A Better Way to Manage Knowledge

Summary:

This blog by John Hagel III and John Seely Brown discusses the metamorphosis of knowledge management into creation spaces, defined as places where individuals and teams interact and collaborate within a broader learning ecology so that performance accelerates. They use gaming as an excellent example of how knowledge is shared in this manner as opposed to the efforts of companies in the 1990s to catalogue what their employees knew. They point out that the real value of knowledge management is in creating new knowledge rather than the focus of the previous decade because stocks of knowledge depreciate faster than they used to in our fast-paced environment.

Creation spaces focus on providing immediate value to participants in terms of helping them tackle difficult performance challenges while at the same time reducing the effort required to capture and disseminate the knowledge created. Creation spaces have the potential to generate increasing returns; the more participants that join, the faster new knowledge gets created and the more rapidly performance improves. This newarena of knowledge management also focuses on mobilizing and focusing participants across all institutional boundaries so that participation is not limited within enterprises.

Article Quote:

“… creation spaces, heavily relying on shared network platforms, provide tools and forums for knowledge creation while at the same time capturing the discussion, analysis, and actions in ways that make it easier to share across a broader range of participants.”

Article Link: http://blogs.hbr.org/bigshift/2010/01/a-better-way-to-manage-knowled.html

In the world of gaming, knowledge that is shared enhances gamers’ experience while taking nothing from the person who shared the knowledge. The culture of doing business would have to change considerably in order for this to be true in that arena, but it’s clear that collaborative efforts are faster and more efficient in terms of shared knowledge. We see a parallel trend in the software industry that is moving more and more in the direction of collaboration and shared information. It would be impossible to keep up in this fast-paced world of knowledge without connecting pockets of information that, together, benefit the whole entity.

For more on knowledge management, see http://www.managepro.com/management.html.

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