispensable part of the working environment. You might even be familiar with the well-used hashtags like #sharingiscaring, #knowledgesharing #eachonteachone on Twitter and other social media outlets. Although sharing information is exponentially increasing, sharing knowledge is not necessarily catching up in its full potential. Besides, we have to separate the two and analyse their differences. In this blog post however, I discuss about sharing knowledge, where both parties grow and benefit from the interaction. Here is why:
Information sharing vs. knowledge sharing
The process of sharing knowledge has gone on the increase due to the growth of the internet and the extreme usage of social media. Nevertheless the share of knowledge itself is as old as humanity. But the present online medium like Facebook, LinkedIN, Twitter and many more have facilitated the process to create virtual spaces that enables people from anywhere to connect, discuss and share opinions about specific interests. Although these online communities do share a sufficient amount of information, the space wherein this takes place is still relatively small and in fact not fairly distributed; as still half of the world population has no access to the internet. (WEForum)
In addition, information sharing might not be equal to knowledge sharing. Snippets of information are more likely the sort of content that is shared on these online medium. Now, this should not be understood as there is no talk of sharing knowledge at all on the internet. There is in fact plenty, but it is important to notice that it can still be brought to a much higher level. Lastly, information may be perceived as imposing knowledge, telling another what to do, instead of a mutual exchange and understanding of the knowledge of both parties.
Knowledge is not a product that one can just posses
In order to bring knowledge sharing to a higher stage we need to understand firstly what knowledge actually is and contains. It is often depicted as a commodity that one possess and can simply transfer for any recipient. However, this should not be the case since knowledge is not a product man can just buy or get within a day, a week or not even a month. Knowledge rather is a broadly used term for information that one have learnt through the years, the experiences, the culture someone is born and grew up in and lastly the innate capacity of understanding phenomena around us. Knowledge is a persisting process that allows us, as living creators, to continuously learn, grasp and understand the occurrences throughout life. Information in that sense would be just a part, an ingredient or a mean to, of this eternal process. By sharing knowledge there is much more required than just some conversations or sending information to others.
Educational systems
Most children are already exposed to those processes of knowledge sharing at a young age. Schools all over the world aim to educate children and share the knowledge they think is most appropriate to learn in that specific context. Although we are then already made familiar with the sharing of knowledge at such young age, the process itself may not be explained at all. In other words, referring for instance back to my own experiences at the school years of the primary school (1995–2003) and secondary school (2003–2009) there was never a course that taught me how I can share my knowledge with others, and vice versa how I can perceive knowledge from others. It is rather assumed that it is a natural process that anyone will have, do and proceeds to do so. If the latter was true, imagine how the world could look like if sharing knowledge was the status-quo instead of an activity you want to pursue more.
Knowledge is a persisting process that allows us, as living creators, to continuously learn, grasp and understand the occurrences throughout life.
Paradigm differences
A visualisation may clarify the complicated process of communication and thus the sharing of knowledge. As everyone has and/or had a different educational environment, grew up in a different culture and might have been exposed to other experiences, the knowledge one would like to share might not always be perceived as expected. In figure 1 you can find how communication in general works, whereas figure 2 shows what subsequently (can) happens with the perceived message. Communication as defined by Hinner and Rülke is: “the process of conveying ideas, information, feelings, and desired encoded in symbols from one person to another. These symbols can be verbal, nonverbal, musical, mathematical etc. …” Communication, thus, involves the appropriate feedback from others in the group to indicate the success or failure of the communication act.” (7) Due to our differences in paradigms any knowledge that is shared will always have an recipient’s interpretation, which is likely to differ from the sender of the message.
The nature of communication is reciprocal however errors in this communication process occur regardless the culture. Two individuals that share for instance the same culture can experience communication errors. Since within a culture there is a shared and internalized idea on how communication should proceed, errors will probably be of a lower degree. Going beyond this, two individuals not sharing the same culture are therefore more likely to experience miscommunication because there is a difference between the internalized communication processes. Therefore there is an even greater need for understanding of the other, including the other´s culture (Hinner and Rülke, 10).
Now, if we want to bring sharing knowledge to its fullest potential, we need to understand and become aware of a likely different receiving of the knowledge we want to bring across, as everyone sees the world through its own glasses. It might be good to be more interactive when sharing knowledge, so we can go beyond the knowledge that we want to share and reach a mutual understanding.
Together we will know more
Another trending phenomenon that is often linked with sharing knowledge is mentoring. Having a mentor is extremely important to achieve your goals and fulfil your dreams. By sharing her knowledge, your mentor can inspire you with new and creative ideas as well as train you the skills you need for your job. Nowadays, there are plenty of online platforms that match you with a mentor in the areas you need to grow as a person.
If we would all teach our children what the truly meaning is of knowledge sharing, everyone could automatically become a mentor and sharing knowledge could go to its full potential, and will become the status-quo.
So how to share knowledge…?
We might be on the right track, but we are not there yet. If we can increase, improve and grow all of the tools that have been mentioned above and eventually put them together in one package or place, we may be able to reach to share knowledge in its full potential.
At EDACY, we are on a mission to build such an online space where academic partners, enterprises and mentors in specific expertises come all together to take care of the development and growth of sharing knowledge. When such a community can come together, make use of (online) information, share, exchange knowledge and ensures understanding of each other, it will reach a higher potential of sharing knowledge. As a consequence that the new generation will become true knowledge-sharers. This could eventually lead to an equal share of knowledge where anyone on this planet can join the place where knowledge is shared. Let‘s share and grow together!
