Audiobooks

I came accross someone sitting in the metro with their headphones on but i couldn't hear any music, it was more like someone talking, telling a story. I thought that was pretty strange. It was a long trip and i couldn't help but feed my curiosity so i thought i'd ask the girl what it was she was listening to. She told me it was something called an audiobook. She uses it because she doesnt usually have time to read books apart from during her daily commute. Because she gets dizzy when reading in a moving vehicle, a friend of hers suggested she could listen to audiobooks. I thought this was so fascinating. 

This is a way of transfering knowledge! Those that are lazy to type things up or video it (like i mentioned in one of my previous posts) will find this rather simple. You could have a verbal blog! I actually don't know if this already exists. But I think it's a cool idea. I don't know about others but usually if i'm asked to explain something, i'm more comfortable speaking it rather than writing it out. So this form of knowledge transfer would work well for people like me or people with disabilities.

Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge

Should companies focus more on explicit or tacit knowledge?

As i mentioned in my previous post, explicit knowledge is information that is written down and tacit knowledge is all the information generated from past experiences stored in peoples' heads.

A focus on explicit knowledge usually leads to an emphasis on search, taxonomy (categorizing the explicit knowledge), and sometimes selection (e.g. qualifying best practices). 

A focus on tacit knowledge often requires a concentration on establishing and encouraging communities (where tactic knowledge can be shared), story telling, and the technologies and events that support them (forums, blogs, face-to-face meetings, etc.). 

Search is also important, but often focuses on people rather than documents (finding expertise rather than static information).

Vlogs and Corporate Amnesia

I was doing some research on videoconferencing for another class and you know, I think it would be a great idea to somehow record our days and experiences and cut up all the relevant parts and post them on a blog, or rather a vlog (video log). As its name suggests, its a type of blog where you post videos instead. Employees can search through the videos for a step by step approach on how to do something. Whether it be how to prepare a project management document, or how to create a blog! I think as humans we learn from practice and visualizing. At least i do! If I had the option of learning how to use MSProject for example through a text or through a video, I would without a doubt resort to the video (assuming both are of good quality).

This I think ties in with the topic of corporate amnesia. The definition of corporate amnesia is what happens when businesses or organizations basically loose their memory of how to do things as a result of increased employee mobility leading to the loss of employees along with valuable knowledge stored in their minds. A way to solve this problem would be to use vlogs.

Google!

Google has been a part of my life since I can last remember. It has even become a verb - googling this or googling that! To me, google was merely a search enginge. I learnt in one of my other IS classes how google ranks the pages on the web in order to display them to the user in order of importance or popularity. What I didn't know about google was how much more it had to offer! Just recently I began to use Google groups to collaborate with my group members. it allows us to share files, chat, create our own web pages, send mass emails, etc. 

Google is in the process of developing many exciting new tools that may help organizations in leveraging KM to generate value. In my opinion, the following new tools have some potential in helping leverage KM: In Quotes, Google Audio Indexing (GAudi), Google Page Creator, Google Talk, Lively by Google. In Quotes and Gaudi are very innovative ways of how employees can search databases and compare and contrast what their co-workers have posted. Also, to those who find it difficult to explain in words could record their findings in a video and post it on the company’s portal and thus buy using Gaudi, employees will be able to search what co-workers are talking about if it matches their search terms. This is also a way to encourage employees to participate in Knowledge sharing as it does not require as much effort when it comes to just “speaking”.

Lively by Google is a tool which I believe does not fit in with all companies however to those it works with the company culture, it could be a method in which employees could virtually meet and exchange knowledge and interact. I find it similar to applications such as Second Life. Not everyone is comfortable with confronting others directly through email, chat or portals and perhaps this method might encourage those who prefer to be anonymous when retrieving knowledge from co-workers.

Furthermore, I read on Stephan's blog about zapproved. Here's what he wrote on:

http://managementblog.mcgill.ca/

Zapproved

Perhaps the most mind numbing task of project managers is running around the office reminding people of their approvals and getting their sign off. Zapproved automates all of this process, all you need to do is create the project, assign the approvers and the dates and priority. The program will provide approvers with daily or hourly reminders of the approvals that they need to commit to. This allows for more time to focus on the projects that you are working on and less time tracking down people.

I think this is a fantastic tool that Google should be looking into. This is definitely a problem all groups have that usually consumes a lot of time and effprt over something so small. This application could improve efficiency in companies as well. It can be implemented within departments where ideas could be passed around and if it meets the approval of perhaps 75% of the team, then the idea may be sought after. 

What is KM?

Before attending this class, I was unaware of the existence of Knowledge Management. After our first class i had a better understanding about it. I define it as: methods in which information and/or knowledge is stored or transferred and reused. Before we moved on to talk about how we transferred the knowledge, we discussed the different types of knowledge: tacit and explicit.

Tacit: Knowledge which is subconsciously understoof and applied. It's difficult to express and document and as a result is shared through face to face encounters or by means of tutorial sessions. 

Explicit: Knowledge that is relatively easy to capture and store in databases and documents in order for others to access and learn from.

We talked a little bit in class about how to transfer such knowledge from one person to the next and how transfering even explicit knowledge is at times difficult. I went through something along those lines at work both over the summer and last semester. Most employees do not understand its value and ofcourse since they are such busy people with a lot to do to meet project deadlines, prioritize the documentation of their experience and knowledge to the bottom of their to-do-list. I'm guilty of this act myself as well!

A lot of the time we think that the way we do things cannot necessarily be repeated because of "personal opinions" or "personal input" that cannot be verbalized nor formularized. This is untrue. I think the reason we make ourself beleive that is due to fear. Fear that our knowledge wealth is stripped away and can now be used by virtually anyone to complete your current job. Yes techinically this is true - however, this is definitely not in the company's best interest.

"Man without motivation will do nothing"

Therefore in order to make this knowledge documenting and sharing work, the employees need to be assured that they will not loose their jobs as a result or perhaps providing them with some sort of reward. The more knowledge you share, it increases your bonus or you get a day or weekend off. This will result in a win-win situation for both ends!

Hello World!

So this is my first time participating in something like this. I was a little resistant I must say but I've decided to give this a shot. To start off with I want to look into what exactly is a blog? Is there a specific format? Are there certain types of topics that are usually discussed? To answer these I did a little bit of research to see if there is more than one answer for each and here's what I found:

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According to Wikipedia.com:

“A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.”

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Evidently there is more than one type of blog:

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Personal Blogs: More like a personal diary. Bloggers post regularly either to inform friends and family about their wellbeing and activities going on in their life currently, or is merely used to document important events or moments to remember in one’s life.

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Corporate Blogs: They’re either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate blogs.

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Question Blogging: This type of blog is a form of digital Q&A. Questions are posted and other users respond with their answers or opinions. A good example of this would be yahoo.com.