KM & TC Angelo Mohanan STC Learning Session, Gurgaon

“We are entering (or have entered) the knowledge society in which the basic economic resource... is knowledge... and where the knowledge worker will play a central role.” –Peter Drucker, 1993

KM in other disciplines – Management – Information systems – Information technology – Business theory – Social psychology – Organizational behavior – Organizational learning – Communication

KM by definition – “Organizational Memory” – “Transfer of Experience” – process for optimizing the effective application of intellectual capital to achieve objectives – process of capturing, organizing, and storing information and experiences of workers and groups within an organization and making it available to others – managing tacit knowledge (held in an individual's brain in the form of know-how and experience) and explicit knowledge (recorded independently of humans) – range of practices used by organizations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge.

Approaches we know! – Document-centered document to people to document – Technology-centered technology to people to technology via documents – Socio-organizational people to people via technology – Knowledge Organization knowledge to intellectual capital to innovation

Where do we come in? – Discuss/Brainstorm – Document/Blog – Comment/Review/Edit – Learn/Understand/Know/Ideate

Knowledge Conversion! – Socialization—from tacit to tacit – Externalization—from tacit to explicit – Combination—from explicit to explicit – Internalization—from explicit to tacit

Old school of thought “On reflection, there is actually considerable logic behind the idea that technical writers would be able to understand certain forms of knowledge - particularly technical knowledge - and contribute to an electronic repository.” -Davenport and Prusak Working Knowledge

Cheer up! Leonard: “our discipline is inextricably intertwined with the knowledge management revolution.” Wick: “technical communicators are contenders for leadership roles in knowledge management” Applen: “technical communicators... are at the center of an organization’s knowledge” Hughes: “technical communicators add value by creating organization (internal) knowledge”

Our needs? Opportunity to lead Contribute, not support Drivers of change Recognition Rewards

We have been Redefining We need to add value to the product We need to be involved in planning We want to become information technologists We want to become product specialists We can do product testing We are information designers “We must see ourselves as knowledge creators!”

Are we Knowledge Specialists? helping SMEs convert knowledge to documents “tacit to explicit” helping product teams derive group knowledge about product “explicit to tacit” helping create knowledge assets “explicit to explicit” we can operate cross-functionally to induce collaboration We are expert communicators!!!

Enterprise 2.0! social sites next-generation portals content management system user profiles experts database blogs micro-blogs collaboration wikis ideation communities of practice discussion forums enterprise search IM/chatrooms bookmarking taxonomy/tagging podcasting/vodcasting virtual classrooms

Let’s move beyond seeing ourselves as information packagers to seeing ourselves as knowledge creators! | twitter.com/xngelotwitter.com/xngelo K-Community – DelhiK-Community – Delhi (facebook)