Scott Erickson, a professor in the Department of Marketing at Ithaca College, attended the European Conference on Knowledge Management (ECKM) Sept. 4 and 5 hosted by the LUT University in Lahti, Finland. Erickson has taught at Ithaca College since 2002 and has won Fulbrights to Iceland and Canada for knowledge management. Erickson also served as one of the judges for the Knowledge Management and Intellectual Capital Excellence Awards at the conference. Erickson has attended the conference for the past 20 years and has been published in various business science journals and books on the subject of knowledge and analytics.
Erickson coauthored a paper called “Predictive Analytics: Digital Metrics for Estimating Knowledge Assets” and presented it at the ECKM conference. Erickson is also the editor-in-chief of the Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, a separate journal dedicated to publishing research and study papers on knowledge management and related topics.
Contributing Writer Gabriella Dearden spoke with Erickson about his experience being present at the ECKM conference and other related knowledge.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Gabriella Dearden: Could you go a little more in-depth about knowledge management and some examples?
Scott Erickson: The idea of knowledge management is if you can better understand what all of your employees know, you can manage that and you can make sure you’re using it as effectively as possible. … That can give you tremendous advantages over a company that doesn’t, so it’s really about just treating your people better and making sure you understand everything … so that you can take full advantage of it.
GD: Could you talk a little bit more about the process of presenting your coauthored paper, “Predictive Analytics: Digital Metrics for Estimating Knowledge Assets,” at the conference?
SE: We have to write a paper with usually some kind of empirical research in it. So we have to gather data and analyze it, and we submit that, and if it’s accepted, we’re invited to go over and present it. So, it goes through peer review.
GD: Is there anything that you have learned at the ECKM conference that you would want to implement here at IC?
SE: You learn a lot about [the] current state of research, what people are studying. So it helps me stay current in what people are talking about. We also study intelligence, and right now, what’s going on with artificial intelligence, it‘s important to see how that’s being studied. … It’s good to see research presented by people who actually understand the term and kind of go more deeply into what it means and how to manage it.
GD: What does it mean for Ithaca College to have one of our professors attend a conference like this?
SE: It’s good for our reputation. It establishes the quality of the education, that professors who know what they’re doing and stay current. … It just opens up doors. I’ve been able to go on Fulbrights to other places, mainly because of my work in this field. We’ve had visiting scholars come here. … I think it just keeps us active. It helps our name, helps us keep current, helps people take us seriously as a college.
GD: Could you describe what it was like being a judge for the Knowledge Management and Intelligence Capital awards for the ECKM conference?
SE: That’s a separate piece of the conference … it’s people that actually work in the field. And so they will usually present some application of knowledge management that they’ve installed in their company. … What we look at is [the] knowledge sharing system. So, “how do you put something in place so people share what they know with their colleagues, so their colleagues can use it?” That’s an effective system when you can do that. … [The judges] usually cut it down to six to eight [nominees] that we actually invite to the conference, and then we pick someone. They have to write up a case study, and then they have to present at the conference.
GD: What advice or tips would you have for people interested in attending the conference?
SE: It’s going to be very current research. By the time something comes out in the book, it’s usually a few years old. … So if you really want to hear the current stuff, conferences are really good for that, and you meet interesting people, you can network. I think not just academic conferences, but conferences, period. They’re just useful to get you out of your routine, learn something new, find out what people are talking about.
GD: How long have you been editor-in-chief of EKJM and what have you taken away from it?
SE: It’s a lot of work because you get a lot of submissions, and the editor has to look at every one, and I have to decide, “Is this worth sending out to reviewers?” “Is this on topic for the journal?” … Those that do get through me, I send them out to reviewers. … And then I have to see what the reviewers have to say about the article, and I have to request revisions from the authors and see what comes back in. … We probably publish 25-30 papers a year.
