16 Apr
Managing information and knowledge is often perceived as a top-down activity, encouraging people from specific fields to contribute to specific communities on specific topics.
The existing and created knowledge has been used, cataloged, indexed and reused. Knowledge has been managed with a focus on objectives with the aim to either improve performance, innovation or organizational learning. Silos have long been an obstacle to collaboration and although knowledge management has started to bridge those divides. They remain a difficulty to be contended with within traditional management structures.
Knowledge is dynamic & evolving
There are certain cases (with norms or regulated industries for example) where it may be necessary to have an “official” version of knowledge. However, in all organizations, knowledge evolves on a daily basis and detailed specific knowledge bases are no longer the only appropriate tool to cater for this change. The stored knowledge paradigm, where accumulation and codification is valued, is shifting towards knowledge in the flow, where access is porous and the network collaborates. The main tool to drive this evolution is fostering online communities.
Social knowledge is the collective and living body of knowledge produced by a network. It is the dynamic product of a group contributing and sharing as opposed to the unique sum of static participants’ knowledge. The relationships, connections and exchanges within a specific team of people surface through dialog and are mediated by the entity’s interactions. Knowledge access is enabled by personal connections, recommendations and subject matter experts content curation, leading to a circular and iterative knowledge flow.
Balance is key
The balance between content creation and consumption in those networks is critical to an optimal knowledge sharing ratio and maximized stickiness. Enough to spark creativity and provide the needed information at the appropriate time in a simple and user-friendly format. Not too much to avoid overwhelming the knowledge seeker through numerous collaborations requests, notifications and feedback demands.
Drive your competitive edge
The de-centralized nature of those social knowledge networks (SKNs) can be scary for organizations as they might lose some of the control over the knowledge creation and dissemination they previously had in the traditional knowledge management structure. However, SKNs are structured across organizational silos, merge relevant content, improve community insights and drive organizational productivity, efficiency and agility. Their organic evolution through time and circumstances changes make them a formidable competitive asset for the organization that was able to curate, to diffuse and nurture them.
How can Elium help you move towards social knowledge?
Elium provides a platform with a set of tools to improve performance, innovation and organizational learning by:
- Move from a culture of finalized files towards pre-state documents
- Progress from a structured file system towards a criteria search based file system
- Embed a narrative approach through content contextualization and experiences
- Reunite both structured and unstructured social spaces
- Adapt to the organic nature of the organization
- Encourage content evolution and feedbacks through versioning and comments
- Allow communities to create, develop, share and curate content
- Create links between existing and future contents
- Integrate with other existing content creation platforms
- Promote sustainable and healthy working mechanisms
Discover how our clients integrate Elium in their tools ecosystem.
