The Tacit Knowledge of Interests - Dick Stenmark

Our interests as professionals in a corporate setting govern our activities more than any formal job role description. However, it is difficult to precisely describe what we are interested in or what make a certain book or document interesting. It is, on the other hand, very easy to determine whether or not a given document is interesting just by giving it a quick glance. Based on Polanyi's theories of tacit knowledge, I claim that this is because we use tacit knowledge when making these decisions. By studying how an agent-based retrieval prototype was used, I deduct that such technology may be used to capture our interests and thus make tacit knowledge usable on an organisational level, without having to make it external. This approach has three advantages: First, instead of using a few keywords to describe an interest, one can give an example in form of a document. Second, an incentive to define an interest exists since it is rewarded in form of more accurate information retrieval. Third, as knowledge no longer needs to be externalised, there is less risk of users feeling they are being made obsolete.
Artigo completo