Building the Knowledge Management Network: Best Practices, Tools, and Techniques for Putting Conversation to Work

Introduction

With this book in your hand, you're probably looking for ways to help your organization get smarter by making the most effective use of online conversations. In these pages we write about a basic human drive to share what we know. We reposition that age-old practice at the intersection of two social environments: the modernizing organization and the expanding electronic network.

Your company should know what this book reveals, because in this competitive and downsized economy, you are being forced to make the best use of your current human resource assets. You can't afford the high cost of replacing the knowledge of people you've trained and lost. You must find, harvest, and distribute current and relevant knowledge from a wide variety of trusted human sources in order to make decisions and innovations in today's hyperactive marketplace of things and ideas. Organizations today must change intelligently and constantly to survive. Ongoing, high-quality conversation is a key to making that kind of change possible.

Though online knowledge networks can involve sophisticated technology, this book is not, at its core, about technology; it's more about people and motivation. Though terms like application integration are important to understand in this context, you'll likely find terms like cultural evolution and self-governing systems to be more relevant to the successful adoption of useful online conversation as a productive process within your organization.

Even companies that ...