Thinking out loud about “strategic knowledge sharing practices”…

I was talking with my friend Shawn and he showed me this post about knowledge strategy on his blog… Full Circle Associates

http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2007/05/ focussing _your.html

I thought… what if we use this framework of “knowledge strategy” to think about our knowledge sharing (KS) practices? Full Circle Associates

Will we do a better job of STRATEGICALLY exploring and applying our knowledge sharing practices in our networks and organizations? Will leadership see value and understand why we are so passionate about KS?

Is this framework useful in practice? Is it flexible enough to allow things to fit in multiple places? Simple enough to help orient and organize ourselves?

Attract and retain the best people Minimise the impact of people leaving – or better retain our knowledge Encourage people to call for help Build better relationships Improve ability to find relevant expertise Improve ability to search for and find information Avoid reinventing the wheel Find and applying good practice Build skills and know-how Improve innovation Improve how we learn from mistakes and successes Better deal with complex situations Enhance collaboration What if we explored these with a “communities of practice perspective?” Community Domain Practice Full Circle Associates

Attract and retain the best people

Minimise the impact of people leaving – or better retain our knowledge

Encourage people to call for help

Build better relationships

Improve ability to find relevant expertise

Improve ability to search for and find information

Avoid reinventing the wheel

Find and applying good practice

Build skills and know-how

Improve innovation

Improve how we learn from mistakes and successes

Better deal with complex situations

Enhance collaboration

Knowledge/ information (Domain) People (Community) Practices (Practice) Find expertise Ask for help Build relationships Avoid “wheel reinvention” Attract & retain great people Collaborate Minimize impact of people leaving Vision & plan Learn from mistakes & success Build skills, practices and knowledge Search and find information Full Circle Associates

I’m still not quite sure how it expresses the strategic value of knowledge sharing. Do you have any ideas?

Knowledge/ information People Practices It could be flexible… With tagging and categories, any particular KS method could fit in a number of areas. “Calling for help” could fit in both “People” and “Practices.” So I could sort through methods with either view!

Knowledge/ information People Practices People could attach stories of methods in use, again tagging by main area, sub area or any other way. This could facilitate organizing methods even across languages! Woo hoo!

I’m getting excited. If this makes sense to you, it might be something USEFUL!!!

We could dig deeper into any area, such as collaboration, helping serve as a way to organize collections of practices and resources for knowledge sharing. For example, “collaboration” might branch more deeply to methods for teams, choosing collaborative tools, etc . Full Circle Associates

Can this serve as a way to share, find, organize and reflect on knowledge sharing practices? Is it a more strategic way to apply KS in an organization? What do you think? ??? Full Circle Associates