KM Articles - HBR. How to Fix Knowledge Management - HBR. It’s time to abandon the fiction that knowledge management technology is working.
Last year, U.S. companies spent $4.5 billion on software and other technologies that claim to foster information sharing among employees. Where’s the payoff? Forget IP. Mine Strategic Knowledge Instead - HBR. By Martin Ihrig, Max Boisot, and Ian MacMillan | 12:03 PM May 6, 2011 While seeking intellectual property rights (IPR) is entirely appropriate for your well-structured knowledge, putting serious effort into mapping the deep, implicit knowledge within your organization can prove equally valuable.
Exploiting this deep knowledge entails strategically mapping the know-how usually just carried in the heads of individual employees, or by groups of your employees working together, in tacit, interpersonal organizational routines. To pursue IPR entails structuring and documenting knowledge, and the irony is that this very structuring allows diffusion to other firms who get access to it and either work around the IPR or eventually imitate it. Are You Wasting Money On Useless Knowledge Management? - HBR. By Martin Ihrig, Max Boisot, and Ian MacMillan | 11:54 AM January 20, 2011 Is your company investing in expensive knowledge management systems that are useless for making big, strategy decisions?
Most companies recognize the need for knowledge management, but often delegate it to the IT and HR departments without linking it to corporate strategy, often thereby wasting both resources and the strategic options their firm’s knowledge could generate. The problem is that most current knowledge management efforts merely inventory the company’s knowledge, without parsing out the knowledge that is strategically relevant.