Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Journey from Knowledge Management to Knowledge Sharing

Why did attempts of knowledge management failed over the last several years? Why is it going to be different this time?

Knowledge management is not about storing documents in the right place, but having people sharing their knowledge. Knowledge is the glue that holds our virtual universe together.
We need to shift our attention to the creators of existing content, then and now, it has always been: PEOPLE.

During last century the main innovation focus was on electrification. Environment pressures and reality of 21st century brought in, as the essence of economic growth – knowledge and its management.

Knowledgification powers radical innovation in 21st century.

Successful implementation of effective knowledge management (KM) is about enabling the culture of innovation within the company. What used to be true in the past, doesn’t work effectively now. Web 1.0 based search engines are no more attractive in comparison with interactive web 2.0 platforms. World Wide Web is flooded with data, which are not linked. How do we get data linked? How to extract information we need for work? How to avoid knowledge mismanagement?
Emerging phenomenon of social networking platforms within lives of people and companies, their partners or customers cannot be overlooked.

Social computing enables more effective people interaction.

Connecting people is the most efficient way, how to get hold of needed materials, documents, deliverables or lessons learned. Interactivity and contribution within existing KM platforms is lower than desired when designing it. Response time for inquiries is too long compared to interactions through “out of the office” web 2.0 applications. This might cause barrier and frustration among KM users. How to get people involved in KM? What would be attractive for them to contribute to KM databases actively?


Below, you can find brief list of web 2.0 based tools and available technologies:


• Mash ups
• Social bookmarks
• Social tagging
• Blogs and Microblogs
• Social networks
• Wikis
• RSS
• Virtual world


Knowledge is in the network. (P. Senge)

Above statement is also supported by, Metcalf’s law of exponentially increasing the value of your knowledge network, by increasing its volume – can be achieved” Social computing allow people connect and share knowledge - naturally. As knowledge flows more freely and in a variety of ways (blogs, wikis, microblogs, etc), the company's soil becomes more fertile for innovative ideas to take place. Employees will have space to unfold their talents and know-how, share it with the networks and increased numbers of colleagues, which have been out of their reach before (geographical, hierarchical etc.)

Social computing captures the knowledge that is shared informally via conversations and people interactions.

Instead of exerting even more efforts to formally document the knowledge, store files and documents, let’s realize strength of knowledge management via integration social networking applications and its tools into it. Spreading the word and ideas can be achieved with surprisingly fast pace.
Potential of KM can be enhanced and fully realized through social computing.
The social computing component layered into that KM framework, even basic things like user forums with space for comments, ratings, cloud tags, Yammer feeds, and wiki-like editing capabilities is able to take huge knowledge base.

This kind of integration of social computing into KM framework, business processes and workflow will have also impact on:
Content quality of data, whereas the level of detail will be improved significantly by linking available sources of existing data
KM users will be involved completely when giving them a stake and space for identification of their value added in the final product

Existing myths about social networking within company are source of resistance and doubts about its value adding role towards competitiveness of their business.
Perception on web 2.0 tools can be illustrated by: Old an ancient story about the group of blind men who touched different parts of elephant to learn what it was like. Based on part they touched, each man had a different perspective. “It’s a rope!” - one man said touching the tail. “It is a tree!” - other said by touching the foot of the animal.
Fast forwarding the story to year 2009, different people have a different understanding of web 2.0 beast. Social networking might be associated with Facebook, publishing with Blogs, collaboration with Wikis.


What keeps social media ambassadors to challenge present KM and promote professional networking as essential part of daily work and learning process?

Social media platforms are providing functions with unlimited reach across whole organization.

Social computing components within company enables employees to:
Create authentic identity via freedom to personalize their profile via picture, nickname, areas of interest, languages spoken etc.
Have excitement and fun on the workplace, when collaborating with globally dispersed teams.
Unique space for newly joined colleagues for introduction and the way to integrate smoothly into company.
Erase hierarchical stereotypes and barriers, when able to interact and reach every colleague at any level within organization. (involvement of executives and leading by example is essential)
“Eyes on” feeds is great mean to learn more about many unknown subjects when reading feeds, conversations and interactions between experts.
Making 1 plus 1 far more than 2 – shared knowledge from share minds can generate unexpected synergy effects.

Knowledge management and social media are not mutually exclusive. Social media will not replace KM.

Bringing together Web 2.0 applications and KM into day to day life of company, has to be done hand in hand with proper business process designing, in order to ensure accuracy where error rates must be extremely low. There is still requirement for technical documentation, and a logically-organized framework for presenting that information are necessary and appropriate.
As the story comes to and end, we are crossing finish line at the same place where we have started: PEOPLE are the voice to be listened to.
Final desing of KM platform and its functionalities must serve the best and has to be aligned according requirements of KM users, in order to achieve so often missed target: effectively functioning knowledge management.

Question arises in my mind: KM or KS?
Knowledge sharing (KS) is everywhere. I think KM is largely dead.