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…..?