Value of Knowledge - Methodology
1. Undertake an Environmental Scan
5. Contact organizations, send survey.
6. Based on the findings of the survey, develop some conclusions, qualitative and quantitative, around how much knowledge organizations produce, how much of that knowledge is analyzed, learned from and made available for others to learn from, and how much that knowledge is worth.
7. Formalize conclusions, and and prepare a brief report to be shared at a government sponsored workshop.
8. Prepare a final report, make available online and to survey/focus group participants.
Hypotheses:
1) Organizations produce a great deal of organizational and program knowledge (see assumptions below for rough estimations around the amount of knowledge produced).
2) The vast majority of that knowledge is not revisited and used for future learning to enable good decision making - at least not formally.
3) While there are many internet sites intended to help the social mission sector, most of them are not dynamic, user-generated, collaborative enterprises.
4) Most of the sites which exist to assist mission-driven organizations are geared towards helping these organizations with their operations (get funding, recruit volunteers, manage staff), and comparatively little exists to help organizations directly address their missions effectively.
5) If this information was captured, distilled, and made available, and aggregated into a resource which could help organizations identify best practices, organizations could operate more efficiently and address their missions more effectively.
4) This knowledge is worth something, and incentives could be created to reward participation.
Assumptions:
The Value of Knowledge
-1.2 million people employed in the sector.
-2,000 hours in the average work year.
-Roles and responsibilities vary from sector to sector, and by size of organization.
e.g. Program officer for a environmental organization versus a front line service provider of a placement agency
-Assume that 50% of all paid staff spend 5% of their time generating information, data and knowledge about their work
e.g. via report writing, opinion pieces, white papers, reports, speaking at conferences, etc.
-Assume that average time is worth $20/hour
-Base calculation
1,200,000 x 50% x 5% x $20 x 2000hrs/year = $1,200,000,000.
- Survey existing collaborative/knowledge based internet sites, concentrating on sites that aggregate knowledge in the social/environmental change sector.
- Assess: Is the social sector collaborating effectively and efficiently, or is there room for improvement?
- What types of collaborative enterprises currently exist? How do they operate? How do they encourage participation?
- Develop some observations, primarily qualitative, concerning what currently exists and what may be missing.
- Scan Charity Village for job postings, looking for representative organizations in each of Imagine Canada's industry sectors (e.g Arts and Culture, Health, Social Services)
- Gather information about these organizations, looking at their size, their mission, the number of part time staff, etc.
- Assess the job opportunity and develop some observations around what types of skills and knowledge these organizations value and are in demand.
- Develop some observations and conclusions about how much knowledge is produced, captured, and what that knowledge may be worth.
- How much organizational and program knowledge do social/environmental change/advocacy organizations produce?
- How much of the organization's overall resources are dedicated to the production of that knowledge?
- How much of that knowledge is captured, and used for future learning by the organization?
- How much of this knowledge is shared with other organizations and made available to the public?
5. Contact organizations, send survey.
6. Based on the findings of the survey, develop some conclusions, qualitative and quantitative, around how much knowledge organizations produce, how much of that knowledge is analyzed, learned from and made available for others to learn from, and how much that knowledge is worth.
7. Formalize conclusions, and and prepare a brief report to be shared at a government sponsored workshop.
8. Prepare a final report, make available online and to survey/focus group participants.
Hypotheses:
1) Organizations produce a great deal of organizational and program knowledge (see assumptions below for rough estimations around the amount of knowledge produced).
2) The vast majority of that knowledge is not revisited and used for future learning to enable good decision making - at least not formally.
3) While there are many internet sites intended to help the social mission sector, most of them are not dynamic, user-generated, collaborative enterprises.
4) Most of the sites which exist to assist mission-driven organizations are geared towards helping these organizations with their operations (get funding, recruit volunteers, manage staff), and comparatively little exists to help organizations directly address their missions effectively.
5) If this information was captured, distilled, and made available, and aggregated into a resource which could help organizations identify best practices, organizations could operate more efficiently and address their missions more effectively.
4) This knowledge is worth something, and incentives could be created to reward participation.
Assumptions:
The Value of Knowledge
-1.2 million people employed in the sector.
-2,000 hours in the average work year.
-Roles and responsibilities vary from sector to sector, and by size of organization.
e.g. Program officer for a environmental organization versus a front line service provider of a placement agency
-Assume that 50% of all paid staff spend 5% of their time generating information, data and knowledge about their work
e.g. via report writing, opinion pieces, white papers, reports, speaking at conferences, etc.
-Assume that average time is worth $20/hour
-Base calculation
1,200,000 x 50% x 5% x $20 x 2000hrs/year = $1,200,000,000.
