ikms newsletter

A Career in Knowledge Management?

by Kan Siew Ning

The management of information and knowledge is important for every organization whether or not the senior management refers to it explicitly as knowledge management (KM). In every company that takes KM seriously, managers at all levels are expected to facilitate and enhance knowledge flow within his team, and between his team and other teams. Knowledge-centric firms that use knowledge as a competitive weapon would have assigned one or more officers to provide focus to KM work within the company. Depending on the company, these officers have different job titles – ranging from knowledge manager to Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) and sometimes to Chief Learning Officer (CLO).

Are you considering a career in Knowledge Management but don’t know where to start? Have you heard a lot about CKO’s but don’t know what they actually do? This article attempts to answer these questions by providing an overview of KM jobs and their required competencies.

Balanced Scorecard® inside small groups

Apparently Balanced Scorecard (BSC) seems to be success inside big enterprises (see 1000 Fortune enterprises every year) where some characteristics are putted together:
• Strong leadership;
• Collaborative Corporate governances;
• Strategic Plan quite well defined;
• Shared Mission and Objectives;
• Staff Motivation;
• Medium / High (information Technology (IT) involvement.

Problems arise when we start talking about Small and Medium Enterprises and worst when we talk about Micro Enterprises (SMME) and as well known, they perform 95% of all Portugal enterprises (same for Spain or almost average in Europe).

On the Characteristics of Knowledge (by Lee Chu Keong)

Knowledge has been described as a slippery and esoteric concept. This has made it very difficult to define and very difficult to distinguish from information. Knowledge managers must be cognizant of some of the interesting characteristics of knowledge when they attempt to manage knowledge by embarking knowledge initiatives, typically efforts to encouraeg knowledge sharing, knowledge creation, or knowledge codification. In this brief article, I draw on various examples to illustrate some of the more interesting characteristics of knowledge. The list is not meant to be exhaustive, but meant for reflection and contemplation by those who are intrigued by the ethereal qualities of knowledge.

GOOD KM ARTICLES

"Wanted -Information Architects"
By Patricia B. Seybold, CEO and Sr. Consultant, Patricia Seybold Group

Much of the KM activity we see in organizations today center around "information findability". How do we make it easier for the people within our organization and outside our organization to find the most relevant, current, accurate infomration they need to carry out the functions they're trying to accomplish? This information findability problem isn’t going to magically go away by slapping Google or any other search engine across our company Intranets. Nor will a search engine really solve your information classification, organization, and refinement problem. The real solution is really information architects and other information professionals who can make sense of the mess of information we’ve created and is now exposed.