Richard Vines reflects on his 15 months working on a knowledge management project for Victoria's agricultural industries. The project aims to consolidate disparate client information, create knowledge hubs for different industry sectors, and build knowledge management capabilities. Vines discusses tensions that arise at organizational boundaries related to indicators of success, domain focus, control, and support systems. Knowledge management requires navigating tensions between familiar and unfamiliar learning. The project also seeks to harmonize client data while retaining diversity, and provide user-friendly access to relevant information to support farmers. Knowledge management is a diverse practice that requires sustained commitment to develop as a coherent domain.

1. Reflections on Knowledge Management Practice
(15 months into a KM start up project related to Victoria’s
agricultural industries)
20th March 2012
Richard Vines
Knowledge Management Specialist
Victorian Department of Primary Industries
Hon Fellow: eScholarship Research Centre, Uni of Melb

2. Where are
we talking
about?
Victoria
Melbourne

3. An introduction to knowledge
management in Australia
Shared context = working across complex (cultural) boundaries

4. Victoria’s agricultural industries
Overview
– Produces goods worth around $9 billion
– Export contribution of 26% of the total national value
– Dairy, beef, horticulture, poultry, sheep meat and wool industries etc
– Pioneered the “Landcare Movement”

5. Context of KM project
The changing role of Government in agricultural extension
– Victoria’s commitment to Agricultural industries via extension
– Better Services to Farmers strategy (BSTF)
– Underdeveloped capability in knowledge management
– Inconsistent client & stakeholder management systems
– National Research, Development & Extension Framework
– The equivalent context on the US (the land grant institutions,
www.eXtension.org etc)
National R, D and E Framework:
Encouragement of greater collaboration and promotion of continuous improvement in the investment of
RD&E resources nationally.
National industry strategies for Dairy, Beef etc

6. KM project (Dec 2010-)
Three overarching deliverables
– Consolidation of disparate approaches to client information
– Knowledge hubs across different industry sectors
– Capability development in relation to KM

7. Discussion of five inherent boundary tensions**
(boundary tensions - between nodes of competition and complementarity)
1. Indicators of success
Customer intimacy < - > Product service leadership < - > Operational excellence
2. Domain focus
KM < - > Other
3. Process
Knowledge < - > Business
4. Control
Agency < - > Value network
5. Support system reform
Organisational < - > Inter-agency / national
Conclusion
Developing capability around KM involves mediating the tension:
Learning based on the familiar < - > Learning by accessing the unfamiliar
Learning could be personal or organisational in nature
** I acknowledge the influence of a KM colleague of mine – Dr Tony English - with whom I appreciated a collaboration in the 1990’s on matters to do with
cross cultural eductation. I refer to material outlined in his book “Tug of War: the tension concept and the art of international negotiation” .

8. <-> Boundary tensions associated with KM start up
1. Indicators of success
Example to be discussed
Established initiative here Example to be discussed
will not be discussed
** I thank Stephen Northey, DPI for bringing this general framework to my attention

9. Harmonising client data
<->
<-> <-> <-> <->
Common scaffold for capturing client
related information whilst retaining
diversity of industry social languages
Discussion • Approach • Tacit culture • Semantics • Privacy

10. This, in principle is the same challenge as
creeping regulatory burden
Print based culture

11. Visualisation of five
different quality standards
Department of Planning and
Community Development

12. Then mapping areas of semantic equivalence across these documents
- an example of a visualisation not visible via print-based work cultures
This represents only around 40% of the complexity This is the face of burden creep

13. Knowledge hubs:
Providing client information as a service
Farmers work within increasingly complex
operating environments
resource constraints such as water rights, increasing input costs,
erosion of the ability to enhance productivity gains, increasing and
uncoordinated regulatory compliance intrusions or uncertainty
about market access requirements etc

14. User’s perspective and experience
What’s the reality of accessing relevant information?
Knowledge
hubs
Discussion • Search • Fragmentation • Authority • Spatial relevance

15. What might a farm centric approach to service
support look like in say 5 years?
In relation to public knowledge and benefit can the noise be reduced?
Business decision Infrastructure
support for carbon
tools assurance systems
Soil health data Farm business
(localised) data
(de-identified)
Seasonal climate
Up-to-date, on
information
demand, information
(localised)
Profitability &
Farm & catchment
sustainability
planning tools
information
Communities of
Hot topics of
interest support
interest
systems
This approach will require innovation across the information
publishing and the spatial services industry sectors

16. KM should allow users to filter out the noise

17. KM should allow users to filter out the noise
Research
organisations such as
DPI, Dairy Australia,
Grains Research and
Service support Development Corp
systems,
infrastructure and
networks
Filtering based on modular Up-to-date, on
knowledge system Current focus demand, information
Near farm networks, service
providers, wholesalers, farm User (farmer, service
groups etc provider etc)

18. <-> Boundary tensions associated with KM start up
2. KM <-> other domains
Discussion • Organisational case study

19. <-> Boundary tensions associated with KM start up
3. Knowledge Process < - > Business Process
Customer
intimacy Adapted from
Aujirapongpan, S. ,
Vadhanasindhu, C.,
Chandrachai, A., Cooparat,
P. 2010, Indicators of
Product service knowledge management
capability for KM. The
leadership Journal of Information and
Knowledge Management
Systems. Vol. 40 No. 2, pp.
183-203
Operational
excellence
Discussion
• Business Excellence Framework
• Capability development program developed

20. <-> Boundary tensions associated with KM start up
4. Agency control < - > value network collaboration
Publicly Impact
defined monitoring
problem and public
context benefit
Discussion • Context with the National R, D and E framework
• Constraints

21. <-> Boundary tensions associated with KM start up
5. Organisational <-> Inter-agency / national reform
National and statement Government policy framework
Public utility is enhanced if
Practice change outcomes are
information created by Govt
shaped by highly local or <-> departments is made accessible
contextual factors
to its citizens through open access
release frameworks***
Policy statements from the Primary
Industry Ministerial Council* (2009,
Public Records Office of Victoria
p 3) and the Australian Productivity
Commission Report 2011**, p 123)
Conclusion: What has not emerged yet in any coherent way is the need to
think about both these policy developments in relation to each other
References:
* National Primary Industries Research, Development and Extension Framework, Statement of Intent, 17 June 2009.
** Productivity Commission, Rural Research and Development Corporations, Productivity Commission Inquiry Report No 52, Final Inquiry
Report, Commonwealth of Australia, 10 February 2011.
*** Public Records Office of Victoria, 2011. Victorian Public Sector Information Release Framework (PSIRF) DRAFT Principles.
http://tinyurl.com/6p5fzsj. Site accessed on 23/01/2012.

22. Contextual information management
… this is understood as the representation of
complex networks consisting of entities (people, organisations, committees, divisions,
events etc.) published resources, archival resources and digital objects linked by
relationships. All entities, published resources, archival resources, digital objects and
relationships are dated so that both are understood within a time continuum
Context entities act as surrogates for real life objects,
events, ideas, document structures etc.
CSIR CSIRO
(short description) was previous to
(short description)
(Dates: 1926-1950) (Dates: 1950-present)
Based on the principles of the Encoded Archival Context (EAC) standard
Example of EAC installation in the US: http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/

23. Context entity networks in agriculture
Information publishing < - > spatial services
Fictitious case study
Located in Gippsland
Farmer Bob’s Farm
(2010-)
Is member of is ascribed
Property
Lamb innovation network Identification
2003- Code
is member of
Gippsland value chain project
(2008-) was preceded by
Loddon value chain project
(2002-2008)

24. eScholarship Research Centre
Example of inter-agency contextual information network:
Who Am I? project and Pathways website
http://www.pathwaysvictoria.info/
CSO
Archival
Govt centre
Dept
State
Library
The sector as a context entity network ‘Manages the records of’
Source available here

25. Contextual information
.. can help visualise inter-relationships between entities that guide the
administration of regulatory interventions at particular points in time
Legislators
Family Services and Out of Home Care Standard
Source available here

26. Use of EAC as a means of reducing regulatory burden
Reducing the burden - increasing the impact: final reports prepared for the Office of the Community Sector, Better
Integrated Standards and Quality Assurance Systems (BISQAS) Project 1 and 2. eScholarship Research Centre,
University of Melbourne, Department of Planning and Community Development, June 2009,
http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/9041
(Vines, Richard; McCarthy, Gavan; Jones, Michael)
Cities, human well-being and the environment: conceiving national regulatory knowledge systems to facilitate
resilient knowledge, knowledge based development and inter-generational knowing. In Knowledge Cities World
Summit, Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre, Victoria, Australia. 2010
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1764605
(Vines, R., McCarthy, G., Kirk, C., & Jones, M.
Other standards concerned with context-based metadata
ISO/TS 23081-2:2009 establishes a framework for defining metadata elements consistent with the principles and
implementation considerations outlined in ISO 23081-1:2006. One of the purposes of this framework is to enable
standardized description of records and critical contextual entities for records,
Registry Interchange Format for Collections and Services (RIF-CS)
RIF-CS is a data interchange format that supports the electronic exchange of collection and service descriptions.
Open Archives Initiative – protocols for metadata harvesting (OAI-PMH)
OAI‐PMH is a low‐barrier mechanism for repository interoperability. Data Providers are repositories that expose
structured metadata via OAI‐PMH.
TROVE as a national aggregation service
This forms part of the National R, D and E framework
http://trove.nla.gov.au/general/contribute/

27. …. in contrast to web publishing approach
Department of Primary Industries – Sitemap (Detail)[1]

28. Robert Heinlein, 1950
"The greatest crisis facing us is not Russia, not the Atom Bomb, not
corruption in government, not encroaching hunger, nor the morals of the
young. It is a crisis in the organization and accessibility of human
knowledge. We own an enormous 'encyclopaedia' - which isn't even
arranged alphabetically. Our 'file cards' are spilled on the floor, nor were
they ever in order. The answers we want may be buried somewhere in
the heap, but it might take a lifetime to locate two already known facts,
place them side by side and derive a third fact, the one we urgently
need."
Thanks to Michael Jones from the eSRC (Uni of Melb)
for bringing this quote to my attention

29. Concluding remarks:
Being a KM specialist covers a very diverse practical and intellectual territory.
It is still going to take time to develop a coherent domain of practice called
KM and any traction will continue to be hard earned.
This domain requires sustained commitment.
Thank you
Richard Vines
Knowledge Management Specialist
Farm Services Division
Department of Primary Industries
richard.vines@dpi.vic.gov.au
+61 - 417 104144