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Social software have generally proven to be a good fit for knowledge flows. This also tends to bring people on the edges together and thus allowing for greater chances of cross pollination of knowledge/ideas. This could lead to increased serendipity as well as employee engagement too.
Another aspect lending to employee engagement could be the conversational approach the top management could adopt to convey their messages to the employees. Though a comment to comment response is not advisable for the top executives, the fact that employees can leave comments on the communication from the top management would provide them with a sense of deeper engagement.
Tacit knowledge is not something that can be captured in knowledge bases and can never really be transmitted to others. Even an apprentice does not learn everything the master knows, even though its the best way for passing on the knowledge from one person to another and thus ensure its longevity.
How do I capture these themes of tacit knowledge, serendipity, employee engagement, etc. as use cases or storyboards?
Prem
ReplyDeleteInteresting thought. Having worked with (and in one) large companies for many years, I believe that a key issue with employee engagement/knowledge sharing/discovery is that most tools require additional work by the employees e.g. each of the "skills finder' tools I have been asked to participate in required me to tediously fill all my info in and then keep it updated on a regular basis. Since this is usually not the employee's main focus, the content soons gets outdated and the system decreases exponentially in value.
Now, if only we could design a service (that can be taught) to 'mine' my interactions (which within the context of my role as an employee belong to tne company anyway) and help build these workflows that you talk about, we could be talking something really useful. Have you come across any such offering ?
Satya
Thank you Satya.
ReplyDeleteI work with large companies too and am still working in a large company, which still maintains those tedious tools you mention in your comment.
However, we do have social software implemented and a very vibrant, distributed & open community has bulit thanks to the platform bulit using these tools.
I addition to being able to find out who is an expert earlier, we are also able to find resolutions to queries faster as well as elicit, store & share the tacit knowledge too.
We still have the project retrospection documents to be filled out as per our org standards, but more importantly, people share stories about their work. These organizational stories capture much more than the formal, structured documents.
However, these are all powered by the community, the humans, from their free time. Think of it as the cognitive surplus working for you.
I am yet to come across a tool that could do what you are asking for - taught to mine your interactions & build workflows. IF there is one, I would really love to know about it too! :)
Thank you for dropping by!
Regards,
Prem