David Christopher« Social Media is the key for sharing Tacit knowledge »
There is no greater asset to a company than the tacit knowledge an employee possesses and the possibilities if you could tap into and utilise that knowledge.
"Tacit knowledge is not easily shared. Tacit knowledge consists often of habits and culture that we do not recognize in ourselves. In the field of knowledge management, the concept of tacit knowledge refers to a knowledge which is only known by an individual and that is difficult to communicate to the rest of an organization....With tacit knowledge, people are not often aware of the knowledge they possess or how it can be valuable to others" - wikipedia
Social Media is the key to help a business reveal and disseminate tacit knowledge.
For the last 12 months I have been striving to adopt a new way of working, a more "socially open engagement" concept in my organisation, to help share the tacit knowledge of our employees. We are making headway but I have to be honest, it has been a challenge, particularly in a company that is very technology focused and Generation X heavy.
I tend to relate it to as hard a challenge as it was to convince people that mobile phones would be a great idea in the 70's, because let's face it what I am asking people to do is to swim against the current of company culture.
But it’s not an insurmountable challenge.
We have just finished developing and deploying the Social Project Office here in EMEA, and this social technology could be a giant leap forward in helping us to disseminate our own tacit knowledge.
This new social technology has a Facebook style interface, capturing conversational input throughout the life cycle of a project whilst allowing employees to become a Fan.
Whilst encouraging employees to openly participate on projects or initiatives that are of interest to them is not a new concept (Google have been doing this for years), but encouraging them to share their tacit knowledge in this way as a contributor (i.e. someone who prefers to contribute from the sidelines rather than be actively engaged in the project) is a concept many may struggle with. A form of community based project management.
Even though this new tool has not been officially announced, people are already adding projects and becoming Fans to actively participate. Over the next few months it will be exciting to see how people engage with the “socially open engagement” concept and the tool itself.
However one thing is clear, technologies like the Social Project Office, Facebook, Twitter etc… are good examples where Social Media can really help us disseminate tacit knowledge and help shape the way we manage our business.
Are you ready for the change…..?
Reader Comments (2)
Excellent post David. Your correlation between non-tactical contribution and Generation X is spot on. I have wrestled with this concept both personally (I am a GenX'er) and within the large organizations I have worked. This problem is compounded by our current economic environment, the continued belt tightening of corporations, and mandates from management to focus solely on "the numbers" and execute only "mission-critical" activities. The irony is that tactic knowledge is mission critical and needs to be leveraged by both those focused on the numbers and not. Dan Pink made this point more broadly in his book A Whole New Mind, "Lawyers. Accountants. Computer programmers. That’s what our parents encouraged us to become when we grew up. But Mom and Dad were wrong. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind. The era of “left brain” dominance, and the Information Age that it engendered, are giving way to a new world in which “right brain” qualities-inventiveness, empathy, meaning-predominate." Much of what Dan is describing here is in fact tactic knowledge and I believe the concept applies regardless of role. His "very different type of mind" is one that understands the powers in tactic knowledge and is willing to invest in promoting and unlocking its value within large organizations. Keep up the great work. I look forward to your next post.
I too am a GenX'er working in the GenY'er space ;-)
Good point about how the current economic climate is compounding the problem. "All this stuff sounds good, but whats the real $ value" is a typical response I hear from executives. There is a lot of focus on the direct revenue that social media brings to a company but the greater $ value will come from the indirect revenue, it's just a lot more difficult to measure. Tacit knowledge plays a vital role in sales, but "selling" that to management is not easy (kinda ironic!). Thanks for the pointer to the book Andy....always on the look out for a good read.