Corporate Podcasting Expressway

Recently I was taking to a director of a major division of a communications organisation. The director was interested in deveoping Knowledge Management approaches for staff that did not involve the use of systems to store essential tactical data. Effectively, he was talking about the neural nature of knowledge or corporate knowledge stores. Maybe he was looking for complementary methods to traditional system based approaches?

I believe that inherent organisational knowledge can be defined as knowlege not written down but based on experience. It can also become established over years and not from one person. From a business risk perspective, the implication is huge if key members of this undocumented knowledge environment depart.

I remember 3 years ago we were working on a large public sector organisation that were keen to outsource a large part of their Information Systems division. However, years of experience and procedures needed to be formalised first! I suggested the using the UK Underground map (seriously!) as a way of initial identification of key decision points. This map was brainchild of Harry Beck and can be adapted for process design.

Here is my reply to the director…

Dear….

An article I wrote for a Knowledge Management Wiki on defining tactical Knowledge Management for organisations can be found at:
http://kh-2.com/mediawiki-1.5.8/index.php?title=Defining_Knowledge_Management

A recent videopodcast that I performed to explore the power of knowledge management based wiki’s, especially for projects performed by commercical organisations can be found at:

http://kh-2.com/khliptv-Know-wow-ep1.mp4

Although these examples refer to the use of systems, specially retaining and imparting knowledge held in neural networks (knowledge inside people’s heads) can be a different matter. A traditional non-systems approach can involve implementing…

1. Paper based procedures
2. Technical walk-throughs and a ’show-me’ approach

If non-technical areas is also an initial requirement, I suggest a good place to start is by implementing:

1. Effective induction methods
2. Development of core-competency frameworks but with team based bench marking of standards (both positive and negative behaviours)
3. Building a manual resource centre (centralising a list of critical ‘to do’ items.)
4. Brown bag lunches ! - These are typically lunch period sessions with no agenda but a debating shop on a specific issue. Similar to the ‘old style’ quality circles, the difference being that tactical data is discussed around a given business problem.
5. Business games to expose and record knowledge gaps.

I hope this helps.
Best Regards

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