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Emerging Methods of Knowledge Capture
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Emerging Methods of Knowledge Capture
Knowledge management as we know it today is at a crossroads. Historical models of knowledge capture rely heavily on formal processes, workflows and an assumption of known subject matter expertise. These assumptions manifest in knowledge management terms such as “taxonomies” and “knowledge architect.”
Newer models of knowledge management can only be described in new terms such as “clouds,” “crowds,” “emergent,” “networks” and “spheres.” These terms reflect new conceptual models in which knowledge is regarded as an emergent phenomenon connected to both people and processes. In some ways, these newer approaches represent a natural evolution in response to possibilities afforded by technology. In other ways, they represent philosophically different models.
Knowledge management, while a revolutionary concept when first introduced into the business world, now is a predictable response to the changing nature of work. As organizations moved from the industrial-style production of goods and materials to an increasing reliance on knowledge, expertise and human capital, organizations felt an increasing pressure to manage this knowledge in the same way they managed physical assets such as facilities, materials and equipment. Knowledge was captured through structured documents that often required approval and check-in/check-out procedures. Content was structured by “architects” and organized into taxonomies.
Unfortunately, this traditional model poses a problem in a world where 30 percent of the workforce is eligible to retire in less than five years. Knowledge management as practiced in most organizations today relies too heavily on expert intervention, approval and management to capture the expertise of departing boomers effectively. Knowledge management also is too slow to adapt to emerging information and dynamically changing work practices, and it doesn’t provide the necessary scale to capture the depth and breadth of experienced workers’ knowledge.
More open, workflow-based models are required, in which knowledge capture is not an end unto itself, but a natural outcome of work tools and processes. To be deep and pervasive, knowledge capture must be part of the normal workflow. Fortunately, Web 2.0 technologies provide these capabilities and increasingly are used by organizations of all sizes as a mechanism to capture emerging best practices, long-standing knowledge and expertise, and new ideas that would otherwise be lost forever.
Organizations such as Ace Hardware, Cisco, Best Buy, British Airways, Ford, Dell, Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Environmental Data Resources (EDR) are embracing these open knowledge capture models. Each provides a different use case and model for the application of Web 2.0 technologies to capture knowledge and critical business information. In successfully applying these technologies, however, these organizations also have begun transforming their leadership paradigms from “command and control” to “coach and coordinate.”
Ace Hardware, Best Buy and British Airways are primarily stories of internal knowledge capture. Ford, Dell, and P&G focus on external knowledge capture, specifically customer knowledge. For instance, just more than two years ago, Cisco set up an internal wiki called Idea Zone, or I-Zone for short. One of Cisco’s main goals for I-Zone was to create a platform for employees to share ideas and expertise around new business opportunities for the company. Since it was wiki based, I-Zone also enabled employees to build on each other’s ideas, edit them, extend them and generally collaborate, fleshing out and vetting each other’s suggestions.
Within the first 18 months, the site had generated 400 business ideas. More impressively, 10,000 people subsequently added, extended and improved those 400 core ideas. Three new market opportunities were identified, collectively representing $3 billion in new opportunities.
With the success of this internal knowledge sharing and collaboration effort, Cisco decided to extend this idea to the general public through the creation of I-Prize. I-Prize was designed to solicit ideas from the public for new products and services Cisco might pursue given its toolset and domain expertise.
According to Guido Jouret, the CTO of Cisco’s emerging technologies group, Cisco saw more ideas from this external site in two months than they did in 18 months on the internal site. The first $250,000 award was granted in October 2008 to a team led by a German graduate student that proposed a network-based method of managing energy-consuming devices.
Cisco plans to invest as much as $10 billion in this concept in the coming years. Cisco CEO John Chambers used to tell his team that he did strategy and they did execution. With the success of I-Zone and I-Prize, it’s now clear that with the proper platform for knowledge sharing, employees and the public can be as strategic as the best CEO.
Newer models of knowledge management can only be described in new terms such as “clouds,” “crowds,” “emergent,” “networks” and “spheres.” These terms reflect new conceptual models in which knowledge is regarded as an emergent phenomenon connected to both people and processes. In some ways, these newer approaches represent a natural evolution in response to possibilities afforded by technology. In other ways, they represent philosophically different models.
Knowledge management, while a revolutionary concept when first introduced into the business world, now is a predictable response to the changing nature of work. As organizations moved from the industrial-style production of goods and materials to an increasing reliance on knowledge, expertise and human capital, organizations felt an increasing pressure to manage this knowledge in the same way they managed physical assets such as facilities, materials and equipment. Knowledge was captured through structured documents that often required approval and check-in/check-out procedures. Content was structured by “architects” and organized into taxonomies.
Unfortunately, this traditional model poses a problem in a world where 30 percent of the workforce is eligible to retire in less than five years. Knowledge management as practiced in most organizations today relies too heavily on expert intervention, approval and management to capture the expertise of departing boomers effectively. Knowledge management also is too slow to adapt to emerging information and dynamically changing work practices, and it doesn’t provide the necessary scale to capture the depth and breadth of experienced workers’ knowledge.
More open, workflow-based models are required, in which knowledge capture is not an end unto itself, but a natural outcome of work tools and processes. To be deep and pervasive, knowledge capture must be part of the normal workflow. Fortunately, Web 2.0 technologies provide these capabilities and increasingly are used by organizations of all sizes as a mechanism to capture emerging best practices, long-standing knowledge and expertise, and new ideas that would otherwise be lost forever.
Organizations such as Ace Hardware, Cisco, Best Buy, British Airways, Ford, Dell, Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Environmental Data Resources (EDR) are embracing these open knowledge capture models. Each provides a different use case and model for the application of Web 2.0 technologies to capture knowledge and critical business information. In successfully applying these technologies, however, these organizations also have begun transforming their leadership paradigms from “command and control” to “coach and coordinate.”
Ace Hardware, Best Buy and British Airways are primarily stories of internal knowledge capture. Ford, Dell, and P&G focus on external knowledge capture, specifically customer knowledge. For instance, just more than two years ago, Cisco set up an internal wiki called Idea Zone, or I-Zone for short. One of Cisco’s main goals for I-Zone was to create a platform for employees to share ideas and expertise around new business opportunities for the company. Since it was wiki based, I-Zone also enabled employees to build on each other’s ideas, edit them, extend them and generally collaborate, fleshing out and vetting each other’s suggestions.
Within the first 18 months, the site had generated 400 business ideas. More impressively, 10,000 people subsequently added, extended and improved those 400 core ideas. Three new market opportunities were identified, collectively representing $3 billion in new opportunities.
With the success of this internal knowledge sharing and collaboration effort, Cisco decided to extend this idea to the general public through the creation of I-Prize. I-Prize was designed to solicit ideas from the public for new products and services Cisco might pursue given its toolset and domain expertise.
According to Guido Jouret, the CTO of Cisco’s emerging technologies group, Cisco saw more ideas from this external site in two months than they did in 18 months on the internal site. The first $250,000 award was granted in October 2008 to a team led by a German graduate student that proposed a network-based method of managing energy-consuming devices.
Cisco plans to invest as much as $10 billion in this concept in the coming years. Cisco CEO John Chambers used to tell his team that he did strategy and they did execution. With the success of I-Zone and I-Prize, it’s now clear that with the proper platform for knowledge sharing, employees and the public can be as strategic as the best CEO.
