Knowledge is a philosophical concept defined by Plato as a belief supported by an account or an explanation (Blair, 2002). Under the context of knowledge-view of an organization, the definition suggests that knowledge comes from firm’s increased ability to make use and sense of available information to create value for the shareholders (Leiponen, 2006). There has been a significant growth in the knowledge-based school of thought, which suggests that generating and retention of knowledge can have positive effects on the firm’s performance (Di Mattia & Scott, 1999). To manage this intangible asset to leverage firms for benefits is considered to be its core capability. Knowledge management (KM) has been aimed at capturing, integrating and using existing organizational knowledge and consequently creating a knowledge asset that can be a source of sustained competitive advantage in the long run (Brooking, 1999; Havens & Knapp, 1999). The revolution in the KM came with the rise of technology and there has been a misconception of linking IT with KM although it just facilitates the process (Papers4you.com, 2006).

The literature has divided knowledge into two major categories depending upon its nature to be codified for the use in a KM system. The structured and systematic knowledge that can be described in formal language and easily communicated and shared through formal means qualify for the explicit knowledge type (Elizabeth, 2001). It has been established that such knowledge is easy to codify in the form of databases and is seen as a base resource because of its inherent nature of easy imitation by other organizations. The other form of knowledge which has gained tremendous importance is the automatic collective behavior and is called tacit knowledge (Richard et al, 2001). Tacit knowledge, according to Sajjad et al (2005), comprises of mental models, values, beliefs, assumptions and perceptions which are deeply entranced into the intellectual capital of an organization. It has been suggested that tacit knowledge is faced with an apparent dichotomy i.e. the feature of inimitability that make it a source of sustained competitive advantage also makes it hard to capture and share within the organization to gain the potential benefits.

Therefore it can be concluded that the elusive asset of knowledge, where provides an organization with capability to undermine competition also proves to be a challenge to leverage itself (Papers4you.com, 2006). Any organization should not only look at the ‘best practices’ in the field but should customize each approach to its own unique culture and requirements to be able to successfully use KM.

References:

Blair, D.C. (2002), “Knowledge management: hype, hope, or help?”, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 53(12), 1019-1028

BROOKING, Annie (1999), “Corporate Memory: Strategies for Knowledge Management”, Intellectual Capital Series London: International Thomson Business

Di Mattia, S. & Scott, I. A. (1999), “KM: hope, hype or harbinger?”, Library Journal, 15 September, 122(15), p. 33

Elizabeth A. Smith, (2001), “The role of tacit and explicit knowledge in the workplace”, Journal of Knowledge Management; Volume: 5 Issue: 4; 2001 Research Paper

Havens, C. & Knapp, E. (1999), “Easing into Knowledge Management, Strategy and Leadership”, 27(2), p. 4

Leiponen, Aija (2006), “Managing Knowledge for Innovation: The Case of Business-to-Business Services”, Journal of Product Innovation Management, May2006, Vol. 23 Issue 3, p238-258

Papers For You (2006) “P/M/440. Tools of knowledge management”, Available from http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtmgt8.htm [22/06/2006]

Papers For You (2006) “P/M/325. Knowledge management: definition of the concept”, Available from Papers4you.com [21/06/2006]

Richard T. Herschel, Hamid Nemati, David Steiger (2001), “Tacit to explicit knowledge conversion: knowledge exchange protocols”, Journal of Knowledge Management; Volume: 5 Issue: 1; 2001 Research paper

Sajjad M. Jasimuddin, Jonathan H. Klein, Con Connell (2005), “The paradox of using tacit and explicit knowledge: Strategies to face dilemmas”, Management Decision; Volume: 43 Issue: 1; 2005 Conceptual paper

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Lotus Knowledge Management … Lotus Notes Domino IBM

Help answer the question about Knowledge Management

What is the difference between knowledge management and knowledge based management.?
Knowledge Management, then, is the process of transforming INFORMATION and INTELLECTUAL ASSETS into enduring VALUE.Knowledge Management involves connecting people with people and people with information. Unlike Information, Knowledge is not just a “thing” to be “managed”. It is a Capacity – of people and communities – to continuously generate and renew themselves to meet new challenges and opportunities; it is the collective knowledge of the organization.
Ok this was all about knowledge management now can u please distinguish it from knowledge based management.

About Author

Copyright © 2006 Verena Veneeva. Professional Writer working for http://www.coursework4you.co.uk

Knowledge is also available to a company in the form of news articles, journals, relevant publications, and documentation. Many times this knowledge is crucial in the successful running of the company. Without many types of knowledge such as statistics, reports, white papers, and specific industry information many companies would lose out on a serious advantage that can push them over the top when it comes to their competition. Knowledge management is a great tool that any company can implement and that will increase their success and profit potential.

There are many knowledge management tools that are available for companies to use. Knowledge management software will help a company to organize and collate the information that is relevant to the interests of the company. Once all this information is stored in one database it becomes a great tool for all employees to use.

Same about project management. Combining processes, people and technologies is an art, not a craft. But there’s another phase of the subject. Those management possibilities that failed once due to lack of communication, now are open. This is no more a problem but a difficulty.

Lets take a look at what’s called business of the future. What are its features. How to succeed in the world of constant speed-up. In the world where market transparency and complexity are constantly growing.

The members of «Enterprise 2.0 2008» conference say this way about Business 2.0 features:

1. Flat organization: there’re minimum layers between the top-management and common workers
2. Ease of organization flow
3. Agility: minimum bureaucracy
4. Flexibility: how quickly your company adapts to external changes
5. User-driven technology
6. Bottom up: control and information flows often originate from any layer
7. Distributed: team is distributed both geographically and in time. Teams are global.
8. Fuzzy boundaries, open borders: there’re no definite departments inside a company
9. Transparency: your company state is always visible from outside

10. Information systems are emergent, and not forced from top-management
11. Folksonomies replace taxonomies. It’s no use making people think the same you do.
12. Simple. Nothing to add here.
13. Open: the best description is given by Jonathan Nolen, hope it helps
14. Works on demand: for each new request, company invents new solutions. I recommend checking an intersting article about business-on-demand.
15. Short time-to-market cycle

Seeming simplicity of new organization is actually based on complexity of people and technologies. When saying ‘people’ I mean, new business is possible only when people characteristics are very high. Responsibility, creativity, communication skills, inner mobility. People become more demanding to themselves and business creates new people. The technology aspect of new business is: all those innovations become possible with new communication and knowledge management techniques.

But this is still not a difficulty. Difficulty lies in combining people and technology growth. It comes out that ideally technology should be one step ahead of people. Technology as a way to transmit achievements from more advanced participants to other. It’s like two endpoints of same spring. In such a way business system evolves.

OK, what do we have on the intellectual systems market that
1. Solve project management automation tasks
2. Empower managers’ flexibility in building teams and processes
3. Create an environment for knowledge sharing in a team
Let me note that these three things are connected with one another and support each other. There are systems that solve each of the problems perfectly. But only one.
Corporate Wikis for knowledge storing and sharing; ERP and «professional» project management tools like Microsoft Project; standard development and management methodologies. GTD programs are good for short-term teams that gather for one project (some communication management systems look like it’s GTD for teams, yes).
The balance between complexity of all those three tasks and usability is a challenge for many software companies: SalesForce, BaseCamp, Zoho.
You may review a comparison of well-known systems, I don’t want to stop on this issue right now.
Balanced solution that includes all needs of ‘business 2.0′ still does not exist. So many companies are now trying to build their own technical basis for growth.
We at NewtonIdeas were dissatisfied with those possibilities current systems provide. Thus we are constantly looking at top-edge developments in this field, and consider our 8 years experience in IT and business. And built our own, where we put principles of Enterprise 2.0 in the way we understand it.
So, that’s what drives us at developing Comindwork – a system for project management, team communication and knowledge sharing. Three-in-one and a bit more.

Most of the enterprises use the Knowledge Base Software for managing the information and data related to their employees and their customers. Most of the enterprises emphasize on the importance of a Knowledge Base Software which really helps them enhancing the customer experience and satisfaction level. By using Knowledge Base Software they can set sophisticated privilege levels for data access. Users can access Knowledge Base Administrators to get answers to their queries.

Knowledge Base Software products integrate digital asset management, content aggregation, and distribution. They allow users to maintain and access critical digital assets in a proper workflow and under appropriate heads, making it easier for other users to search. Some companies offer systems with document management, business process automation, and portal content access. Some advanced products available on the market integrate many pieces of records management, Web publishing, imaging, workflow, knowledge management, and collaboration software. The collaboration module allows people within and outside an organization to participate in sharing documents and tasks as well as communicating through discussion threads.

Benefits for Enterprises

Knowledge base system improves operational efficiency of an enterprise. These systems along with the exceptional customer services help to reduces costs associated with customer interactions and ensure customer loyalty with the timely customer support. This helps to increase revenues and Enhances agent productivity of an enterprise. Knowledge base systems provide an integrated solution for Customer support by sharing interaction histories, customer and company data and common tools across all communication paths, providing a positive experience for the customer.

Share Knowledgebase Resources

Knowledge base software makes the best use of an enterprise’s resource. It helps create, organize, and generate common responses and other key information in Knowledge base Software. Knowledge base software system also makes sure the delivering of consistent messages across self-service and assists service channels and increases first contact resolution.

Quickly Process Inquiries Using the Knowledge Base Customer Interaction Hub

All the communication passes through the knowledge base interaction center for queuing and routing purposes and to show a customer’s interaction in a single view.

Drive Ongoing Improvements with Robust System-wide Reporting
Knowledge base software enables management for continuous agent and team performance improvement. Management can do this quite conveniently by accessing in-depth analytical dashboards and big-picture strategic reports.

Integrate with 3rd party systems to maximize Knowledge base CIM
Knowledge base software can also be integrated with 3rd party system and other back office applications that help in service speed and quality.

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Nick Milton of www.knoco.com discusses the need for a complete and closed lessons loop, where new knowledge is converted into action. Blog at http

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do you know if there is a sign on bonus for information management/ knowledge operations?
i am active duty but if i enlist do you know if there is a sign on bonus?

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KbLance.com is a PHP Powered Knowledge Base Software that allows users to easily create and maintain a FAQ, documentation system, or complete support knowledge base. For more information . Please check out Kblance website at www.kblance.com

“We are living in the information age… The information explosion…” We have heard it so many times that have stopped paying any attention to it. However, information penetrates into every aspect of our lives. We are constantly trying to acquire new knowledge and looking for opportunities to benefit from it.

Users who actively work with documents and information, frequently face the problems related to search, organization and efficient use of documents. Copyeditors, writers, journalists, researchers, analysts, consultants, lawyers, medical workers, students, all run into the same challenges at home and at work.

This paper is intended for a wide range of people, who, for personal or business need, work with a large number of documents and other information. We take a close look at the problems of information management, benefits of using advanced technologies in the low-budget personal information management system, as well as system selection criteria to meet personal and professional needs of information workers.

Challenges of Document Management

Nowadays big part of information is stored in a form of text: books, articles, reports, memo, notes, specifications, descriptions, whitepapers, and manuals, not to mention a huge amount of time sensitive information, such as invoices, bank statements, schedules, contracts, and tax returns.

Yesterday, papers, photo albums, music disks, and video tapes were kept in drawers, boxes, and cabinets. But the development of personal computers and Internet has started the era of digital information.

Development of electronic formats has significantly increased system storage capacity and allowed accumulation of large information volumes. However, recent developments in the fields of computer systems and data storage have led to a new question: how can we effectively manage digital information?

Recent studies by IDC (Susan Feldman, Joshua Duhl, Julie Rahal Marobella, Alison Crawford. The Hidden Costs of Information Work. March 2005) revealed that on average 13 hours of every 40-hour work week are spent on creating documents. 9.5 hours per week are spent on searching for information, while almost 9.6 hours on analyzing the information. 6.5 hours are wasted on searching for information that is never found leading to the need to recreate the content. Formatting of information between different applications takes about 3.8 hours per week, whereas version control related issues take 2.2 hours.

Issues, effects and implications of information management are summarized in the following Figure.

Issues

Slow search
Search without desired results
Redundant search
Recreation of documents
Difficulty of use of the found information

Effects

Employer
Unplanned for wasted time
Work slowdown
Decrease in productivity
Decline in quality

Employee
Increased workload
Negative attitude towards work
Decline in the level of satisfaction from the job

Implications

Missed deadlines
Project failure
Lost revenue
Loss of employee

Figure 1: Issues, effects and implications of information management

* What is the best way to organize the information to find it faster in the future?
* How to easily find information inside of large volume of materials?
* How to find documents that are related?
* How to save the search results and view them in the future?
* How to share found information with colleagues and friends?
* How to effectively use found information?

Importance and significance of those problems are major factors that stimulate the development of new solutions and information management systems. Information Retrieval, Data and Knowledge Bases, Document & Content Management, to name a few, are the branches of information technologies that deal with the problems of information management.

Solutions to Document Management Problems

Solutions to document management problems are tightly linked to the following challenges: improving the efficiency of information access, improving quality and speed of search, improving the efficiency of information processing, improving reliability and safety of storage.

Efficient Access to Information

It is necessary to quickly and easily extract the text documents which meet certain criteria from an array of available information. These requirements are diverse and constantly changing. For example, original sources for articles, data for reports, textbooks to prepare for the exam, patient’s medical records, or precedents for court case – all have high, but temporary value to resolve the pressing challenges.

After finding the required documents, working through them, and creating a number of versions, the user will need to consolidate and store the results. For example, one may need to save a set of documents, or add comments to a set of documents for future use. One possible solution to meet the changing needs is to place a document in several groups. A group could consist of documents on certain topic, papers of the same author, articles of the same journal issue, previous versions of the article, or materials used to write an article.

Searching and organizing information in a meaningful way takes up a lot of time. To shorten the cycle and make a process more enjoyable, a number of solutions have been proposed.

Quality and Speed of Search

In some cases users can find the documents they need by using a query – a word or combination of words that might be in those documents.

In the past, search required scanning of all files on the computer drives and going through their content comparing the key words with words in the document. This called for the sequential scanning of all files for each request. But increased size and number of files have dramatically slowed down the search process. In addition, morphology was neglected and multiple queries were needed to find the document.

Best solutions for effective search of information are based on search engines and information retrieval technologies. The entire collection of files is pre-processed and the information about the documents and key words is stored in the index files. Indexing works for various file formats and takes into account all possible forms of the same word. This “smart” pre-processing mechanism significantly accelerates the search and improves its quality.

Organization

In many cases the user is unaware of the words contained in the document of interest. It’s also possible that the user is not able to generate a query that returns desired outcomes, or the number of documents is too large, or some documents may not contain the right words. In these scenarios the user has no choice but manually look for a desired document. To save the results of manual search, many use the systems designed specifically for organizing the information.

Simplified versions of organization systems use fields and registration cards to link the documents and accompanying information (date, author, title, a brief description, etc.) However, field sets are fixed and limited, and often do not allow grouping of the documents to accommodate changing needs of the users.

Enhanced systems use a hierarchy of folders (catalogs, or directories). However, in most cases, when a document belongs to multiple topics, the user may end up facing several problems. For example, in the hierarchy of file system folders, a document can not be assigned to several folders without duplication. In this case, duplication may result in an unnecessary increase of information volume as well as inconsistencies in content after one of the documents has been modified.

Top notch tools to organize the information use multiple hierarchical categorizations which came from the domain of knowledge bases and ontologies.

Version Control

Authoring of a complex document is a long process and requires many edits, corrections and rewritings. To avoid confusion, it is necessary to maintain a history of changes in the document. The old-fashion solution was to save the changes in the separate file with a unique name, which often resulted in lost files, more storage space as well as difficulties in finding the right version of the document. These and other problems related to tracking the history of the content, storing different versions of the document, and returning to its previous versions have been addressed by the invention of the versioning systems. These systems are designed to provide access to the previous versions and history of changes.

Figure 2: Authoring a document

Effective Work with Information

Search, organization, and version control, by themselves, significantly simplify the process. But till now, most of these functions were only provided by separate software tools. The first program implements search. The second program organizes information. The third program edits it. The fourth program keeps version history. And so on.

A user has to run multiple applications, toggle between them, import and export documents, and move and copy the files. This process dramatically slows down the work, decreases productivity, increases pressure, and therefore leads to mistakes and reduces work satisfaction.

To eliminate unnecessary labor and reduce the amount of wasted time, one needs an integrated solution that combines search, editing and version control functionality.

Privacy, Security and Reliability of Storage

It goes without saying that information is a valuable resource that is expensive to produce. It is necessary to not only provide a safe storage for the entire set of documents, but also protect valuable information from computer hardware and software failures, as well as human errors. In addition, the confidentiality of information should be preserved – unauthorized users should not have access to the information without the permissions from the owner. However, if necessary, the results of the work have to be publishable to third parties.

Earlier applications stored files on the secure computers in a folder structure. Individual users had access to specific folders, which required a complex access rights management policy. Thus the information was often duplicated on the users’ computers, causing many problems related to information relevance.

To address the above mentioned problems, modern document management systems store information in centralized repositories, which make it easy to store, retrieve, manipulate and modify documents. Advanced repositories support storage and processing of multiple documents and file formats including, but not limited to: text (Word, Acrobat, Open Office, etc.), spreadsheet, fax, e-mail, audio, and images.

Documents, images and other information stored in the electronic repository are easily accessible and retrievable. The losses associated with errors in streamlining, organizing, and placing of the documents are drastically reduced and possibly even eliminated. In addition, each document keeps not only a history of who viewed it, made changes and what changes were made, but also other information about the document, such as title, contents, themes, etc.

Valuable Benefits of Document Management Systems

Thus, state-of-the-art information and document management systems
* reduce information processing time (multi-category systems allow for fast categorization of the incoming information and re-organization of existing information)
* reduce the time required to access the information (full-text search tools and category system, history and version control provide an easy and quick way to find information)
* reduce the time required to create a document (integration of search, organization, modification and version control features in a single platform allow the user to work on new and existing documents in a more effective manner)
* eliminate the cases of lost data (electronic repositories automatically capture all document changes and allow the user to restore the history of changes)

By leveraging a wide range of features provided by information management tools, one may free up the time normally spent on unnecessary tasks and focus on more important activities. As a result, the use of information management systems increases the quality of work.

Criteria for Selecting the Right Document and Information Management System

Flexible categorization: The system must support the categorization of documents to meet specific requirements of the user. To do that, the system should include the following features:
* Flexible categorization (user should be able to create any categories or topics and place the documents there)
* Hierarchical categorization (high level topics that consist of more specific topics)
* Multiple categorization (the same document might be included in several topics, categories or groups of documents)
* Ability to merge related files in a package
Flexible grouping that keeps the history of the results simplifies future access to documents inside of assigned topics, and allows one to see the relationships between documents found in one category.

Powerful search tools: The system should be able to perform a full-text search of information by query which contains individual terms or phrases. The search feature should
* be fast, which implies indexing
* support full-text search for all common formats – pdf, doc, odt, etc.
* take into an account the differences in spelling of various grammatical forms of the words
* work with individual repositories, categories and themes (topics)
The above mentioned features allow the user to effectively query the documents, provide a fast access to desirable documents, and make it possible to work on documents that have not yet been classified.

Central repository: The system should be able to store information in a centralized repository that allows:
* storing high volumes of documents
* creation of multiple personal repositories
* protection of confidential information
Documents in the system should not be viewable by other applications. Only the owner of the information should be able to grant the access to the repository. Repositories not only eliminate the need to manually create the files and directories, but they also restrict access to information, tighten security and improve reliability by providing backup, recovery and data protection tools.

Composite documents: The system should be able to work with the collection of files as a single unit, allowing the user to make changes to the set of documents. This functionality helps to improve usability and makes it easier to work with documents that consist of multiple files – for example, html documents with pictures.

Figure 3: Composite document

Document registration cards: The system should support the functionality of attaching useful information, such as name, purpose, abstract, comments, author, date of creation and modification, etc. to the document or file. This type of information helps to increase the accessibility of the documents. The information about the document should be flexible enough to adapt to the needs of the user and the information unit type.

Supported file types: The system should be able to support a wide range of common document types and formats, including Microsoft Office (Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, etc.), Open Office, as well as the formats of scanned documents and images.

Versioning system: The system should be able to support multiple versions of the document, track history and changes in chronological order – who, when, why modified the document and which changes were made. If needed, this functionality enables the user to work on one of the previous versions of the document.

Navigation history: The system should record the sequence of events describing the steps the user took while working on the documents and have that information available to the user at any given time.

Easy-to-use interface: The system should provide a user-friendly interface that includes intuitive navigation as well as the panels displaying categories, history, versions, and search results. All of these will dramatically enhance user experience and therefore increase user satisfaction.

Modern technology and open architecture: The system should be built using the latest technologies. The architecture should be
* scalable – support an unlimited number of repositories, documents stored in a
* repository, categories and their levels, as well as a fast search through unlimited amount of information
* modular and expandable – provide a foundation for rapid development and fast delivery of new features requested by the users
* cross-platform – compatible with Windows, Linux, and MacOS operating systems
This allows the system to grow organically and reduce the time to deliver the new features to meet growing user needs.

Integrated solution: The user’s objective is an effective execution of her or his work. To accomplish this goal the user has to go through repetitive cycles of work with information and documents. These cycles may include:
* Gathering of the information for a document
* Analyzing information
* Creating the outline and the first draft of the document
* Placing the document to the repository
* Making changes to the document
* Preparing the document for future use
* Searching for other materials that will be used in a new version of the document
These phases are executed repeatedly to improve the quality of the document, bringing it to the desired results. A good system should be able to integrate the above mentioned features so that the user can complete the sequence of document development tasks in a single system. This implements agile document management.

Low cost of the ownership: Adoption of a document management system can save any organization millions of dollars. At the same time, the scale and broad functionality of corporate systems leads to the high cost of ownership unaffordable for personal users. It’s also important to note that a user might not need all the features available in a corporate system and therefore will only get overwhelmed by its complexity. The cost of a personal information management system should be low, but at the same time it has to provide the right set of features to match the needs of individual user. The system should be easy to install and run on any personal computer.

Artifact Manager

Artifact Manager is an advanced document and information management system. This simple, convenient, low-budget solution has all of the features of the enterprise information management system that helps to achieve higher productivity levels through a better management of personal documents and information.

Required Features Artifact Manager
* Flexible categorization Yes
* Powerful search tools Yes
* Centalized repository Yes
* Composite documents Yes
* Document metadata Yes
* Wide range of file types Yes
* Version control Yes
* History Yes
* User-friendly interface Yes
* Modern technology and architecture Yes
* Integrated soluton Yes
* Low-cost ownership Yes

Figure 4: Features of Artifact Manager

Artifact Manager is the first enterprise-class personal platform for document and information management. It combines a powerful search, flexible organization, reliable storage, and convenient interface in a single easy-to-use environment.

Download Artifact Manager now at

http://www.ArtifactManager.com/downloads.html

No obligation of buying, no cumbersome registration, no spam

http://www.artifactmanager.com/papers/ArtifactManager_Organize-n-Search.pdf

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www.novamind.com Mind Mapping expert Gideon King demonstrates how to use Mind Maps for knowledge management.

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Customer Care: Who knows about Information Management interation with Training and Knowledge Management?
Im setting up a Project focusing on improvments in the part of Information- and Knowledge Management for the 1600 Callcenter Agents. Im searching for benchmarks and references of companies that have an information management (based on a portal solution?) that is integrated with the companies knwolegde management ant the training management. Im interested to see which mix of changes in the area of processes, it-systemes and organisation you made to get a low first contact resolution rate at technically dificult questions and low skilled employees (nice combination isn’t it?).

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Artifact Manager delivers an innovative solution to organize, search and keep safe and under control your documents and personal information. It combines state-of-the-art search and organization technologies to save your time and boost productivity. http://artifactmanager.com/whitepapers.html

The society is in transition, from Agrarian society, Industrial society, Information society and now the 21st century is considers as the Global Knowledge society. The concept, knowledge management is often used today’s world. And in the knowledge based society, intellectual capital is considered as a prime resource for any organisation. Thus Peter Drucker said, “The foundation of an organisation is not money or capital or technology. It is knowledge and education (human capital), knowledge workers will be by 2005 the single largest group in the labour force”.

The emergence of new complicated situation made every organization to have knowledge management initiatives to accumulate, preserve and utilize the knowledge in systematic ways. Every world renewed organisations are now trying to achieve knowledge management principles for their operations.

It is concerned with the use and developments of knowledge asset of an organisation. The knowledge is either explicit knowledge or tacit knowledge. The explicit knowledge is called as documentary knowledge and the tacit knowledge or subjective knowledge is resides in the minds of employees/scientists and so on.

What is knowledge management?

It covers all process associates with the identification, sharing and creation of knowledge, but sharing of explicit knowledge can be easy than that of the tacit knowledge. but for successful knowledge management is an organization, creation of knowledge repositories and cultivating the habits of sharing the knowledge among employees and organisational learning.

Pre – Requisites: To develop a knowledge Management systems following are essentials.

Knowledge repositories: it is necessary to create knowledge repositories that stores knowledge and information both in documentary or digital forms.

Knowledge access: the knowledge or information stored in the repositories should be made available for easy access to all the employees of an organisation.

Enhancing knowledge environment: it is necessary to create conducive environment to produce knowledge, transfer and use

Knowledge management: knowledge is an asset of an organisation and a person that should be managed systematically.

Principles of knowledge Representation

A knowledge representation is a surrogate, set of ontological commitments, and fragmentary theory of intelligent reasoning, medium for efficient computation and medium of Human expression.

Reference

Book, George (1854) An Investigation into the laws of thought, reprinted by Dover publications, New York.

Born, Max (1949) National philosophy of cause and chance, Dover publications, New York.

Gartner Group, European E –work and knowledge management march 1998, pp.30 – 31.

Peter Drucker, (2000), knowledge work executive excellence, pp.11 – 12.

Minsky, Marvin (1965) “Mater, Mind and Models”, proceedings of IFIP congress 65, pp45 -49.

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Lecture Series on Database Management System by Dr. S. Srinath,IIIT Bangalore. For more details on NPTEL visit nptel.iitm.ac.in

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Is Yahoo Answers a Knowledge Management System?

About Author

Assistant Professor

One of the basic problems in many of organizations and institutes is that, there are not enough information about personals knowledge and awareness. Knowledge management includes the most important means for resolving this problem by focusing on the alternatives for organizing , human forces and technology knowing the nature and importance of the knowledge and knowledge management in the organization completely to plan a knowledge management system or promoting its level in an organization is necessary. Also its necessary organizations success basic and approach for making balance among these items are attended specially by recognizing items and their functions indirect of accessing basic advantages in result of using knowledge management in the organization. So far 26 models about knowledge management were presented by different scientist sand institutes that most of them are similar to each other in terms of content but they include different orders in the words and phases. Nonaka and takouchi model is one of the best models among these models interms of explaining how producing knowledge that is was selected Materials and Methods:this study is Cross-sectional. for Analyzing challenges and blocks in the organization. At first nonaka model was divided sports for making questions for question air according to the studies and Analyzing main concepts in the structure of knowledge management and also studying suggested models. Then possible important parameters for promoting knowledge level in that part were made and finally selected parameters and alternatives were changed to the questions for questionnaire that its result was producing and questionnaires for each part. Questionnaires were given managers and people who were known as elits and specialist by the researching society for Analyzing their validity, so they were analyzed for resolving problems and matching with suggested model. Finally the questions in the questionnaire were evaluated by kokran test suitably and samely. Then the questionnaires were distributed among selected center personals and determining their views about the present center situation (according likert spectrum) were asked them. (in fact determining the value of the questions were asked them). In next step explaining the effect of these questions on promoting knowledge level of the center were asked them (in fact determining the value of the questions). Then the average value of each question was accounted and standardized after accounting the number (advantage) of the center and each level of nonaka model divisions , the value of the questions in the questionnaire are determined for accepting and determining the level of center knowledge suitably with each part of the model.

Discussion: Analyzing data (the answers of the questions in the questionnaire) shows that the advantage of the center related to the knowledge management is 2.77 in other ward the general center situation interms of centralizing knowledge and profiting the capital of the knowledge is less than average (between middle and weak).
Finally , they were sent again to the professional and people who have a hand in the society for Analyzing validity of the results and determining distinction about produced challenges and problems in order of their level of importance were asked them and these peoples views were analyzed by using (feridman) test. According to the obtained advantages by the organization and the list of the tabled problems in the organization, it seems that the organization needs to do some projects and knowledge under structures in the organization basically. These under structures include both human sources as the most important part and technologic equipments. On the other the organization should include suitable cultural programs for younger and in experienced people to recognize the importance of the knowledge factors as unimportant organizational capital. Also the organization managers mind should be focused on the importance of organization knowledge capital more than before by making culture.

According to gained scores by the organization and the list of expressed problems in the organization it seems the organization needs to per form projects and the knowledge infra structures .these infrastructures in clued both human sources as most important part and technologic facilities.

There is n t enough knowledge and wisdom of people in many organizations.

At first the answers of 2 questions should determine to inform the level of people s knowledge:

A/     which are the assets based on knowledge?

B/      how should manage these assets tope probable returning the maximum of interest?

Although finding suitable answer for these question in dependent on the type, the current culture and needs of the organization, but efficient knowledge management in clubs best of means for this by concentrating on all the solutions in cloud in organization. In fact the functions of knowledge management is observer to the systematic acts that it makes possible to achieve to the maximum out put, effective and permanent knowledge. Of course it needs to have determined approach to a achieve a above our pose which based on creating knowledge, living knowledge and transferring knowledge and applying knowledge in the organization is defined clearly and is determined each one s relation ship in functional  Areas.

There fore we can say knowledge management is a concept in a field and it s focus on the knowledge lead to distinct it from other monumental approaches. Knowledge management is only a recurrent and recovered concept in the management subject without this focus, and discussion a bout knowledge management become far from its purpose without clear explanation about knowledge. In summary, knowledge management is the art of creating value from invisible assets or intellectual assets of organization and indeed, it is evident and systematic management of knowledge and process of creating, collecting, organizing, distributing and using respect it that includes a consciously process to produce knowledge, crediting knowledge, presenting knowledge, distributing knowledge and its usage. Complete recognition of nature and importance of knowledge and knowledge management in an organization are necessary to design a knowledge management system or increasing its level in an organization, and it s necessary special pay attention to the background and fields of success and how to interact and balance among factors to achieve affective advantages for applying knowledge management in the organization by recognizing elements and their functions. Knowledge management supports organizations to use current knowledge and created knowledge newly .this branch of knowledge was apparent in organizations business strategy as a managemental field early 1990 to response business condition changes in which often corporations have been globalized.

Before this, the approaches like TQM (comprehensive quality management) and BPR (reengineering process) were approaches, organizations used them to improve functions and manage products and producing process. Knowledge management literature was brought up by developing experts systems and DDS system (decision maker) and developing in formation technology to participate knowledge and experiences. The first generation of knowledge management was reserving and accessing information wireless nets, information processablity, automatic process systems and expert systems and searching data systems, but in second generation of knowledge management with concepts like explicit knowledge, college expert groups, content management, organizational change and systematic innovation, actually this subject have been transformed since 1997.the knowledge management subject doesn’t t have long live then any scientific and academic operation have done. In this article the current situation of knowledge management in a searching center dependent on armed forces was shown and main changes was determined. Finally the set of approaches as a model to release the challenges and in crease knowledge management in the organization were recommended.

The center managers can define and plane process lead to extract increased value from knowledge sources by designed approach model.

Knowledge management:

At first it s necessary to distinct the concepts, data, information, defined knowledge and wisdom and effective key elements in knowledge management.

Data:

A reality from a situation or a case from a special field isn’t relation ship with other cases. In other words, data are identical and abstract reality links about events and they are recorded and arranged transactions organizationally.

Information:

Means <>. In other words, data aren’t <> and <> alone, but they are a kind of <>.

There fore having relation ship and purpose is specialty of in formation.

Knowledge:

Is a perception and conception produce by experience, rationalism, direct perception and learning. People s knowledge increase and produce a new knowledge by combining everyone s knowledge with other people s when they share their knowledge. Some scientists have divided the knowledge as third category of knowledge. In designing and applying knowledge management in organizations, two dimensions of implicit and tacit knowledge have more roles, although their features and natures are different from each other. Tacit knowledge is kind of knowledge can be stated vocally and formally and included grammatical sentences, mathematical formulas explanation details, writings and etc and it is trainable formally and easily implicit knowledge is kind of knowledge that its presenting with formal tongue is difficult and it is kind of personal knowledge that it hides in person experience and includes intangible and unnoticeable like skill, experience, value system and e t c and it often produce by practicing and repeating. Implicit knowledge never record and reserve in many organizations although its nature is base on organizational operational core .implicit knowledge is absolute but tacit knowledge is base on regulation that actions conform with situations according to proper rules .implicit knowledge can be asset of experiences, skills, operational views and value and subjective system within persons that they aren’t t mentionable and they have reserved in any data bases, but its place is in human s mind and he/she operation. The most important challenge of an organization should be making balance between produced implicit knowledge by people and needed tacit knowledge to make effective communication.

It means organizational knowledge is kept by correcting organizational knowledge and keeping people s knowledge leave there. It s necessary personal and in formal interactions to transfer implicit knowledge and leading the foundations to use people different thinking approaches by culturing and providing suitable condition is organizational management responsibility.

Wisdom:

Is same usage of knowledge.

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Dr David Vaine of Apparently KM, PLC, gives some advice on techniques to solve the problem of knowledge sharing in organizations

Help answer the question about Knowledge Management

Which is better Master’s in Organizational Communication or Master’s in Knowledge Management?
Which is better Master’s in Organizational Communication or Master’s in Knowledge Management?!!!

They both support my previews field of study, Communication (Visual Media). So which one is better and open doors for better job position in the near future?

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Dr. Hasan Rafati
Banitaba
Hosein Pourfard

There is so much information that is transmitted within a company on a daily basis that there needs to be some type of system in place to manage all this information. Knowledge management also deals with the intellectual information that is found from a multitude of resources both on the Internet, using the virtual library, and in paper form, such as white papers. This knowledge base is important for companies so that they maintain a competitive edge over the competition. Once this knowledge has been collected it doesn’t just sit there waiting for random usage, it’s shared and distributed throughout the company so that is becomes useful to employees. Many times employees will ignore a piece of data by thinking that is has nothing to do their department or their job. This is where it’s vital that a company analyze the knowledge that is incorporated into its folds though a system of knowledge management. Once this knowledge has been analyzed it is available for use by anyone with company access.

Knowledge is also available to a company in the form of news articles, journals, relevant publications, and documentation. Many times this knowledge is crucial in the successful running of the company. Without many types of knowledge such as statistics, reports, white papers, and specific industry information many companies would lose out on a serious advantage that can push them over the top when it comes to their competition. Knowledge management is a great tool that any company can implement and that will increase their success and profit potential.

There are many knowledge management tools that are available for companies to use. Knowledge management software will help a company to organize and collate the information that is relevant to the interests of the company. Once all this information is stored in one database it becomes a great tool for all employees to use.

Watch the video related to Knowledge Management

Headshift founder Lee Bryant talks about the online management of knowledge

Help answer the question about Knowledge Management

What are the problems in knowledge management other than people not sharing their knowledge?
some problems are people not sharing knowledge, not getting the right information at right time, what other problems are their that needs to be looked into? any ideas plss

Salman

About Author

James Hunt has spent 15 years as a professional writer and researcher covering stories that cover a whole spectrum of interest.

Read more at www.knowledge-management-center.com

Human Resource has a fundamental role in the Knowledge Management movement, means Human Resources (HR) processes — corporate education, performance management and nurturing (sharing, doing and caring) culture — have a key role in the development of the knowledge-based enterprise.

Before we discuss the role of Human Resources in Institutionalising Knowledge Management in an organization, we will draw briefly, what Knowledge Management is all about.

For example: One of our Knowledge Management initiatives in Hindustan Lever Limited. (HLL) — The packaging community, so that seasoned Human Resources professionals could come up with their own additional ideas / views on how best to harness Human Resources processes to successfully implement Knowledge Management in an organization.

KNOWLEDGE:

When we use the term “knowledge” we are going beyond mere facts and data , or “Information”, important through this is. We can think of knowledge as what is learnt from information & experiences.

Generally, three main categories of knowledge are distinguished:

Explicit – that can be articulated, captured and exchanged. This includes information, experiences, and insights; that which we interact with every day through the written word and the Internet.

Tacit - which is embedded in the experience and wisdom of individuals and leads to decisions and advice, but which is difficult or impossible to articulate in any coded form.

Relational - the knowledge of how to work with specific people; an understanding of what matters to them and the way in which they operate.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT:

Sustainable competitive advantage a firm has comes from what it “collectively knows,” how efficiently it uses what it knows and how readily it “acquires and uses new knowledge,” in short by becoming a Knowledge Driven Organization. Knowledge Management (KM) provides an enabling framework to derive this advantage. It helps institutionalize processes to fully leverage the “collective knowledge” in an organization.

Knowledge management refers to all systematic activities for creation and sharing of knowledge so that knowledge can be used for the success of the organization. Knowledge Management processes provide a framework for connecting people to people and people to information, to develop and share distilled learning’s and best practices.

WHY KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT?

In this competitive knowledge economy, our most valuable asset is the Knowledge Asset. It is often said that, in this economy it is not what “we own,” but “we know” that would give us the competitive advantage.

Baruch Lev reports that today’s investments are 6 to 1 in an organization’s intangible assets — 90 percent in such knowledge-intensive industries as Microsoft and America on Line (AOL).

Knowledge Management provides an enabling framework to leverage “collective knowledge.” When Knowledge Management becomes “the way we work,” it helps us deliver on strategic priorities and business goals — growth, innovation, speed of response, quality of response, faster time to market, strengthen organizational learning, protect functional and operational excellence in a dis-aggregated organizational structure.

COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE:

Leveraging “Collective Knowledge” involve,

• Working in collaborative teams, capturing and sharing knowledge and delivering business excellence.
• Developing and sharing “best practices.”
• Faster replication of innovations through faster movement of knowledge through the organization.
• Acquisition and sharing of “new knowledge.”
• Creating an environment that is comfortable to the idea of openness, knowledge sharing, and risk of failure as well as rewards for success. Managing organizational learning.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES:

Knowledge Management in the process through which firms create and use their institutional or collective knowledge.

It includes three sub-processes as follows:

Organizational learning: The process through which the firms acquire information and / or knowledge;

Knowledge production: The process that transforms and integrates raw information into knowledge, which in turn, is useful to solve business problems; and

Knowledge distribution: The process that allows members of the organization to access and use the collective knowledge of the firm.

BARRIERS FOR IMPLEMENTING KNOWLEDGE       MANAGEMENT:

v     Conceptual / mindset related issues:

We need to create a culture of sharing. Often knowledge is seen as power and in a competitive environment there could be a tendency to hoard knowledge. Key to success of Knowledge Management is creation of knowledge sharing culture and elimination of organizational and cultural barriers for communication. We should move from “hoarding of knowledge to gain power” to “sharing of knowledge to gain power.”

v     Operational issues:

The typical executive is already hard pressed for time. He has no time for an additional initiative, if it is seen as a diversion from focus on immediate results. So, it is important to integrate Knowledge Management into existing business processes in the organization and embed into workflow. Knowledge Management should not be seen as a separate initiative, but should be integrated into current workflow as a more effective way to achieve business results.

THE ROLE OF HR IN INSTITUTIONALIZING KM IN AN ORGANIZATION:

As can be seen from the above, knowledge management is essentially a people related discipline, with focus on strengthening collaborative team effort to leverage collective knowledge of the enterprise.

HR has a pivotal role to play in the KM movement. Key HR processes — Corporate Education, Performance Management and nurturing (sharing, doing and caring) culture, have a very significant role in the development of the knowledge-based enterprise.

Talent management, which is the domain of HR and knowledge management are closely interrelated. While Talent Management focuses at individual level — recruitment, training, skill and competency development and career planning of an individual, knowledge management focuses on people at collective level, how to leverage the collective knowledge of the enterprise, through Mentoring and knowledge sharing and collaborative team working.

KM should be developed into a key competency of the people.

HR PROCESSES AND PRACTICES   IMPACT THE KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN A FIRM:

Let us briefly examine some of the HR processes and practices that should be aligned to strengthen knowledge management.

At the stage of induction of new executives into the organization, coaching and mentoring systems are meant to transfer knowledge; exposure during training to variety of functions, units and geographical locations helps knowledge awareness / transfer.

Employees will benefit from “Mentorship,” not only during the initial months but also for a long time after that. The role of the mentor in the later period would be to challenge the executive to look beyond the obvious, look for past learning and base decisions on a more informed platform.

JOB ROTATIONS: Well-planned job (role) rotations across geographical locations and businesses in a firm help not only people development, but also provide an important vehicle for transfer of knowledge and best practices, even though an organization cannot obviously depend on this as the main source of knowledge transfer.

NETWORKED ORGANIZATION: A networked organization with people playing multiple roles, being part of multiple teams — a vertical team (Business / category) as well a horizontal team (function / knowledge domain), and is the way forward to effectively “leverage collective knowledge” of an enterprise. HR should play a key role in developing such a networked organization, through sponsorship and or facilitation of knowledge communities (teams), cutting across formal organizational silos.

TRAINING: Learning and knowledge are inter-linked. Knowledge strategies should encompass learning initiatives and knowledge initiatives need to converge with training initiatives. A Company’s training program needs to focus on functional and business specific skill development programs as well as competency development focused programs.

Knowledge communities (Teams), as the owners and users of the knowledge, should play an active role in developing suitable course material for the functional and business specific courses.

Knowledge management cannot be practiced without a clear focus on “learning” within the organization.

CULTURE CHANGE: Leveraging collective knowledge is possible only when people value building on each other’s ideas and sharing their insights. Much of this shaped by the culture of the organization. In some cultures, where knowledge is seen as power, knowledge sharing may be seen to be in conflict with the individual’s personal interests (individual excellence / competitive advantage). Therefore, institutionalization of Knowledge Management requires HR to focus on managing the culture change / mindset of the people to strengthen collaborative team working and knowledge sharing.

HOW DO WE CREATE A KNOWLEDGE SHARING CULTURE?

Realign incentive and reward program:

“People do not do what you tell them, but what you measure them for.” HR needs to institute a system of rewards and recognition, training and performance development practices — activities that reinforce the discipline of sharing, documenting knowledge and reuse of others’ ideas with pride to achieve business goals.

People in business most often behave in a way that increases their career opportunities, or recognizes their achievement. Most organizations reward individual effort or task achievement. They reward something done in a crisis, but most incentive programs do not reward avoiding a crisis. The best KM practitioners reward employees for learning, sharing and collaborating.

Some of the steps HR could implement are:

Institute Team awards to recognize and reward excellent collaborative team effort, which has strongly contributed to business results. Ensure high visibility for teams which have excelled in knowledge capture / sharing to deliver business excellence. Many companies have found such team awards very useful in building up the enthusiasm and commitment to collaborative team working and knowledge sharing in the initial years, even though after a while, they might have discontinued these once they moved beyond the need for such awards, once the knowledge sharing is embedded into the culture.

Leadership commitment is further evidenced by the Knowledge Masters Award, which recognized excellence in knowledge creation and use. This prestigious award recognized employees whose knowledge mastery best exemplified the culture of balancing innovation with reuse; and contributed to significant and measurable business impact. The nominations for these awards were accompanied by written stories of why the individuals were being nominated. The stories not only reflected the growing understanding for the concepts and application of knowledge management but also provided stories that demonstrated the business value of knowledge sharing.

HR SHOULD BE THE CATALYST FOR CULTURE CHANGE:

We are in the process of launching few key initiatives for culture change, to firmly establish the “the enterprise culture,” on the bedrock of our “values” — Truth, Courage, Action and Caring. HR has been a key enabler in the process so far in helping articulate the behaviors and big-ticket action plans.

HR will also be a key facilitator in implementing a company wide communication of value behaviors. Team excellence workshops and process improvement (speed, simplicity and excellence) workouts are among the key initiatives that will soon be launched by HR to support the culture change. These culture change initiatives will strongly support our efforts to become a stronger knowledge driven company, committed to business excellence.

Develop “Knowledge Pull” — a grassroots desire among employees to tap into their company’s intellectual resources. HR can impact this through — training and practices that reinforce this desire.

Some of the steps that HR could take to this end are:

v     Learning from experience (actively searching for others ideas, willingness to discuss failures and openness to feedback)

v      Developing others (commitment to share insights, help others shine, focus on future)

v      Team commitment (promoting cooperation and trust, open and active participation in team projects, task forces, communities of practice / Networks, upholding team’s ideas and proposals).

CONCLUSION:

Transformation into knowledge driven organization is essentially a people related issue. HR has a key role to play in nurturing and strengthening knowledge management through “learning initiatives” and “culture change initiatives.” HR is best placed to play the role of an effective facilitator, and give positive reinforcements for Knowledge Management through organizing visible knowledge sharing events and strengthening skill and competency development of employees.

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Help answer the question about Knowledge Management

How can you quantify the benefits of knowledge management systems?
how can you formulate a research methodology in quantifying the benefits of kms?

what questions will you include in a questionnaire with regards to quantifying kms benefits?

About Author

R.MANJU SHREE
Faculty
Department of Management Studies
Tamilnadu College of Engineering
Coimbatore, Tanilnadu
India

Having an accessible and secure way to get the most value out of your company’s information is what enterprise search and knowledge management is all about. In this digital content age, enterprise search not only creates faster workflow for your company, it also allows for new products to be created because the accessibility of previously created content is now availablePreviously, content that was once buried or un-searchable is now found easily through separate searchable content collections. With an easy user-friendly system of a search bar, a person can effortlessly perform custom search within the company’s entire contentbase as well as connecting to outside sources. Instead of spending countless hours re-creating valuable content, companies can query content within their database and others to retrieve all data related to that text, no matter if it is text, images, graphs or video.

Even the smallest footnote can be found with an XML content server.An XML content server acts as a platform for people creating content applications. The top XML content servers use XQuery as the language to communicate with the server while allowing companies to apply extensions for advance text search and transactional updates. For publishing companies, insurance and government agencies, XML content servers with detailed, enterprise search is helping these organizations reuse and repurpose their information thus, saving time while creating a profit. Endless Possibilities With New Knowledge Management Content Servers with Enterprise Search· Instead of spending countless hours re-creating valuable content, companies can query content within their database and retrieve all data related to that text, no matter if it is text, images, graphs or video. · Even the smallest footnote can be found with an XML content server.

· In this digital content age, enterprise search for organizations not only creates faster workflow for your company, it also allows for new products to be created because the accessibility of previously created content is now available.

Companies who invest in such a platform are finding ways to compete in the digital publishing world, where the days of modern publishing are diminishing. Knowledge management is accessible through enterprise search. Instead of applying an Internet search browser to your organization, that is already flooded with content, apply your company’s own browser- accessible to only qualified personnel and cut your search time by more than half and witness the results yourself.

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Help answer the question about Knowledge Management

how to implement knowledge management in a company? what are the steps needed?
ive been appointed as the new CKO (cheif knowledge officer) of a company. this is the first time the position is created.
the company never had a CKO or any one who is in carge of knowledge management.

About Author

About the author: Melissa Peterman is a web content specialist For Innuity. For more information about enterprise search or knowledge management , go to www.marklogic.comMarklogic.