Knowledge management is a funny subject – it’s such a hot buzz word and yet its rare to read anything meaningful on the subject. In fact, most managers and executives are under the illusion that KM is something that can be purchased from a vendor.
I’ve not done a study on this but I’ll wager $1000 that if you were to ask 10 executives to define KM, 9 of 10 would make some reference to a plug-and-play solution.
I know this is old hat for some of you, but let’s redefine KM. Of course, depending on the vendor, there are also varying definitions, but I define KM as KM is how corporate knowledge – both tacit and explicit – is stored, retrieved and reused for achieving corporate objectives. Notice there is no direct reference to technology.
Effective knowledge management requires three key components:
· Participatory individuals – employees who are willing, able and active sharers of tacit knowledge.
· Process and rules – defined rules and standards (e.g. corporate taxonomy) for categorizing and storing information and knowledge.
· Technology – physical infrastructure including software that enables the above and allows for effective knowledge retrieval.
A recent article It's what you know and how you use it in the Sydney Morning Herald takes a look at KM placing an importance on business and process…
And while technology plays a supporting rather than lead role in knowledge management, it is also providing ASIC with a method of measuring the effect of its knowledge management initiatives. Ms Sbarcea has implemented an open source social network analysis system which "visualises in a map the connections and pathways between people".
There are many, many tools and systems that fall under the KM umbrella – from search to social media such as blogs and wikis to content and document management. The future of KM may in fact be glimpsed by looking at Google. In a recent ZDnet article Google dodges knowledge management question, Andrew Donoghue writes that Google is extremely well positioned to be a major player in the KM space, but as is typically Google, is sufficiently vague about its plans.
Google has hinted that it could create an extremely powerful corporate knowledge management or information management platform by integrating products such as its search appliances with its other search and communications applications.
Speaking at the launch of Google’s latest Mini search appliance on Thursday, product marketing manager Arvind Desikan admitted that integrating different Google enterprise-class search technologies together, such as the Enterprise Desktop Search and Google Enterprise Toolbar, would benefit business customers. "The more things we have integrated, the more useful it will be," he said.
Personally, I think KM is still in its infancy. So don’t despair if you find the subject matter confusing and daunting. It is confusing – and daunting. I’d watch Google closely as I also would watch Autonomy and Microsoft. In the meantime, focus on people and process. Build a strong, central intranet portal with an intuitive information architecture and a powerful search engine supported by well-defined and rigorous rules and policies including a corporate taxonomy.
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No silver bullet for Knowledge Management
© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media