Connecting Organizational Silos: Taking Knowledge Flow Management to the Next Level with Social Media

FROM DOCUMENTS TO FLOWS

Over the years I have changed my view on knowledge management and arrived at the notion of knowledge flows. I am convinced that knowledge is what exists in people’s heads, but once it leaves their heads through speech or other content creation, it becomes information that needs to be absorbed and integrated with experience to create new knowledge.

This shift was mainly a result of learning from failed KM initiatives that focused primarily on trying to capture knowledge in documents. In those storage models, technology played the central role, but to develop a successful KM strategy, humans must be responsible for that central role. So I widened my view from managing knowledge to managing the flow of knowledge.3 Knowledge can flow as people exchange information that will be used to create new knowledge at the receiving end (see Exhibit 1.1).

Exhibit 1.1 Knowledge Flow via Information

There are a number of other ways that knowledge can flow other than providing information via documents. Good examples include apprenticeships, discussions, stories, videos, and many more. The key is that links are created along which the knowledge can flow, and any barriers that hinder that flow (e.g., missing trust, spatial separation, or insufficient priority for knowledge-sharing activities) be reduced to a minimum.

Documents can still play an important role, but very often ...