Adriana S. Vivacqua and Marcos R.S. Borges Department of Computer Science – Institute of Mathematics Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, Brazil avivacqua@dcc.ufrj.br; mborges@dcc.ufrj.br Abstract—People and organizations frequently need to recall past events that, for some reason, were not documented when they occurred. The successful reconstitution of past events depends on several variables, such as whether key people are still available to tell what they know. This is especially true in emergency scenarios, where it is important to learn from past events in order to better prepare for future ones. In this paper, we describe a group storytelling approach to support knowledge acquisition from emergency respondents. This activity is supported by a groupware and yields a semi-structured account of past events, which can be later retrieved. We also present a case study with an actual emergency response team. Keywords - knowledge management, group storytelling, emergency response I. INTRODUCTION Knowledge is an invaluable asset for an organization [6], and appropriate management of knowledge can make a big difference [7]. Organizations frequently need to recall past events that might not have been documented when they occurred. The successful reconstitution of past events depends on several variables, such as how long ago the event occurred, and whether key people are still available to tell their stories. Although it is sometimes difficult to restore all known events, an adequate recall process can make it easier for individuals to recollect facts and lead to a more accurate account. Telling stories is a natural way of transmitting tacit knowledge among individuals, groups, and organizations. When a story is told, the author’s intention is to transmit knowledge to the listener. Stories are great vehicles for wrapping together many elements of knowledge such as: explicit and tacit knowledge, information and emotion, the core and the context [1]. Stories are a very powerful way to represent complex, multi-dimensional concepts. While a certain amount of knowledge can be reflected as information, stories hold the key to unlocking the vital knowledge, which remains beyond the reach of codified information [2]. This is also the case in emergency management scenarios, where incident prevention plans must be drafted and continuously revised. Past events and experiences provide valuable input for plan revisions and new strategy formulation. However, this knowledge is present only in the heads of the individuals who participated in the incident response, who experienced the problems and may have new insight or suggestions as a result. This is usually a group of people, and hardly ever a sole individual, who must externalize their knowledge to provide useful input for incident prevention plans. Knowledge recall is not a straightforward task: memory lapses may lead to incomplete information and the absence of key facts. Group storytelling can aid the recollection of events and lead to reflection. Reading each other’s contributions may trigger individual memory or lead to discussion. II. GROUP STORYTELLING FOR KNOWLEDGE RECALL Knowledge exists both in the mind of employees and in documents. Many organizations assign high priority to documentation, but not all important knowledge is stored in documents [8]. The experience of the organization members, their ideas and decisions are also part of an organization’s knowledge. These elements are known as tacit knowledge [9]: mental models, beliefs and ingrained perspectives not subject to easy manifestation. It is the opposite of explicit knowledge, which is simple to disseminate and share. When we want to recall an episode that has occurred in the past and which has been witnessed by a group of people, we usually count on their testimony to reconstitute the episode. However, only when grouped together can the set of events start to make sense. This is achieved by knowledge exchange and combination. Although this is not enough to guarantee the full reconstitution of the episode – (e.g., some events may not have been witnessed), the collective knowledge produced by a group is usually better that a set of events reported by an individual. While telling a story, individuals may forget or disregard events they think are not relevant. There are also cases where faulty memory, subjective perception, partial or erroneous knowledge may distort the report [14]. Knowledge recall may be led by a person in role of editor, who interviews participants, interprets their views and stores Using Group Storytelling to Recall Information in Emergency Response COLLABORATECOM 2011, October 15-18, Orlando, United States Copyright © 2012 ICST DOI 10.4108/icst.collaboratecom.2011.247126