Consistency of Change – Benefits of knowledge sharing have remained consistent throughout history, while only the method to share has evolved. Information access and knowledge sharing in 15,000 BC was popular. Lascaux cave drawings used imagery to capture and sharing hunting knowledge. By 3400 BC hieroglyphics appeared as an innovative way to document the spoken language and by AD 77 the first encyclopedia by the Romans was compiled. Classic printing presses of the 1440’s enabled printed material to be available on a broad scale and by the 1600’s, newspapers were the most common method for widespread sharing of knowledge (Simoneau, 2013). Radio in real-time pushed boundaries of information communication in 1912 and the television, of course, transformed social media by 1946. The challenge of the 1960’s was what to do with all the information that was generated. This question spurred the creation of databases for structured data and the famous floppy disk for portable storage was invented by 1971. This progression of information and knowledge sharing is illustrated well in the infographic ‘Information Access and Sharing throughout History’ (see Figure A1 and Figure A2).
The Benefit – Sharing information and knowledge has benefited every generation back to the last ice age. Scanning through the inventions of times past, one common theme is apparent. Early adoption of an emerging technology does provide an immediate competitive advantage for the early adopters. From pictures to radio to newspapers to the floppy disk, earlier adopters benefited the most. Many organizations were earlier adopters of knowledge sharing and they too immediately benefited.
AOL Grabs for Attention – America Online (AOL) owned the online market in 1986 by creating a friendly face to the internet. Users were unsure about the internet, what it was, and how it could help individuals and business. AOL’s creation of graphical chat environments (chatroom) transformed knowledge sharing. All of a sudden, people from different parts of the country could share ideas within a safe virtual room. Could this have a business application? Many believed it did. This was the beginning, and proof the network effect existed. As users were added to the social environment, the value increased and AOL monetized the opportunity.
Metcalfe’s Law and the Social Followers – Many leaders in the 1980’s were well aware of Metcalfe’s law. In 1986, Robert Metcalfe, a former researcher at the famous Xerox Palo Alto Research Center who co-invented Ethernet, hypothesized that while “the cost of the network grew linearly with the number of connections, the value was proportional to the square of the number of users” (Hendler & Golbeck, 2007, p. 1). There is a direct connection between telephone communications and network effect that can be applied today to social network theory (the network effect).This means that the community value of a network grows as the square of the number of its users increase. In short more users equals more value (Hendler & Golbeck, 2007).
References
Goyet, S. (2014). Understanding “Knowledge Translation” In Other Languages by Sophie Goyet | Knowledge Translation Network (KTNet) Africa (online image). Retrieved June 30, 2015, from http://www.ktnetafrica.net/blog/understanding-%E2%80%98knowledge-translation%E2%80%99-other-languages-sophie-goyet
Hendler, J., & Golbeck, J. (2007). Metcalfe’s Law, Web 2.0, and the Semantic Web (pp. 1–12). Retrieved from https://www.cs.umd.edu/~golbeck/downloads/Web20-SW-JWS-webVersion.pdf
Simoneau, L. (2013). Coveo Insights. Retrieved June 24, 2015, from http://blog.coveo.com/the-history-of-knowledge-sharing-a-coveo-infographic/