What's Changing? - Knowledge

Please see below selected recent knowledge-related change.

See also:

March 2024

Knowledge, argued Exponential View, is itself growing exponentially, at 5% a year. Data is also growing exponentially - with the world set to reach 175 zettabytes of data by 2025. This volume would take 1.8 billion years to download using the average internet connection.

February 2024

Knowledge-sharing provides access to the wisdom and experience of others without reinventing the wheel. However, humans have a limited capacity to store knowledge, while the amount is growing exponentially, estimated to double every 15 years. This increase in knowledge, combined with professional, organisational and financial incentives in academia, has led to extreme specialisation, and increasingly niche research. An estimated 45% of research in the humanities is never cited. This leads to hidden public knowledge, where valuable insights remain trapped in silos, inaccessible to the wider public and even to researchers.

June 2023

The EU Council recommended an open-access, not-for-profit model for research publishing. Publishers have been accused of exploiting cost savings from moving to digital and the free labour of researchers who serve as the authors, reviewers, and editors of their journals. There are also ethical arguments in many quarters that knowledge should be freely accessible and academics unhindered by publishing finances, this is a serious concern. (See e.g. the publishing industry and the battle for open access.)
Jean-François Lyotard, in his 1979 book The Postmodern Condition: A Report into Knowledge, noted that modern persons were said to improve by accruing knowledge into their consciousness and using stories to explain this knowledge. Postmodernism is Lyotard’s counter-argument, i.e. that no longer could reason sum up the human condition through “meta-narratives,” or overarching constructs to sum up all of knowledge and history into one framework. Lyotard encouraged scepticism towards unifying meta-narratives, as we all have different perspectives, and the “micronarratives” of different individuals are important, and information is much more complicated than can be contained and analysed in one human brain.

March 2023

A study of the impact of ChatGPT on ‘mid-level professional writing tasks’ - such as writing memos and strategy documents - found that professionals who used the tool completed tasks on average 37% faster, and with improved average writing quality. For GZERO, this is a revolutionary productivity leap, meaning that if they are replicated in real offices then knowledge work is about to be transformed.
New World Same Humans asked what, in the end, is being transformed by AIs such as GPT and concluded that it’s nothing less than the relationship between human imagination and reality. Humans possess a power of recursive thought that allows us to imagine pretty much anything and now, whether we imagine an image, slide deck, app, video game, or virtual world, in seconds in can be realised. The challenge this poses to the global knowledge worker class might become: what is the point of us now?

December 2022

Further reading:

October 2022

A study explored the influence the web was having on our perception of knowledge. It transpired that when we search for something online, we often end up with a false sense of knowledge. The study, which consisted of nine separate experiments, found that when we obtain knowledge online, we perceive our knowledge as much greater than we do when the knowledge is obtained through other channels. “This was a very robust effect, replicated time and time again,” the researchers noted. “People who search for information tend to conflate accessible knowledge with their own personal knowledge.”
RealKM noted that organisations typically want knowledge to flow between employees, thinking that doing so helps to facilitate both collaboration and innovation. They’re generally less keen, however, on knowledge flowing outside of the organisation, for fear that it will benefit rivals and erode competitive advantages. Research 1 from Bocconi University suggested that we’re much more likely to share knowledge internally when we feel that we’re an integral part of the organisation, while we’re more likely to leak information and knowledge externally to a rival firm when we work for an organisation that has a more competitive culture.

October 2022

Sir Isaac Newton famously popularised the notion of standing on the shoulders of all those who went before him when making his groundbreaking discoveries. This notion of knowledge and innovation being a fluid process whereby ideas are combined and built upon is now widely understood. Research from the University of Illinois has now explored how knowledge can flow between sectors and regions, underpinning innovation and creativity as it goes, as well as the economic growth that flows from that knowledge. The researchers utilised patent application as a proxy for innovation and knowledge creation, and were able to track the flow of patents based upon their city of creation through to where they were cited. The results showed that the local environment remained important across all sectors. This included the industry structure in the area, the presence of a university, the size of firms, and so on. Given the right conditions, all sectors were able to benefit in terms of their innovation output.

June 2022

Further reading:

May 2022

Real KM noted that the effective creation, storage, sharing, and application of knowledge is greatly assisted by favourable organisational environments. In a paper, researchers from the University of Beira Interior in Portugal contend that spirituality influences the creation of such environments because it fosters:
- the moral and emotional evolution of organisational members as well as their sense of integrity, truth and understanding
- the generation of mutual trust
- feelings of belonging to a greater whole.
A US startup wants to backup all of humanity’s knowledge on the Moon. Lonestar Data Holdings wants to put data servers on the Moon that will allow data traffic to and from Earth at 15 Gigabits per second. ‘It's inconceivable to me that we are keeping our most precious assets, our knowledge and our data, on Earth, where we're setting off bombs and burning things,’ said founder Christopher Stott.

April 2022

Knowledge workers typically experience two productivity peaks in a workday (before and after lunch), but as the pandemic sent workers home, some saw a third peak before bedtime, according to a study of Microsoft employees. This “triple peak day” highlights the benefits of remote work flexibility (e.g. parents with small children) but also the perils of being “always on”.

March 2022

Microsoft surveyed over 30,000 knowledge workers in 31 countries and crunched trillions of ‘productivity signals’ from Office365 and LinkedIn. A hybrid work world is now an established fact post-pandemic, but the survey examined how that is working out for everyone. One clear signal: we’re amid a quest for new norms to help navigate a hybrid and remote work world. The greatest challenge of hybrid according to 38% of those surveyed, is knowing when they’re expected to show up at the office. And Microsoft also found that ‘digital exhaustion’ is a mounting risk. According to their data, the average workday for an MS Teams user was longer by 46 minutes since the start of the pandemic, and weekend work was up 14%.

November 2021

A new database aimed to make it easier than ever to access and search through the world’s massive trove of research papers. Each year, millions of scientific and academic papers get published across thousands of journals. The majority of those papers lie behind paywalls, costing $9 to $30 (or more) to read. Finding them can be difficult: Tools like Google Scholar allow you to search for paper titles and keywords, but more specialized queries are difficult. The General Index was designed to reduce those obstacles without breaking the law.

October 2021

Peter Drucker coined the now well-known term “knowledge worker” to describe someone who works with the knowledge they have gained through systematic education - that is, concepts, ideas, and theories - rather than someone who works with manual skills. Now, KM researchers are starting to document and explore the emergence of the “knowmad” as a new form of knowledge worker. John Moravec, who coined the term in 2008, defines a knowmad as a nomadic knowledge worker – that is, a creative, imaginative, and innovative person who can work with almost anybody, anytime, and anywhere.

July 2021

With growing interest in knowledge hiding as a research topic, a paper reported on a bibliometric review of 103 papers specifically discussing knowledge hiding and/or knowledge withholding in organisations.

March 2020

RealKM argued that, to be a genuinely creative force for change, knowledge systems will need to become much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, reflexive, responsible and able to work with values and systemic issues. They need to be able to work with interconnected issues; be much more action-oriented locally and globally; be inclusive of diverse forms of knowledge; and be supported by processes promoting trust, collaboration, and high levels of creativity.

December 2020

Technology has allowed an exponential rise in the delivery of information while working remotely, but the downside is a rise in so-called "knowledge obesity." Employees bombarded by Zoom, Skype, Slack, email, phone calls, virtual hangouts and podcasts may be overwhelmed, which can lead to feelings of under-performance, anxiety and affect mental health. Leaders must help staff to apply, share and process relevant knowledge through critical thinking, shared devices and software, and park the rest, advised Human Resources expert Monica Watt.

October 2020

HBR noted that different kinds of human effort require different kinds of knowledge. Aristotle explained this more than 2,000 years ago. He outlined distinct types of knowledge required to solve problems in three realms. Techne was craft knowledge: learning to use tools and methods to create something. Episteme was scientific knowledge: uncovering the laws of nature and other inviolable facts that, however poorly understood they might be at the moment, “cannot be other than they are.” Phronesis was akin to ethical judgment: the perspective-taking and wisdom required to make decisions when competing values are in play - when the answer is not absolute, multiple options are possible, and things can be other than what they are. HBR adds that this ability to size up a situation and the kinds of knowledge it calls for is a skill you can develop with deliberate practice, but the essential first step is simply to appreciate that those different kinds of knowledge exist, and that it’s your responsibility to recognise which ones are called for when.
Further HBR research found that, in sum, lockdown was positive for knowledge worker productivity in the short term.
- Lockdown helps us focus on the work that really matters. We are spending 12% less time drawn into large meetings and 9% more time interacting with customers and external partners.
- Lockdown helps us take responsibility for our own schedules. We do 50% more activities through personal choice and half as many because someone else asked us to.
- During lockdown, we view our work as more worthwhile. We rate the things we do as valuable to our employer and to ourselves. The number of tasks rated as tiresome drops from 27% to 12%, and the number we could readily offload to others drops from 41% to 27%.
Nevertheless, it has also created some concerns and challenges around longer-term effectiveness, creativity, and personal resilience.

September 2020

To get much of anything done, we must choose what we are willing to cast aside. This is where strategic ignorance comes into play, according to organisational psychologist Benjamin Hardy. "Strategic ignorance is not about being closed-minded. It’s about knowing what you want and knowing that, as a person, you can be easily swayed or derailed," he writes. "You create boundaries. You live your priorities and values and dreams."
Tangible assets are easy to value. They’re typically physical assets with finite monetary values, but over the years have become a smaller part of a company’s total worth. As technology disruption continues, and organisations increasingly rely on emerging developments in artificial intelligence, robotics and cloud computing, intangible assets have grown to represent the lion’s share of corporate valuations. But without a physical form and the ability to easily convert them into cash, working out what these assets are truly worth can be challenging, warned Raconteur.

August 2020

TrendWatching talked about an emerging trend they called M2P: mentor-to-peer. They asked: where is the Tinder for knowledge, skills and mentorship? f I’m a 25-year-old marketing professional in London, then why in 2020 can’t I hit a button somewhere online and instantly see the other marketing professionals in my local neighbourhood who are open to grabbing coffee today? Why can’t I find the 50-year-old marketing supremo who lives two streets across, who’d be happy to have lunch and share some advice?

May 2020

AI can be leveraged against data from company intranets and collaboration tools such as Slack, Jive, Microsoft Office and Teams to extract hidden processes and uncodified knowledge, and turn it into known knowns that can then be made accessible through the mobiles and desktops of every employee.

December 2019

"Knowledge moats" work by concentrating valuable expertise within a single organisation. Many forms of knowledge, however, can easily be transferred, lost through brain drain, or imitated - companies that want to build a moat based on their knowledge need a way to fend off competitors until they can reach a point of critical mass.

July 2019

Knowledge resistance is “the tendency not to accept available knowledge”, according to the mission statement of the interdisciplinary project Knowledge Resistance: Causes, Consequences and Cures, which was in 2019 awarded a grant from the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences. In an age of misinformation both online and off, researching knowledge resistance could not be more timely. When senior politicians announce that the people have had enough of experts, it’s not long before a race to the bottom begins, where dangerous myths and misinformation can entrench themselves.

June 2019

The Financial Times believes that the current "explosion of knowledge" is partly a numbers game. In Isaac Newton’s day, there were perhaps 1,000 people in the world studying advanced mechanics. In Albert Einstein’s day, there were perhaps 10,000 scientists worldwide researching quantum physics. But today, there are hundreds of millions of people engaged in scientific research and technological development, not just in the famous universities and multinational companies but in thousands of innovative start-ups.

May 2019

A Medium article considered whether ignorance is being strategically manufactured and the tools of knowledge production are being perverted to enable ignorance. Back in 1995, Robert Proctor and Iain Boal coined the term “agnotology” to describe the strategic and purposeful production of ignorance. In an edited volume called Agnotology, Proctor and Londa Schiebinger collected essays detailing how agnotology is achieved. Whether we’re talking about the erasure of history or the undoing of scientific knowledge, agnotology is a tool of oppression by the powerful.

February 2019

For The School of Life, one of the most striking features of our minds is how little we understand them. Although we inhabit ourselves, we seldom manage to make sense of more than a fraction of who we are. This lack of self-knowledge can be trouble, for it leads us to get into the wrong relationships, pick unsatisfactory jobs or spend money unwisely.

December 2018

In Ancient Greece, when the philosopher Socrates was asked to sum up what all philosophical commandments could be reduced to, he replied: 'Know yourself'. Self-knowledge matters so much because it is only on the basis of an accurate sense of who we are that we can make reliable decisions - particularly around love and work.
Further reading:
- Knowledge management in 2018: the year in review

November 2018

Is our knowledge of the world essentially rational? What does it mean to be burdened with the gift of rationality? Philosopher Corine Besson considered in an iai course the nature of humanity's defining trait.
Astronomer Royal Martin Rees asked: are there things that we’ll never know, because they are beyond the power of human minds to grasp?

October 2018

Developing countries continue to depend on outside knowledge, at the expense of indigenous knowledge systems that are much more locally relevant, warned a RealKM editorial. In spite of setting up hundreds of universities and research institutes, developing countries continue to import knowledge. For instance, African countries are not just importing equipment and finished products from the West and East but also importing knowledge in the form of prescriptions on how to use those imports.
The third edition of the Agenda Knowledge for Development (download here) is an initiative of the Knowledge for Development Partnership, it shares a vision of how knowledge and knowledge societies can contribute to an inclusive approach to human development. The Agenda Knowledge for Development features 14 Knowledge Development Goals (Figure 1) designed to complement the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from the perspective of knowledge. It also includes 130 personal statements in which leading individuals put forward their personal views and perspectives on knowledge societies.
We seem to make constant progress in understanding the world and yet the biggest questions from the nature of consciousness to the nature of matter remain unsolved. An IAI debate asked therefore: can we ever have a complete description of reality? Are we mistaken to assume that such questions can be answered? Might the solutions be beyond us or is the world itself beyond description? Or round the corner are the world's secrets to be found?
Is all knowledge essentially rational? What is the connection between knowledge and reason? From Plato to the 21st century, a philosopher surveyed the field and articulated in an iAI course a new understanding of the relation between rationality, reason and knowledge.
Read more:
- A fifth generation of knowledge management for development is long overdue - RealKM
- Profiles in Knowledge: 5 Important 20th Century Philosophers — Polanyi, Popper, Lonergan, Lakatos, Kuhn - Medium

September 2018

Dare to know was the radical rallying cry of the Enlightenment. Since then philosophers from Nietzsche to Derrida have argued there are limits to knowledge so profound that truth is an impossible goal. Have relativism and postmodernism therefore made the Enlightenment dream irrelevant, asked the IAI in a debate, or can we forge a New Enlightenment that provides us with direction and is equally radical and exciting as the original?
A new video explored the macro-environment for knowledge work in the present, and in the decades to come.
Further reading:
- KM transformation must consider “how” we do things, and not just “what” we do - RealKM

August 2018

IMD Business School’s Howard Yu’s latest book argues that incumbents in an industry are especially vulnerable to disruption when their knowledge becomes stagnant. Yu’s theory is that the best companies at adapting to change are those who make intellectual leaps, and he uses the pharma industry to illustrate this in practice. It’s an industry that has shifted from chemistry to microbiology to biotechnology and lately to genomics.
RealKM warned that researchers in developing countries are unable to access important reference information because it is locked away behind expensive journal paywalls. Meanwhile, the world’s top paywalled journals are published by companies that are headquartered in the global North.
In Ancient Greece, when Socrates was asked to sum up what all philosophical commandments could be reduced to, he replied: ‘Know Yourself’. Self-knowledge matters so much because it is only on the basis of an accurate sense of who we are that we can make reliable decisions - particularly around love and work. The School of Life (TSOL), in a recent essay book, claimed to take its readers on a journey into our deepest, most elusive selves and arm us with a set of tools to understand our characters properly, allowing us to come away with a newly clarified sense of who we are, what we need to watch out for when making decisions, and what our priorities and potential might be.
TSOL also argued that we deploy knowledge and ideas that carry indubitable prestige to stand guard against the emergence of more humble, but essential knowledge from our emotional past. We bury our personal stories beneath an avalanche of expertise.
The outcome of any concerted attempt of self-knowledge could be presumed to be a deep understanding of ourselves, believes The School of Life, adding that strangely, the real outcome is really rather different. It appears that the more closely we explore our minds, the more we start to see how many tricks these organs can play on us - and therefore the more we will appreciate how often we are likely to be misjudging situations and our own emotions. For the TSOL, a successful search for self-knowledge should end up with an admission of how little we do - and perhaps ever can - properly know of ourselves. It is an apparent paradox summed up by Socrates: I am wise not because I know, but because I know I don’t know.

July 2018

Uncertainty helps us learn, claimed Quartz. Unpredictable circumstances make our brains work harder and absorb more information.

June 2018

Watching experts gives people confidence they don’t deserve, warned Quartz. You can’t do what they do without years of practice.

Pre 2018

This bulletin includes a global KM directory, principles definitions and a blog by a KM pioneer with whom Halcyon has worked directly. This leading KM commentator addressed issues facing KM in the 21st Century by first going back to some basic principles, while also looking at the future of KM.
A list of Knowledge Management blogs.
A leading commentator argued that KM is "situational" and that we therefore need both 'quantum knowledge flows' and 'physical knowledge assets'.
Professors Martine Haas from the Wharton School and Morten Hansen from INSEAD examined the use of internal knowledge systems by teams of consultants in a firm trying to win sales bids. They measured to what extent these teams accessed electronic documents and how much they sought personal advice from other consultants in the firm. They figured that, surely, accessing more knowledge must be helpful. But they proved themselves wrong; to their surprise they found that the more internal electronic databases were consulted by these teams the more likely they were to lose the bid! Likewise for seeking advice from colleagues. This effect was especially pronounced for very experienced teams. These consultants were much better off relying on their own expertise than trying to tap into experiences by others, whether it was in the form of electronic assets or external advice.
A case study looked into using blogs for knowledge sharing.
Research focused on four dimensions crucial to the successful management of knowledge - personal, team, organisational and inter-organisational.
An article examined issues around "societal knowledge management" - i.e. opportunities to build, maintain, and make the best use of national and international "broad knowledge assets".
The loss of productivity and intellectual capital as baby boomers leave the workforce can devastate some businesses.
The more we learn about self-knowledge, the clearer it is that we all lack insight into ourselves and how others see us. Benjamin Franklin was right when he wrote: “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.” Human nature hasn’t changed in the intervening 250 years, but we do know more about why and when we struggle to see ourselves clearly. This, in turn, suggests there may be ways to improve self-knowledge, said New Scientist.
When APQC asked over 500 people about their knowledge management (KM) priorities, the overwhelming majority said that they expect Big Data and analytics to impact their KM programs in the near term. This wasn’t surprising. As Carla O’Dell said, “The rationale for doing analytics for KM is huge.”
Klever, an enterprise software and services provider, released its second annual industry benchmark report on the perceptions and realities of KM programmes. Klever's 'The State of Knowledge Sharing 2016' focused on the processes, tools, culture and behaviours necessary to succeed in a knowledge-sharing programme.
Eventus claimed to have identified a dramatic increase in interest in Knowledge Management (KM). When planned, deployed and managed correctly, KM can improve self-service capabilities while simultaneously making people more efficient. However, one question Eventus hears frequently is where is KM headed? To answer this question, it has just published a new whitepaper 'What Does the Future of Knowledge Management Look Like'.
See also from Real KM:

See also from APQC:
Accelerators of Knowledge Management Maturity Series
Knowledge Mapping
Complete Knowledge Maps to Identify Knowledge Gaps and Needs
What Does a Successful Community of Practice Program Look Like?
Knowledge Management in 2016 and Beyond: Questions and Predictions (Slides)
APQC’s Process-based Knowledge Map: Description and Instructions
Communities of Practice
Effective Measurement of Knowledge Management Initiatives
Connecting People to Content (Best Practices Report)
Document Your KM Strategy and Roadmap
APQC's Levels of Knowledge Management Maturity
As knowledge management evolves, so does KMWorld's list of 100 Companies That Matter in KM. Featuring basic imaging technology first published years ago, the list has expanded to include a galaxy of technologies and capabilities to meet the knowledge needs of a mobile workforce. Whether the designated companies specialise in collaborative, cloud or cognitive computing or a host of other categories, their solutions represent - for KMWorld - the best in innovation, creativity and functionality.
A systematic review published in the journal Cogent Business & Management analysed the possible antecedents and factors facilitating or impeding knowledge management and knowledge sharing in organisations. A meta-review of 64 relevant articles published across the years 2010-2015 was conducted. Both quantitative and qualitative studies were included. The researchers noted the following key findings: trust is the most important determinant of knowledge sharing and transfer; the presence of rewards and motivation facilitates knowledge sharing and transfer and organisational structure is an important factor that facilitates or impedes the transfer of knowledge in the organisation.
In many organisations, the typical off-boarding process is a whirlwind of project wrap-ups, paperwork, and exit interviews, but failing to capture the departing employee’s organisational-specific knowhow is shortsighted- especially if the person leaving has “deep smarts - meaning business critical, experienced-based” knowledge. According to a professor emerita at Harvard Business School and chief adviser of the consulting firm Leonard-Barton Group, "These are the people who have so much tribal knowledge and are so valuable that they become almost irreplaceable. You are not going to be able to clone the employee, but you can identify her behaviors, thought patterns, and processes that have made her such a valuable decision-maker."
In 2015, APQC claimed to have tested more than 90 statistical correlations across data from 218 knowledge management (KM) programmes. The result was the discovery of a set of foundational KM capabilities they call 'accelerators of Knowledge Management Maturity', because putting them in place can vastly increase a company's odds of building a mature, impactful KM programme.
For companies taking the lead in KM, there are new opportunities available by leveraging cloud-based services as well as by converging efforts with Big Data initiatives. So claimed a new survey, 'The State of Knowledge Management: 2015-16', of 483 executives and managers who are subscribers to KMWorld Magazine. The survey revealed that fully-functioning KM systems remain a rarity today. About one-third of respondents indicate that they have fully implemented a comprehensive enterprise scale KM system, but another one-third do not have such a system or are in the exploration stage. Only one-third have had programmes underway for five years or more.

See also the following from Real KM magazine during January 2016:

See also:

A new paper claimed that embodied knowledge can “unlock innovation, creativity and intelligence in business”. However, this isn’t embodied knowledge as traditionally interpreted by knowledge management (i.e. a type of tacit knowledge where the body knows how to act, such as riding a bicycle), but a collective, physical experience that is claimed to change individual perceptions of others.

The growing importance of knowledge work and knowledge workers demands innovative human resources management practices and policies, argued RealKM. Compared with traditional forms of work, knowledge work is said to have a broader scope, be less predictable, and involve a greater degree of judgment from workers. Thus, it cannot be centrally designed as a set of procedures and cannot be directly managed.

Forrester's Knowledge Management For Customer Engagement report examined the capabilities of 18 KM vendors and offered a decision framework for choosing the right type of solution tailored for an organisation's needs. According to the report's author, knowledge delivered to the customer or the customer-facing employee at the right time in the customer engagement process is critical to a successful interaction.

The CEO's role in Knowledge Management from Quality Digest argued that certain leaders are able to achieve greater and more sustainable results from KM than others, despite having similar KM experts and technology at their disposal, and listed the qualities that seem to set these leaders apart from others.

In the tradition of year-end “Best Of” lists, APQC wrapped up December by sharing its five most popular KM content pieces from 2015: 1. Connecting People to Content; 2. Knowledge Mapping: An APQC Overview and Knowledge Mapping Concepts and Tools Collection for how-tos, templates, and more; 3. 2015 KM Priorities Executive Summary; 4. Structure and Staffing of Best-Practice KM Programs and 5. Choosing the Right Knowledge Transfer Approach.

The CEO’s role in knowledge management' listed the qualities that could set apart the leaders who are able to achieve greater and more sustainable results from knowledge management.

In 'The Knowledge Economy Revolution', RealKM claimed that in the economies of most developed countries, knowledge has already supplanted capital, land and labour as a factor of production. In a knowledge economy, value is created mainly through new ideas on how to arrange resources, and knowledge and technology are more relevant than raw materials and cheap labour. This introduces fundamental alterations.

In a tutorial session at the KMWorld 2015 Conference in Washington, Stan Garfield discusseed what he called the “16 myths of knowledge management”, debunking each one.

November 2015

A review of some of the recent literature on knowledge brokering defined knowledge brokers as “people or organisations that move knowledge around and create connections between researchers and their various audiences”. Knowledge brokers have been used in fields such as health, environmental management, and international development.

Dave Snowden, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge, advised in his keynote at KM World 2015 that complexity theory, which is the science of uncertainty, has significant implications for knowledge management. He urged a focus on more person-to-person interaction as a source of knowledge.

In a recent video interview, a Wharton University adjunct professor talked about how organisations can determine which of their knowledge assets are the most strategically relevant, and how best to deploy them.

Teleos, in association with The KNOW Network, announced the 14 Winners of the 2015 Americas Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) study. For the third consecutive year, Google has been named the Overall Americas MAKE Winner. The 2015 Americas MAKE Winners are (in alphabetical order): Amazon.com, Apple, APQC, ConocoPhillips, Ecopetrol, FMC Technologies, Google, IBM, Mars, Microsoft, MITRE, Phillips 66, Tesla and Thomson Reuters.

Teleos, in association with The KNOW Network, announced the 25 Winners of the 2015 Asian Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) study. The Singapore Armed Forces was recognised as the Overall Asian MAKE Winner for the third time. The 2015 Asian MAKE Winners were: Architectural Services Department (Government of Hong Kong SAR, China), Arup Hong Kong, CLP Power Hong Kong, COFCO Corporation Nutrition and Health Research Institute (China), Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, eClerx Services, EY, Hong Kong, Ernst & Young Hua Ming LLP, Far East Holding Group Co., HCL Technologies, Infosys Limited, Isfahan Mobarakeh Steel Company, Korea Water Resources Corporation, Pertamina, Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDS, Singapore Armed Forces, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra, TELKOM Indonesia, Titan Company, Toyota Motor Corporation, United Tractors, Wipro Limited and Woods Bagot.

Please see below a selection of further recent KM -related good practices:

Knowledge Asset Accounting at last! - Ron Young

Knowledge Management is impossible - BAE Systems

Management Tools & Trends 2015 - Bain & Co.

Whatever Happened to Knowledge Management? - WSJ

Defining KM today

What Will Make the Biggest Near-term Impact on KM? - KM professionals across industries debate the future state of KM.

2015 Knowledge Management Priorities Executive Summary - Key findings from APQC’s research on organisations’ near-term KM plans and priorities.

Knowledge Management: Old School vs. New School - infographic with key data on “classic” KM approaches (like lessons learned) vs. “cutting-edge" KM (like KM mobile apps).

The End of Knowledge Management As We Know it?

When executives talk about “knowledge management” today, the conversation usually turns very quickly to the challenge of big data and analytics, claimed the Harvard Business Review. That’s hardly surprising: Extraordinary amounts of rich, complicated data about customers, operations, and employees are now available to most managers, but that data is proving difficult to translate into useful knowledge. Surely, the thinking goes, if the right experts and the right tools are set loose on those megabytes, brilliant strategic insights will emerge. Tantalising as the promise of big data is, an undue focus on it may cause companies to neglect something even more important—the proper management of all their strategic knowledge assets: core competencies, areas of expertise, intellectual property, and deep pools of talent. HBR contends that in the absence of a clear understanding of the knowledge drivers of an organisation’s success, the real value of big data will never materialise. Yet few companies think explicitly about what knowledge they possess, which parts of it are key to future success, how critical knowledge assets should be managed, and which spheres of knowledge can usefully be combined. In this article we’ll describe in detail how to manage this process.

Knowledge Asset Accounting at last! - Ron Young
Knowledge Management is impossible - BAE Systems
Management Tools & Trends 2015 - Bain & Co.
Whatever Happened to Knowledge Management? - WSJ
Defining KM today
What Will Make the Biggest Near-term Impact on KM? - KM professionals across industries debate the future state of KM.
2015 Knowledge Management Priorities Executive Summary - Key findings from APQC’s research on organizations’ near-term KM plans and priorities. For even more, see the full data report.
Knowledge Management: Old School vs. New School - Infographic with key data on “classic” KM approaches (like lessons learned) vs. “cutting-edge" KM (like KM mobile apps).
The End of Knowledge Management As We Know it?
KMWorld identified 100 companies that matter in KM in 2015.

ANALYTICS

Knowledge Analytics and the Future of KM

BARRIERS

Harvard Business Review (2003) on how to fix KM.

Knowledge Management Barriers, Practices and Maturity Models

This month members can read an article from the 'Journal of Knowledge Management' on "Knowledge Management Barriers, Practices and Maturity Models" by Fabio Lotti Oliva. This article presents the main barriers and key practices associated with KM, and presents a model for the evaluation of the level of maturity in KM based on the practices adopted by large Brazilian companies.

http://www.knowledgebusiness.com (Knowledge Library - JKM/JIC Articles)

BENEFITS

Benefits of undertaking a KM programme, by Stan Garfield

BOOKS

Designing a Successful KM Strategy - A Guide for the Knowledge Management Professional, Stephanie Barnes and Nick Milton, 2015

Intellectual Capital in Organizations: Non-Financial Reports and Accounts, Patricia Ordoñez de Pablos, Leif Edvinsson

CHANGE

This article proposes that readiness for knowledge sharing involves developing a holistic understanding of the process through identification of individual and organisational readiness. Findings show that beliefs regarding knowledge sharing and individual expertise determine individual readiness to share knowledge. Instilling a collective commitment accelerates readiness for knowledge sharing. Findings also highlight the moderating influences of firm archetype, inter-profession differences, and knowledge nature in the interplay between change readiness elements and the knowledge sharing process.

CLOUD

For many organisations, the cloud and big data could help address many of their KM problems.

DEFINITIONS

The field of knowledge management (KM) is broad. It continues to evolve in parallel with related fields. Organisations use a variety of terms to describe their efforts. Many people complain that “Knowledge Management” is a poor term.

GAMIFICATION

APQC has heard a lot from organisations that are using gamification to engage Millennials in knowledge sharing. We’ve seen that this approach can work for all generations - Gamification in KM collection

GLOSSARY

This glossary provides definitions for KM terminology, as well as links to relevant contextual content and examples from APQC's Knowledge Base.

GOOD PRACTICES

APQC hosted its 20th Annual Knowledge Management (KM) Conference on April 30 – May 1, 2015 – key presentations.

LEARNING

If you hear any of these statements in the corridors around your organisation, then your KM is not working.

Learning KM and Big Data in this new business era is vital. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University is now offering its first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) titled “Knowledge Management and Big Data in Business” commencing on 25th August 2015 on the MIT edX platform. The course is delivered by an international team of experts and is suitable for participants with background in humanities, management, social science, physical science or engineering. No prior technical background is assumed. The course is FREE for all. Please register and explore yourself how KM and Big Data will change our traditional way of thinking and doing business in this knowledge revolution. You can take this course ANYTIME and ANYWHERE during the offering period.
MATURITY

On KM maturity models.

INDUSTRIES

Three examples of how government agencies are using KM tools to collaborate and innovate.

Knowledge Management Barriers Impeding Learning in Gas and Petroleum Companies

This month members can read an article from the 'Journal of Knowledge Management' on "Knowledge Management Barriers Impeding Learning in Gas and Petroleum Companies" by Mina Ranjbarfard, Mohammad Aghdasi, Pedro Lopez-Saez and Jose Emilio Navas-Lopez. This article ranks the barriers of the four knowledge management processes including generation, storage, distribution and application in the gas and petroleum sector. The authors found that the knowledge generation and knowledge application barriers were significantly different between gas and petroleum companies. The study provides a checklist that can be used as an assessment tool for evaluating knowledge management processes.

http://www.knowledgebusiness.com (Knowledge Library - JKM/JIC Articles)

INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL

Intellectual Capital Dimensions: State of the Art in 2014

This month members also can read an article from the 'Journal of Intellectual Capital' on "Intellectual Capital Dimensions: State of the Art in 2014." This study reports on a systematic review of peer-reviewed articles on IC classification. The review was conducted for the period 2004 to 2014 to ensure that all major models are included, important works developed prior to 2004 were captured as well. The timeline indicates that 2008-2013 represents the years of greatest research activity (outcomes). Additionally, the analysis of the list of IC frameworks resulted in the development of an IC Meta model. It synthesizes research activities in the field and highlights the main IC dimensions and sub-dimensions.

http://www.knowledgebusiness.com (Knowledge Library - JKM/JIC Articles)

SHARING

Knowledge-Hoarding is a No-Win Proposition People with critical knowledge protect it as if it were their own property and actively try to hide this knowledge from others, even when this damages team or organizational effectiveness. http://www.knowledgebusiness.com/knowledgebusiness/Templates/ReadKnowledgeLibrary.aspx?siteId=1&menuItemId=34&contentHeaderId=7797

STRATEGY

Priorities for a KM programme, by Stan Garfield.

Five business problems that a KM strategy can help solve.

TERRORISM

Terrorism and knowledge management. The world is again mourning the victims of a terrorist attack. How can knowledge management assist in the fight against terrorism? Read more »

TO DO

Contacts:Quincy

Introduction to KM

http://www.nickmilton.com/2011/08/km-introduction-video.html

Problems KM is facing in 2013

http://theknowledgecore.wordpress.com/2011/07/31/the-truth-can-we-handle-the-truth/

Is KM in a state of chaos http://www.nickmilton.com/2011/07/knowledge-management-term-lost-in.html

KM good practices Notes Link

http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/think-for-yourself-about-km?open

Is there really a need for knowledge management? http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/3149/23/5/3

Assessment

http://www.apqc.org/knowledge-base/documents/where-are-you-now-knowledge-management-program-self-assessment

Barriers

A recent study suggested that employees have three particular techniques for sabotaging KM initiatives, all of which the researchers classify as "knowledge hiding": (1) being evasive - repeatedly ignoring requests; (2) rationalised hiding - such as claiming a report is confidential when it really isn't and (c) playing dumb - pretending they don't have the information that is being requested.

Benefits

Top 10 APQC KM insights

How businesses can benefit from change by communicating and sharing knowledge. http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/3144/23/5/3

Blogs

http://rondon.wordpress.com/feed/

Books

http://billives.typepad.com/portals_and_km/2011/08/review-of-kate-pughs-sharing-hidden-know-how.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+typepad/WGHl+(Portals+and+KM)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Collaboration

Collaboration as an intangible asset http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/collaboration_as_an_intangible.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+harvardbusiness+(HBR.org)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Culture

http://www.nickmilton.com/2011/07/km-culture-embedded.html

Customer support

Knowledge-Centered Customer Support
RSS: KM World[001] - 09-07-2012
Great customer support remains one of the few differentiators that businesses can sustain over time. Companies that are winning in today's hypercompetitive business environment provide standout customer service by leveraging knowledge to empower contact center agents and enable superior self-service for customers. eGain has delivered KM solutions for multichannel customer support for well over 15 years. In the process, we have compiled hundreds of best practices; here are some of the popular ones. . . .
learn more

Ecologies

http://www.euansemple.com/theobvious/2011/6/28/ten-ways-to-create-a-knowledge-ecology.html

Embedding KM

Managing Knowledge in and Above the Flow of Business

Events

http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/2010/11/gott_ist_tot_or_reflections_on.php

Frameworks

Exploring the Knowledge Management Landscape: A Critical Review of Existing Knowledge Management Frameworks

Guidance

Complete Guide to KM http://www.knowledgebusiness.com/knowledgebusiness/Templates/ReadKnowledgeLibrary.aspx?siteId=1&menuItemId=33&contentHeaderId=6900

Implementing

Piloting

Barriers and drivers

KM below the radar (HBR)

Personal Knowledge Management

Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age

An introduction to personal knowledge management http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/3150/23/5/3

Functions

Integrating KM with every organisational function

Future of KM

http://theknowledgecore.wordpress.com/2011/07/16/the-future-of-km/

Call Centres

KM and call centres http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/3049

CRM

Tim Hines outlines why deep integration of knowledge management into CRM systems can prove so valuable. http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/3133/23/5/3

Intangibles

A major thinktank published a report on Accounting for Intangibles: Financial Reporting and Value Creation in the Knowledge Economy.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

http://www.knowledgebusiness.com/knowledgebusiness/Templates/ReadKnowledgeLibrary.aspx?siteId=1&menuItemId=33&contentHeaderId=6911

Linking KM

Experience Management http://www.nickmilton.com/2011/07/experience-management-continued.html

Markets

It was claimed in 2011 that the first fully transactional knowledge market with both global pay-in/pay-out capabilities, and full anonymity offered for both companies and individuals, has been launched. http://www.knowledgeboard.com/item/3131/23/5/3

Mentoring

Suresh Venkatesan, Knowledge Champion for the banking and financial services vertical of Tata Consultancy Services, has written a brief white paper on the merits of mentoring to ensure the transfer of strategic knowledge before an individual retires or leaves an organisation.

Mergers & Acquisitions

APQC published The Role of KM in Mergers and Acquisitions

Principles

10 principles for managing knowledge http://www.knowledgebusiness.com/knowledgebusiness/Templates/ReadKnowledgeLibrary.aspx?siteId=1&menuItemId=34&contentHeaderId=7182

Roles

Challenges facing CKOs http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Can-you-use-ONE-WORD-1539.S.65533994?qid=f783247b-d636-441e-894e-0d308d333c0e&trk=group_most_popular-0-b-ttl&goback=.gde_1539_member_65533994.gmp_1539

Standards

The Borg have arrived! International Knowledge Management Standards and Accreditation Association
RSS: Theknowledgecore | David Griffiths' Blog - 07-07-2012
Follow @kmskunkworks Another week and another surprise in the KM world. A new self-proclaimed world licensing and accreditation body have announced themselves, the International Knowledge Management Standards & Accreditation Association. They are based out of the United States and have unveiled themselves in order to “make it more clear that this is not another competing KM group, but a consolidation of all KM groups as far as Standards & Accreditation are concerned”. Wow! I had no idea. There go all my years of research. None of the Higher Education Institutions in the UK or EU, that I work with, were asked to contribute or consolidate and therefore I assume that our work is inconsequential. Out of nowhere comes a group that is going to govern our field, license us to practice and accredit us as Knowledge Managers (after all, I am a practitioner first and an academic second). I naively assumed that this group would engage with leading lights in the KM field, top minds, people who have served this field for almost 30 years. No, that would be silly. Apparently they were “eliminated from discussion”, their words, not mine, because they have an established bias and would attempt to polarise the international KM community through their views; not that they do this anyway, being global thought leaders! A second reason for this “elimination” was because they have conflicting commercial interests; not that a world governing body for KM, or the individuals involved, would have any commercial interests. Not only that, are they starting small, scaling failure? Don’t be ridiculous. This is to be assimilation on a global scale; everyone from KPMG to an IT start-up in Rio…someone might want to point them to the failure associated with ‘grand plan’ projects; after all, even the Borg were defeated. Right, so let’s take the best KMers in the world and “eliminate” them because they have conflicting views or commercial interests. “Eliminate” thousands of
learn more

Teams

The Link between KM and Team Performance" http://www.knowledgebusiness.com/knowledgebusiness/Templates/ReadKnowledgeLibrary.aspx?siteId=1&menuItemId=34&contentHeaderId=6860

Tips

http://www.nickmilton.com/2011/09/top-7-tips-for-knowledge-management.html

Transfer

Knowledge Transfer a selected bibliography of the topic of knowledge transfer. http://www.knowledgeboard.com/lib/4050

Measuring knowledge transfer http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/discuss.cgi?thread_id=402

Only the knowledge economy can provide the jobs and balanced growth needed to secure the UK’s future prosperity. http://www.theworkfoundation.com/research/publications/publicationdetail.aspx?oItemId=290

Unknown

We don't know what we don't know http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2011/07/we-dont-know-what-we-dont-know.html

Websites

Compendia of recommended KM sites and blogs from: Lucas McDonnell Stan Garfield

World

A global vision for KM? http://www.linkedin.com/groups/While-working-on-my-KM-1539.S.56123763

In 2014, APQC created a new collection highlighting KM programs inside professional and business services firms: Knowledge Management Profiles by Industry: Professional Services.

Topics

Levels

Timelines

Spaces

Signifiers