Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of information available to every person at any time. With this avalanche comes a sense of overload; it is impossible to process all of this content quickly enough!

This state of affairs is only getting worse as technology advances exponentially. In fact, we are now in what some call The Information Age, where vast amounts of data are accessible through apps, computers, and online services that anyone can use.

As more individuals become aware of their rights to access different types of information, they have greater opportunities to learn about how knowledge management (“know-how”) functions in organizations.

By applying these concepts in your organization, you will be able to maximize efficiency, improve communication processes, and reduce costs by creating efficiencies. This will also help you get the most out of employees who may need guidance on how to best utilize organizational resources.

What is knowledge management?

Knowledge management is the practice of capturing, organizing, storing, accessing, sharing, and reusing human knowledge. It helps people achieve higher productivity by giving them easy access to the things they already know and providing the tools to find new ways to apply what they do know.

Think about everything you learned when you were a kid: You probably spent lots of time listening and trying to understand what other kids knew before you so that you could feel like you had some sort of “in”.

History of knowledge management

Over the past few years, there has been an increased focus on how social media influence the way people interact with each other and the world around them. More and more studies are confirming that this connectedness is creating a state of constant information exposure which leaves individuals feeling overwhelmed and distracted.

As we know, one of the key components of effective leadership is having adequate levels of trust. This can be difficult to achieve when leaders lack credibility or are perceived as untrusted.

It is also important for stakeholders to feel like they have access to their colleagues’ resources- not only theirs, but also those of their superiors. In both cases, confidence in the organization’s leader and staff comes down to whether they perceive that these professionals are aware of, use and distribute their own personal knowledge and resources effectively.

In fact, research suggests that confident employees are up to twice as productive as their less confident peers![1] When you don’t believe your boss knows what he/she is talking about, it could potentially distract you from doing your job properly. Or worse, you may give wrong advice due to fear of being contradicted or even fired.

What are knowledge managers?

That was a pretty long introduction, so here’s a quick summary. A knowledge manager (or KM professional) is someone who collects, preserves and distributes organizational knowledge.

Ways knowledge management can benefit an organization

One important use of knowledge management is to boost employee productivity and engagement.

This has been shown through improved communication, education, motivation, and efficiency. For example, by encouraging team members to share their knowledge with each other, collaboration occurs and teamwork happens.

By educating employees about what others are doing, they feel more informed and able to take action. This improves overall performance as well as perception of leadership.

Through motivational techniques such as educational programs and rewards for sharing knowledge, individuals retain the needed motivation to contribute to the organization.

Improved communication due to increased awareness helps keep teams together longer and reduces conflict.

Overall, knowledge management can help foster an open environment that encourages people to collaborate, communicate, educate one another, and motivate each other to perform better.

Tips for knowledge management

As mentioned earlier, using knowledge management to retain information is only a start towards leveraging it effectively. You also need to organize this information, find applications for it, and promote its use within your organization.

One important tip that some experts recommend is creating an index or keyword list to help you locate the information you want. This way, you can quickly access all the pieces of information you need easily.

By organizing the information according to categories and indexes, you have now given yourself a starting place to look when needed.

You are not limited to looking at one piece of information at a time either. By having several pieces of information organized, you can begin analyzing and applying one element to another.

Identify what is important

As mentioned earlier, knowledge management can be defined as “the process of creating, capturing, organizing, storing, accessing, sharing, and acting upon knowledge with an aim to improve organizational performance”.

However, most studies focus only on one aspect of KM – information storage. This is due to the fact that this facet has been seen as crucial towards improving organisational efficiency.

By focusing almost exclusively on this element, researchers are missing out on another very significant part of knowledge management – application of knowledge.

This oversight is quite problematic because applying knowledge is just as integral to achieving optimal organisational performance as storing it- without it, we would not achieve anything!

It seems clear then, that studying how to implement knowledge management should include looking at both information storage and application.

Make it a priority

As mentioned earlier, knowledge management is not a new concept-it has been around for over two decades now. What is newer, however, is how significant social media have become to our daily lives. Technology seems to advance at a lightning speed these days, which only makes sense given that we are constantly being exposed to more of it.

With every passing day, you will find yourself using technology more and more. This includes using knowledge management software like Sharepoint in your workplace. It can be tricky deciding whether or not to use such a system, though- there are many reasons to do so!

It is important to remember that no tool is necessary when doing your job effectively. However, having an easy way to share, retain, and access information is very helpful as you work. There are several types of systems that exist, but none compare to the efficiency and ease of use of a wiki.

That is why this article will talk about some ways that wikis can help with knowledge management in organizations.

Create a team of experts

One way to use social media for knowledge management is to create an internal community or group where people can share their experiences, resources, and insights with each other.

This could be through forums, chat applications, and groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. By having this place where employees can go to ask questions and get answers, it removes that feeling when you search Google and get no results.

It also gives them a chance to see what others are doing, and how they’re solving the same problems they are. In addition, it creates an environment where people feel comfortable sharing things they know because everyone else does.

It also helps keep people within your organization connected as every employee has access to the resource. This uses up less time than going outside of work to find the information you need.

Ensure consistency

Consistency is one of the most important things to maintain when using knowledge management systems. This means making sure that you use the same tool for different purposes, and keeping up-to-date with changes to the software!
As mentioned before, there are many great free tools available to create your own personal knowledge base. You can easily add pages, videos, and notes to keep yourself organized.

If you already have an internal wiki or resource site, adding some sections within those sites to connect with other products will help people find valuable information more quickly. Your colleagues, department leaders, and external contacts can also be asked to contribute content so that others can learn from it as well.

At The Charleville Group we have created an internal Wiki page where our staff and consultants can share their knowledgesheets, presentations, and courses they have prepared – and which ones they have reviewed and endorsed themselves.

Measure your success

One important factor that contributes to the effectiveness of KM is recording and tracking your efforts. You can do this via documents, spreadsheets, notes, or even software programs.

You should be careful not to make it too detailed as this may become time consuming to manage. A good balance is needed where you are able to identify what actions were taken without getting overwhelmed with all the information!

Something simple like “Read article” or “Visit website” will work just fine. It does not need to be more than one sentence per action. Make sure to also update this data periodically to ensure its accuracy.

Another way to track these activities is using checklists. This can be done at the department level, for individual users, or both.