A community to build a knowledge network
Internal communities enable workers problems faster and more effectively to solve. A vibrant community, people from across the organization brings together, will generate even more innovation.
Reduction of (sub) search costs
A key benefit of a community is that it is easier to have prior knowledge in a company. The knowledge can be found by simply stored knowledge to search the platform or by finding people who have the knowledge or have access to that knowledge. Because the way you can easily have knowledge leads to a reduction of (sub) search costs. You do not so often to hire outside experts.
Some communities save hundreds of hours analyzing business around a single topic. A community thus provides significant benefits to both the organization and the individual. This would be reason enough for people to contribute to a community.
Barriers
The reality is stubborn. It appears to be difficult to motivate people to help colleagues and some barriers are difficult to remove. There are several aspects that affect knowledge sharing. Some are psychological in nature, such as the fear of not being taken seriously or fear of losing monopoly on that knowledge. Such psychological factors are complex to manage and take time and confidence to change.
There is a powerful alternative to the accessibility of knowledge. Instead of asking people to answer a substantive question, describe the "knowledge needs" and ask people who might help identify themselves. This is not the knowledge itself in the community, but the knowledge will be unlocked. This way you build a 'knowledge network' instead of a 'knowledge bank'.
Knowledge Network
These knowledge networks work amazingly well. You can compare them with hyperlinks on the Web that identify relevant sources, but in this case the relevant people identified.
Besides the fact that this is a powerful way to unlock knowledge, this method also helps to eliminate said barriers. People no longer fear losing their monopoly on knowledge because they instinctively keep control over the people with whom they share knowledge. In addition, the investment of time to indicate that you have such knowledge are significantly smaller than the investment required to share the knowledge itself.
Active in our communities that we can achieve yourself as an expert, encourages people to share. In one of our customers have asked an employee to work on search engine optimization (SEO) for the website of a specific division. She had no experience with it and posted a request for assistance on the internal community. She asked the community who had experience in implementing SEO. Five specialists responded that they had experienced and eager to help. She then personally contacted these people. Access to the knowledge of these people had given her at least two months of work. They also did this not to hire outside experts. Moreover, in the future and ask about SEO search on this term and will have direct access to knowledge.
Where do you start?
But before this reaches you the knowledge paradigm in the minds of the people change. One has to see that you do not have to share knowledge, but need only be accessed via knowledge networks. This insight can be the fastest to reach through a number of good examples to show the community. Once a few good cases are visible, people catch on amazingly quickly.
Jaap Linssen
- Irene http://www.winkwaves.com Frijlink
