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

MORE THAN JUST SOCIALIZING

Whether you call it knowledge management (KM) or knowledge flow management (KFM), it contains the word management, which indicates that someone takes an active role. As I outlined in Mastering Organizational Knowledge Flow, an initiative to increase the flow of knowledge does need special attention. It is just not enough to communicate that knowledge sharing is part of everyone’s role, and then assume it really happens. There are too many barriers that hinder the flow and it needs one or more dedicated people to help to reduce those barriers. With some initiatives the need for those roles seems more obvious than with others.

Social media platforms on the Internet appear to many as if they run all by themselves. The impression is that they were created in a true if-you-build-it-they-will-come fashion. This view is clearly underestimating the amount of support, strategy, marketing, and more that people in certain roles have put into a platform before it goes viral and reaches critical mass. Looking at enterprise social media platforms is no different in that sense. In fact, since the expectation for almost 100 percent adoption is a lot higher within organizations, the need for certain people to take an active role in moving it forward is even more important.

As mentioned in Chapter 3, external social media platforms and enterprise social networks (ESNs) have different characteristics and, therefore, might have to be handled slightly differently. On one ...