TABLE OF CONTENTS The value of what you know can only be seen in what you do.
(Klas Mellander, Chief Designer, Celemi)
In just a few years knowledge management has gone from consultants' hype to an established management strategy. Many people are now talking about a 'second generation' of knowledge management. Views of what this is vary widely. Some consider that it is an emphasis on organizational learning rather than managing knowledge in databases and over intranets. Others consider that it is a focus on innovation through better conversion of new knowledge rather than better deployment and use of existing knowledge. Whatever your own perspective on the next generation, there is little doubt that most organizations are a long way from fully institutionalizing knowledge management or exploiting their knowledge. The central premise of this book is that an important area of under-exploitation is that of converting an organization's internal knowledge assets into externally marketed knowledge-based products and services, in other words a knowledge business. To do this organizations must turn their knowledge inside-out.
This chapter summarizes developments in knowledge management, a prerequisite for building a knowledge business. It starts by reviewing its recent evolution and main characteristics. Examples are given of organizational benefits and the knowledge strategy levers by which these are achieved. Although multi-faceted and broad in scope, knowledge management is epitomized by several increasingly used practices. These include sharing best practices, developing expertise directories, using intranets to improve access to knowledge repositories, and nurturing communities of practice. Another defining characteristic...
