In everyday life, we get lots of information. Most of it won’t modify our way of working but some of it can turn out to be very useful for it induces a reaction which is very beneficial. It helps us to achieve one of our projects. As far as we develop demanding and ambitious projects, we must resort to a knowledge management which will enable us to progress towards their achievement.

This management of knowledge can develop according to different directions:

- Keeping a lookout, with the help of sophisticated search engine in order to find on the web or in the enterprise any information bringing this project further and enabling us to have a comparison with that of « competitors ».
- Classifying all this information with potential use for the enterprise on a very accessible medium which enables friendly and intuitive use.
- Developing new tools for representing information , namely through a categorising and mapping process. This would enable us to use plenty of unstructured information.
- Making the information transformation optimal through promoting information sharing within communities or through developing data base with the best practices.

Information sharing is probably the heart of this process of knowledge management. All those who are in power relationships know very well that knowledge is an advantage compared with those who don’t have it at disposal. Moreover, sharing this knowledge leads to a loss of power. Consequently, promoting knowledge sharing can only be achieved with asking ourselves how this way of doing would be beneficial to us. Of course, this advantage must compensate at least the loss of power due to the disclosing of information others could need.

The morphology of the corporation knowledge will have a deciding influence. Knowledge may appear in a static way, in the form of relatively stable pieces of information with a long period of validity. In such a case, information sharing will always be accompanied by a loss of power without any other compendsation than the one which was negotiated previously. This exchange may take the form of an allegiance by acknowledging the authority of the one who knows or it may take any other form. Anyway, it will be in the interest of the one who knows not to disclose a piece of information without making sure previously it is beneficial to him. If he didn’t work that way, he could grow poorer.

Knowledge may also appear in another form, in transformation, in continuous evolution to adapt to a changing environment. This means things will appear in a different way. The knowledge from the future will differ from present knowledge. As a consequence, present relevant information won’t be of any use tomorrow. In that case, the loss of power will take place anyway, even in the absence of information sharing. This loss of power will simply take place a bit sooner, in the case of knowledge sharing. Another aspect of the problem should also be considered : the possibilities of access to information. In case of a monopoly of information, the ones who have it at disposal can choose not to communicate it to make the competitive advantage still more important. If an equivalent and equally relevant piece of information can be obtained through other means, those who withhold information will lose their advantage. Moreover, with their attitude, they forbid their taking part in exchanges about the themes they are interested in. Now, these exchanges make it possible to transform information in order to make its adequation to its environment optimal. Such is the main benefit of information sharing : letting information change to make the competitive advantage on the market optimal.

In the public sector, how do things look?

In the public sector as well, it’s necessary to consider first of all the problem of the morphology of information. Is this static information or information in transformation?

In october 2001, Belgian federal government service published the results of a survey by the Katholieke Universiteit van Leuven and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Solvay) for the department of social affairs.
The officials had the opportunity to express their needs and wishes in information to make their work efficiency optimal. In descending order, they suggested to improve the access to regulations (51%), to have at disposal phone lists with their colleagues activity fields and attendance days(28%), a better access to memorandums(23%), a better knowledge of the personnel’s competences (20%). First of all, the officials chose massively for a better knowledge and aplication of regulations . The other aspects they put forward refer to the inner organisation of the institution. There was no request for information about the environment, about the needs to be met.

Static aspects prevail in this type of morphology of knowledge. The will of introducing practices to share information will fail inevitably. Because on one side, officials won’t see the advantage of sharing their knowledge and know-how and on the other side, it won’t be objectively their interest to share. When disclosing their knowledge, they will allow other people to use it, with the possibility of their using it against them. Moreover, they won’t probably get any feed-back.

This preliminary reflection stresses the importance of making a strategic choice in the public office before developing there any information management. This policy must lead the public office to adapt to its environment and to the changes taking place there. While doing so, it will be able to develop a morphology of a knowledge in tranformation. In this new context, the practices of knowledge management will get their full meaning , and they will be opportunities to create noticeable advantages.

Now, this type of strategic policy is being implemented inside Belgian public service by giving our main concern to the users of public utilities. The centre of our attention is moving from inside to outside, to an environment in constant mutation. In this context, the introduction of a governing body aiming at knowledge management within our federal administration will give this new strategy a base to develop better. Affair worth following.

Article submitted by Fernand SCHMETZ of the Belgian Ministry of Social Affairs.