AnalysingthreeversionsofKnowledgeManagementEvolution. The Three Eras of Knowledge Management – Towards the Collective Knowledge of Conversations. Every now and then there is this blog post that, when reading through it, you can’t help but embark yourself on a wonderful trip down the memory lane on something that comes so close to your heart that you just keep nodding in agreement and content on how good and thorough it is in describing the state of things. In this case, Knowledge Management. And in this particular case the superb blog post put together by Nancy Dixon under the title "The Three Eras of Knowledge Management – Summary".
Outstanding read, if you haven’t gotten through it just yet… Yes, indeed, in that lengthy, but really worth reading altogether, article Nancy takes us all through a fascinating journey in describing incredibly well the various different stages that good old Knowledge Management has gone through over the last 15+ years, distinguishing three main eras of KM that I bet most knowledge workers out there could very well identify still going on in their own organisations.
Exciting times, don’t you think? Personal knowledge management. Where we stand today. "80 percent of what a company 'knows' resides in its employees' minds, while only 20 percent reside in repositories such as file shares, documents and wikis. " That's according to a 2007 article by Boeing, in which the company profiled its knowledge management initiatives. It's a pretty compelling statement, no matter who you are. This article was written three years ago, yet many of its concepts around knowledge management continue to ring true. You might think, if we're still addressing the same issues, does this mean we haven't progressed? Absolutely not. Over the course of the past few decades, our focus has progressed from capturing data, to sharing information, to retaining knowledge.
However, while this was only three short years ago, 2010 is a very different world. But not every drop in those buckets is going to be useful to the company. Enter the social phenomena. You might liken social knowledge management to Darwin's natural selection for knowledge creation and retention. What%20Happened%20to%20the%20Knowledge%20Mgmt%20Revolution. ArticleGC-JMv10-ENG. KnowledgeManagementMeasurementResearch. AIM%20SME%20Evolution%20%20FINAL. Knowledge Management Strategies: Formulation and Evolution | KM. By Madanmohan Rao; August 22, 2010 Editor, KM Chronicles If you are ever in Bangalore on the third Wednesday of any month, you must attend the Bangalore K-Community: the monthly gathering of knowledge management professionals!
This time panellists from four companies – Oracle, Wipro, Unisys, Nokia – discussed the formulation and evolution of knowledge management (KM) strategies in their organisations. The event was hosted in the Oracle offices near Bangalore Dairy Circle, and the canteen has spectacular views of the city’s green cover (and concrete jungle!). Nirmala Palaniappan, Senior Manager, KM, Oracle APAC, began by outlining key foundations for an effective KM strategy: organisation culture, management philosophies, HR policies and fundamental skills (eg. in conversing, collaborating).
Nirmala classified KM strategies into five types: dictator, broker, psychologist, peacemaker, and doctor/surgeon. Panellist Bios: IJMCP_paper. 20020104. An Illustration. Li_JMIS_Manuscript_2009. Kmman. 49522621. EvoKnowManag. The evolution of knowledge management: lessons learned (Information | Inspiration | Innovation) It's been a while since we've talked about knowledge management (KM) - and there have been two recent comments on the last posting, so let's revisit the topic.
We've had the opportunity a couple of times in the last few months to talk about KM to different outside audiences. In September, I had the chance to talk with some library and information science students at the University of Denver about KM, and specifically KM at Sun. Then, at the end of October, I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a site visit from APQC, along with Terry McKenzie and Peter Reiser, to talk about Sun and social networking and expertise location - yet another opportunity to essentially talk about KM.
A common theme between these two presentations has been the lessons learned - probably more accurately, the lessons we keep re-learning. Here are some of the thoughts we shared with them: A broad, 'big picture' perspective. We bring this perspective in two ways. Start small and move forward from there. The evolution of knowledge management and the Technology Eras hypothesis « Short Takes. The other day a member of a web group I’m in asked, somewhat rhetorically, when we thought the US Fed would incorporate knowledge management into its official work agreements and policies the way it had information management (thank you, Albert S). His question arose from a discussion about how difficult it is to get mainstream buy in for KM as a legitimate body of concepts and practices in mature enterprises.
This is a great question, prompting me to draft up for the first time a hypothesis I’ve mulled around for a decade or longer. So here goes. I believe one approach to detecting when KM will going “mainstream” is based on my own Hypothesis of Technology Eras. Upon the dawn of a new technology era the first application of the new technology is the optimization of the one that preceded it. For instance, when we moved from the agrarian to the industrial age, one of the first things that happened was industrialization of farming, leading to massive improvements in farm productivity. What Is Knowledge Management. In this portion of the Knowledge Management Forum we have provided a summaries of various descriptions of knowledge management. Authors were encouraged to include links to more complete remarks or to referenced works. The contents of this page were last updated March 31, 1996 From the introduction to; "An Open Discussion of Knowledge Management", Brian (Bo)Newman, 1991.
Knowledge Management is the collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination, and utilization of knowledge. So if Knowledge Management is such an ageless and broad topic what role does it serve in today's Information Age? Dr. Argot: The vocabulary used by a particular group, usually an underworld group. Thomas Bertels provides the following definition of Knowledge Management As I am a very practical person I am focussed rather more on the practical aspects, how we can improve the reality. Maarten Sierhuis provides the following definition of Knowledge Management and supporting concepts. What is knowledge? 1. Knowledge Management evolution - tool, toolbox, framework. I had some interesting conversations in the last few weeks on the evolution of KM, especially given Nancy Dixon's evolution model. It made me ponder on my own KM thinking over the past 19 years, and how that has evolved. Stage 1 - focus on one or two tools When I was working in Norway in the early to mid 90s, our KM approach was very simple.
We were focusing on one or two KM processes - the Retrospect, and a Lessons Database, under the care of a Knowledge Manager (me). In hindsight, this was a naive and rudimentary approach, and the lessons built up and up in the database until it became too full and too daunting for people to use as reference. We were focusing on one or two tools, and missing large chunks of KM. There are quite a few organisations still at this stage. But one tool alone will not deliver Knowledge Management. Stage 2 - build a toolbox. When I left Norway in 1997 and joined the BP Knowledge Management team, we already realised that we needed more than one KM tool. The Evolution of Knowledge Management.
Knowledge management has become an important and vital practice in the enterprise. As we have shifted from an industrial-based society to an information-based one, many jobs and tasks have been automated by machinery. The result is a smaller workforce and the advent of the knowledge worker – an employee whose job depends on tacit information that is rarely documented, limiting an organization’s ability to draw upon it in the future. Implementing solutions to collect and preserve tacit knowledge has become a high priority, allowing companies to create digital libraries of employee experiences and practices for future generations. The transfer of knowledge has evolved from the written word on rocks and paper to spoken stories heard live via telephones to digital, virtual, real-time communities on the web.
Today’s #E2sday looks at the evolution of knowledge management, starting from our ancient foundation to today’s high tech solutions.