Collaborative Knowledge Sharing

I've been doing some work lately with companies that provide rich-media software and systems for enhancing organizational training, communications and knowledge creation - a field that is increasingly referred to as Collaborative Knowledge Sharing (CKS).

Most senior corporate leaders agree that the overall level of knowledge in their company is a top factor (if not the most important factor) in the ultimate success and sustainability of their organization. However, in today’s fast-paced, globally competitive markets, companies can no longer afford to cling to traditional approaches of top-down creation, publication, dissemination and control of the bulk of organizational knowledge. In essence, voluminous manuals tend to cost a lot to maintain while rarely providing sufficient immediacy of information when and where it's needed.

A growing number of organizations are turning to the fundamentally different approach known as Collaborative Knowledge Sharing, which is grounded on the premise that the most useful and actionable knowledge is not “handed down from on high” but instead is dynamically being created and updated every day throughout the organization. The key focus is shifted to capturing, cataloging and collaboratively sharing this unending flow of knowledge, so that any specific piece of knowledge can be immediately available when and where it is needed.

CKS makes use of new innovative rich-media tools (such as video) for seamlessly capturing knowledge on-the-fly; combined with special methodologies for transforming that information into data that is searchable, accessible and can be easily served to front-line users in specific bite-sized portions to support immediate action-oriented objectives. But CKS is much more than just a technology or a set of tools.

Ultimately, it involves a fundamental shift of mindset in which knowledge is recognized as the life-blood of the organization. As such, it needs to circulate readily throughout the organization just as true blood needs to circulate to carry oxygen throughout a living organism. Companies that are using CKS are seeing cultural changes in which open sharing of knowledge leads naturally to major improvements in the quality and extent of knowledge. It tends to trigger a self-rating, self-generating cycle of knowledge-creation among employees throughout the company; who in a traditional top-down ecosystem might never have been given the opportunity to collaborate. For the organization, the bottom line benefits are improved productivity, fewer missed opportunities, increased revenue and a self-sustaining culture that makes people smarter and helps recruiting by attracting other smart people.