Knowledge Management at Your Organization

Have you ever wondered what all the fuss is about concerning knowledge management (KM)? What is knowledge management anyway? At its core KM is about sharing and collaborating about what you know, capturing what you know, and reusing that knowledge as to not reinvent the wheel and/or to combine with other ideas to foster innovation. Recently I had the privilege to attend a KM meeting conducted by the APQC (APQC's January 2011 KM Community Call), which had representatives from Conoco Phillips, Fluor, IBM, GE and Schlumberger. What I came away from this meeting with is the need to have KM become part of an organization's culture. I believe that this is important because we do not want KM to be "another task to complete on the checklist", but the way we conduct business. This includes the business between the various individuals and entities within our corporations as well as with our customers. Talking, listening, capturing and applying what we learn from each other is a constant never ending and always evolving process.
I challenge all of us to take this attitude into our workplace and remember that when you share what you know you don't loose that knowledge, but rather you enhance that knowledge with the other individuals you share it with. Take a minute to review the slides from the APQC Jan 2011 KM Community Call as well as this video from YouTube Discover What You Know. Feel free to comment and share your knowledge!