Knowledge Management Conference

Over the last couple of days I had the pleasure on attending the Knowledge Management 2009 Conference and Exhibition in Washington DC. This conference focused on KM in the government and included representatives from many government agencies and most notable the military. I specifically enjoyed seminars around Federal CKO Perspectives, Storytelling as a way to transfer knowledge, KM Cafe facilitated by the Knowledge Management Institute, Knowledge Retention strategies, Government 2.0 with KM and Developing a National Knowledge Innovation Policy.

In addition this conference introduced me to the Federal Knowledge Management Working Group. Part of the vision of this group is to establish federal knowledge management policy, supporting knowledge strategy alignment, knowledge management practices, knowledge retention policies, change management and the establishment of a Federal Knowledge Management Center and Federal Chief Knowledge Officer. All of these initiatives are ones that I fully support and it is my desire to support this working group in the successful execution of these initiatives. To know more about this organization review their web site at http://km.gov/.

Opportunities for Knowledge Management

When determining if or when you should incorporate Knowledge Management (KM) in your organization you must first look for opportunities where KM can be used. In addition where KM can bring about visible results that can be communicated throughout your organization. An immediate KM initiative that can be leveraged is what is called no or low budget KM. These initiatives include conducting, capturing and distributing "lessons learned" on projects and other corporate initiatives, writing a "trip report" and conducting a presentation to your team when you go to a conference and/or attend an important corporate function (this promotes knowledge sharing), and conducting "brow bags" presenting a topic of interest. These activities all address one of the central themes of KM, Knowledge Sharing and Transfer. Keep in mind that when I say no or low budget there may be no cost to the organization or very little cost. An important factor in these challenging economic times.

I also mentioned distributing this knowledge throughout your organization. One simple way to do this is to make the trip reports and presentations, lessons learned and brown bag presentations available on the corporate intranet and send out the appropriate communication to let everyone know that this information is available along with the principle person(s) contact information. You should encourage people who leverage this knowledge to send the principle person(s) an email letting them know how it has made a difference for them. All of the emails should be documented and presented to management to show how KM can bring about visible results and that an official KM initiative (with budget) should be examined and launched.

This is one effective way in looking for opportunities for Knowledge Management. I look forward to your comments and contributions on this subject.