Information and Communication Technologies and Knowledgement Management

Knowledgement Management knols

Authors

• Narayana Rao

Published

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

Version 3

Last edited: 26 Oct 2008

Exported: 26 Nov 2011

Original URL: http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/2utb2lsm2k7a/393

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) facilitate the management and/or sharing of knowledge and information.

 

The term ICTs covers an enormous diversity of hetegenous technologies including computers, databases, data mining techniques,  email, internet,search engines,  telephones, television, and videoconferencing equipment.

 

Knowledge management discipline got a fresh boost with the emergence of modern ICTs and it became a special area of intensive study. Hence ICTs had a central place in the early knowledge management literature of the recent period.Similar modern knowledge management initiatives are ICT centric. Ruggles (1998) reported in a 1997 survey that four most popular types of knowledge management projects involved the implementation f intranets, data warehouses, decision support tools, and groupware (groupware relates to share informed spaces-such as Lotus Notes).

Knowledge Management

Introduction

In the recent days, a subject of management by the name 'Knowledge Management' appeared. Knowledge management (KM) is still a relatively young field, with new concepts emerging constantly.

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Knowledge management as an idea or practice in the business context must have been there ever since the first business man appeared in the universe.

But in the recent days, a subject of management by the name 'Knowledge Management' appeared. Knowledge management (KM) is still a relatively young field, with new concepts emerging constantly.

KM is the process through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets. Knowledge based assets are to be identified. Most often, generating value from such assets involves codifying what employees, partners and customers know, and sharing that information among employees, departments and even with other companies in an effort to devise best practices. Knowledge management process naturally includes creating knowledge based assets in the first place also. It is important to note that the definition says nothing about technology used in knowledge management.


What constitutes intellectual or knowledge-based assets?

Not all information is valuable. Individual companies have to determine what information qualifies as intellectual and knowledge-based assets. In general, however, intellectual and knowledge-based assets fall into one of two categories: explicit or tacit.

Included among the former are books, reports, journals and magazines that are generated by outside agencies. Companies themselves generate explicit knowledge assets such as patents, trademarks, business plans, marketing research and customer lists. As a general rule of thumb, explicit knowledge consists of anything that can be documented and archived.

Tacit knowledge is the know-how contained in people's heads. The challenge inherent in managing tacit knowledge (to make it useful to the organization on a larger scale) is figuring out how to recognize, share and manage it.

At this point of time two distinct categories of tools are available in KM. (i) knowledge management techniques and (ii) knowledge management technologies.

Some of the KM techniques are:

(i) Mentorship programs
(ii) Post mortem meetings
(iii) Regular intra-office or intra-division meetings
(iv) Story telling sessions
(v) Communities of practice
(vi) Centers of excellence


Some of the KM technologies are:


(i) Knowledge storage tools
(ii) Search and retrieval tools
(iii) Collaboration tools
(iv) Communication tools




Researchers at Accenture find that many companies are not getting bottom line results after implementing knowledge management projects.


Researchers at the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change came out with a framework on knowledge management that aims to deliver results to the organization on implementation. This Knowledge Management Framework is based on the premise that the focus should be placed on the way knowledge is used to build the critical capabilities a company needs in order to succeed—on the core processes and activities that enable it to compete. Enhancing a bank's know-how in evaluating credit risk, for example, should result in reduced loan losses; improving a consumer products company's understanding of customer preferences should increase its percentage of successful new products.




References


http://www.cio.com/article/40343/ABC_An_Introduction_to_Knowledge_Management_KM_/1






http://www.accenture.com/Global/Research_and_Insights/Outlook/By_Alphabet/Knowledgevalue.htm

Sukhpreet Singh of PGDIM program of NITIE (13th batch) did a project on supporting knowledge management initiative of an automobile company and his report was also used in identifying references and in developing this article.

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Originally posted in
http://knol.google.com/ k/knowledge-management#
Knol number 11

Knowledge Wave and Its Travel Across the World

Every time a significant scientific discovery is made, a new knowledge wave is created which has to travel to each nook and corner of the world. Like any electromagnetic wave, the wave weakens after some distance and it needs additional energy. Various authors and speakers provide the additional energy to strengthen the wave and facilitate its further travel. Online authors are a new addition to this knowledge wave infrastructure and organization.



Resharing and Reblogging - A way of adding energy to the wave.

Knols with Resharing Option - A Knol Collection

A blog: Google Knols Reshared

A blog on Telugu Creative Common Content: Telugu Wiki-Knol

Encouraging bloggers to reshare knols

Reshare excellent popular knols through your blogs
http://a-knol.blogspot.com/2011/07/reshare-popular-knols-through-your.html

Knowledge Management - Bibliography

A Framework for Characterizing Knowledge Management: Methods, Practices and Technologies
Brian Newman and Kurt Conrad, November 1999 - Interesting paper