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Knowledge Management :

A Practitioner’s Guide:

Prologue

Knowledge, the saying goes, is power. More and more corporations are realizing this truism and its relevance in establishing and maintaining a competitive advantage. However, knowledge is also elusive and the task of tying it down, encoding it and distributing it is tricky, to say the least. Knowledge has always been the lifeblood of organizations. In the past, it was taken for granted, but that's no longer the case.
The time has come for explicit management of knowledge. While enterprises are realizing how important it is to “know what they know'' and be able to make maximum use of the knowledge, they rarely have an intuitive understanding of:
· what their corporate knowledge assets are;
· how to manage and leverage these assets to get maximum return. The advent of knowledge management systems that enable organizations to formally codify, classify and share knowledge artifacts resident in various parts of the organizations is helping untangle this Gordian Knot.

Purpose

It is difficult today to pick up a business or technology journal without coming across some mention of knowledge management or one of the multifarious discipline threads it has spawned. This new -- or recycled -- discipline is being hailed as the next "big thing," perhaps the biggest thing since reengineering. The skeptics among us might note that big is often better for management consultants and technology vendors, who can capitalize on the trend, than for their clients. Like the other technology and management fads that preceded it, knowledge management is often described as a panacea. We, at Planetasia.com know that it's not. But cutting through the noise and clutter to get to the core can be a challenge worth taking up.
Many organizations with a genuine interest in this discipline are left with more questions than answers after listening to the latest explanation of just what knowledge management is. Sometimes the discourse is more about knowledge itself than business strategy, the solutions suggested are too broad in scope for practical action, or the focus is too narrow (usually the misdemeanor of a product vendor). Still, many continue to search for a cogent argument in favor of launching a knowledge management effort – an effort that promises to consume significant fiscal and human resources.
So, it is with an appreciation for the reader's healthy skepticism that this paper examines knowledge management, not from the standpoint of academic theory, but rather with an eye toward the practical, achievable business benefits of successfully.Knowledge Management – A Practitioner’s Guide Page 3 deployed or practiced knowledge management. That is, what lessons have we learned from our experiences with knowledge management? And how can a company incorporate those learnings into its own knowledge management efforts? Therefore, the purpose of this paper is threefold. First, this will inform the reader about
KM (as Knowledge Management is succinctly referred to), in general by providing an overview of its precepts, its success and failures and its strengths and limitations. Second, this paper will provide a practical context for those organizations thinking about KM. Third, this paper will provide an understanding of what lies ahead both, from a general perspective and specifically for those working to implement a successful KM program.

Approach Methodology

The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. -Einstein (The Evolution of Physics, 1938)
It is with broad spirit of inquiry that we set out to conquer the Babel Tower of KM. Asking the right question often amounts to half-answering it. Hence, this paper is divided into a series of questions that will progressively delve deeper and deeper into the KM discipline and enable the reader to arrive at a cogent, holistic understanding of the same.

What is Knowledge?

Knowledge – the Holy Grail
To think about and understand knowledge management, one should understand what knowledge is and what it isn't. However, this paper does not purport to be a discourse about semantics. Hence, rather than split semantic hairs on whether a particular artifact is data, information or knowledge,
Knowledge is any artifact that can lead to a competitive advantage.” The quality and accessibility of information within an organization has true strategic advantages if used properly. The information age has lead to a focus on KM as a competitive advantage versus merely a process. Therefore, while the ostensible ideals and principles of knowledge management can tend to be esoteric and lofty, the final arbiter of its efficacy and relevance lie in its ability to contribute to the bottom line. It confronts the question "So what?" and comes up with answers that produce significant business results..

What are the types of Knowledge?

 From a KM perspective, there are three major buckets that we can start to throw knowledge into. Those buckets or types are explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge and cultural knowledge.
Explicit knowledge is formal knowledge that is easy to transmit or disseminate throughout an organization. Examples can be seen in rules, specifications, mathematical formulas or IT service and support benchmarks.
Tacit knowledge is more implicit and much harder to articulate. Tacit knowledge can be best thought of as having two dimensions, a technical dimension and a cognitive dimension. The technical dimension is know-how represented in "the master craftsman" who "develops a wealth of expertise 'at his fingertips' after years of experience. But he is often unable to articulate the scientific or technical principles behind what he knows" (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995, p. 8). The cognitive dimension of tacit knowledge consists of schemata, mental models and perceptions.
Cultural knowledge is a filter that helps us place a value on certain parts of knowledge and also keeps out knowledge that is deemed unimportant by the dominant group in a culture or organization.
Each of these genres of knowledge is fundamentally and intrinsically different from the others and therefore its treatment must perforce be appropriately different.

What is Knowledge Management?

 Knowledge assets are the knowledge regarding markets, products, technologies and organizations, that a business owns or needs to own and which enable its business processes to generate profits, add value, etc.
Knowledge management is not only about managing these knowledge assets but managing the processes that act upon the assets. These processes include developing knowledge; preserving knowledge; using knowledge, and sharing knowledge.
Therefore, Knowledge management can be viewed as a systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling and presenting information in a way that improves an employee's comprehension in a specific area of interest. It seeks to protect intellectual assets from decay, seeks opportunities to enhance decisions, services and products through adding intelligence, increasing value and providing flexibility.
Knowledge management complements and enhances other organizational initiatives such as total quality management (TQM), business process re-engineering (BPR) and organizational learning, providing a new and urgent focus to sustain a competitive position.

Why is Knowledge Management Important?

 Advocates of knowledge management theory argue that our concepts of what a business is are in the process of being abandoned. The traditional views of business and traditional organizational structure have been undergoing a series of changes. As the pressures of business continue to accelerate, we find ourselves working in a “wicked” corporate environment, characterized by discontinuous and drastic changes,.Knowledge Management – A Practitioner’s Guide Page 5 where none of the old values or old ways seem to make sense anymore. What is sorely needed, and what the knowledge management perspective provides us with, is a fresh, consistent and functional model for business, one that can help us explain why things worked in the past, how they can work better in the future, and how we can get there.
In the past, organizational performance was defined by slow and predictable change easily managed by traditional information systems. The success of businesses in the 1990's in an increasingly competitive marketplace depends critically on the quality of knowledge that those organizations apply to their key business processes. For example, the supply chain depends on knowledge of diverse areas including raw materials, planning, manufacturing and distribution. Likewise product development requires knowledge of consumer requirements, new materials, new technology, marketing etc. Any company that can figure out how to give its people the organizational knowledge they need – at the point and time needed – can position itself to compete more effectively and succeed much faster. Many companies have vital knowledge resting with one individual and do little to make the knowledge more generally available. Many companies are unaware of their own knowledge base and evidence has shown that knowledge is often lost from a company through employee attrition or related cost saving measures. The enterprise that harnesses its intellectual capital can apply that asset to its business challenges and opportunities
The challenge of deploying the knowledge assets of an organization to create a competitive advantage becomes more crucial as:
· The marketplace is increasingly competitive and the rate of innovation is rising, so that knowledge must evolve and be assimilated at an ever faster rate.
· Corporations are organizing their businesses to be focused on creating customer value. Staff functions are being reduced as are management structures. There is a need to replace the informal knowledge management of the staff function with formal methods in customer aligned business processes.
· Competitive pressures are reducing the size of the workforce that holds this knowledge.
· Knowledge takes time to experience and acquire. Employees have less and less time for this.
· There are trends for employees to retire earlier and for increasing mobility, leading to loss of knowledge.
· There is a need to manage increasing complexity as even small companies are operating trans-nationally.
· A change in strategic direction may result in the loss of knowledge in a specific area. A subsequent reversal in policy may then lead to a renewed requirement for this knowledge, but the employees with that knowledge may no longer be there.

What are the benefits and costs associated with KM?

 Knowledge Management – The Double-edged Sword.
Benefits Knowledge is about helping people understand. Knowledge without understanding is just information. KM helps service firms better manage information, which results in increased business and improved execution of projects. A key aspect of Knowledge Management is understanding how organizations, markets, and individuals create and manage value, and then facilitating the reuse of this knowledge. KM is viewed as a huge opportunity for companies to cut costs and leverage their internal assets to generate new revenue.
Internet technologies are making it possible to put vast resources of internal documents online over corporate intranets for easy search and retrieval, and new, real-time messaging systems can link executives to the experts within their organizations with the click of a button. The benefits of using KM include establishing a competitive advantage, retrieval and use of information, and effective decision making.
1. Competitive Advantage The key aspect of effective Knowledge Management is the ability of organizations to use internal knowledge as a competitive advantage. KM is not simply managing information flow through the company, but the integration and use of information in the form of real knowledge. Companies who are able to leverage the people, process, and institutional knowledge possessed by the company have a distinct advantage over their competitors.
Others can imitate most competitive advantages in the industry. The one true advantage all companies solely possess is the knowledge and experiences of their employees. Reigning in this information and presenting it in a fashion that is useable and viable can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful venture. In fact, the time of profits derived solely from labor and capital is changing. Companies that focus on knowledge-based growth as a competitive advantage are difficult to undermine.
Additionally, management of the future will be tasked with the ability to effectively use information available to them, while ensuring the collection and distribution of information into knowledge and in turn results. In a June 22, 1998 article in Business Week Online, Jack Welch, chairman of GE, said "an organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage."
Examples of corporations realizing competitive advantages of KM include Texas Instruments (TI) and Candence Design Systems. In an article by Sherrie Butler, quantitative results of KM successes include savings of $2 billion for TI and $7.6 million for Candence. TI realized savings from encouraging 'out of the box' thinking, which resulting in improved manufacturing and eliminating the need for new plants. An Intranet.Knowledge Management – sales training program at Candence enabled the representatives to move out to the field two to four months faster resulting in significant cost savings. Both of these companies used KM to improve profits by cutting costs. Organizations that are unable to turn what they know into profits will simply get run over by those who are able.
To actually achieve a competitive advantage, a firm can:
· Target and communicate the specific knowledge subjects critical to the firm.
· Identify and support the critical intellectual areas of the firm.
· Place knowledge expectations/requirements on all employees.
· Train all employees in the knowledge required to do business.
· Create a culture of KM collaboration.
· Implement a change management method.
· Stay linked to knowledgeable employees and former employees.
2. Retrieval and Use of Information Knowledge Management helps companies gain a competitive advantage by providing for easy access to information. The efficient retrieval and effective use of information is what gives one company an advantage over another. Many companies use KM in the form of knowledge databases. Arthur Anderson, LLP for example, uses a "Knowledge Space" that contains their valuable information. Knowledge database systems such as this allow easy access to personnel records including past projects, project evaluations, and skill sets. Additionally, these systems contain catalogued information on past projects, expectations, solutions, and processes.
The easier retrieval of information is often a result of reduced paper tools. Not only does a KM system reduce the amount of paper work and forms required to run the business, but it also reduces the amount of paper that has to be reviewed to find answers to common situations. The reduction of time and effort results in increased productivity and a greater focus on more important aspects of the corporation.
Another example of this is the "Knowledge Network" used by Allina Health System of Minneapolis. The non-profit agency was able to reduce administration costs and improve employee performance by sharing project information on its Intranet. The network allows employees to publish and access information regarding projects and products. The system allows for quick reference to important policy and contract information. Management estimates savings of up to 100-200 hours per week in documentation upkeep. Allina expects the Intranet-based system will replace expensive paper-based processes in the form of copies, binding, and delivery. Additionally, 'soft costs' savings of increased productivity, reduced cycle time and improved customer service are also considered benefits..Knowledge Management –
3. Effective Decision Making The easy and organized access to information means managers can make quicker, educated decisions without constantly reinventing the wheel. Knowledge databases often encompass some type of expert systems and best practices methodology. These practices provide an opportunity to share information, while ensuring quality. We saw the use of an expert system in the Soft Software case in class. The practice of identifying decision-making parameters used by the most expert personnel to be used in an expert system is one way to provide easy access to quality knowledge. Also, maintaining information on best practices derived from experienced personnel makes valuable information accessible and useable. This information can be gathered and maintained even after experts leave the company.
Expert systems like in the Soft Software case can be used to make basic decisions immediately by a simple query of the system. More complex situations can be solved by gathering standard practices for similar situations and then determining the best solution. Either way, having quality information centrally available makes decision making easy and fast.
Costs As with any major undertaking, there are significant costs associated with KM systems. Not only are there costs involved with purchasing the actual hardware and software system, but also there are intangible costs in the form of security issues, information overload, and over dependency.
1. Implementation Costs Knowledge Management is an investment. The use of Knowledge Management strategies requires planning, effective management, and qualified employees. These requirements result in increased costs to seek effective managers and develop accurate plans. As Davenport states, "Knowledge Management is expensive (but so is stupidity!)." The costs of hiring the right employees and creating an implementation plan are combined with the hard costs of the software and hardware. Just as with any major expenditure, corporations must run an adequate cost/benefit analysis of the project. Although, according to Davenport, Buckman Laboratories estimates expenditures of 7% of its revenues on Knowledge Management, while McKinsey and Company has an objective of allocating 10% of its revenues to developing and managing intellectual
capital. Moreover, the preparation of the cost estimate involves many tedious calculations and is often underestimated. It is important that the project leader utilize information.Knowledge Management – A Practitioner’s Guide Page 9 specialists from a variety of disciplines to ensure the computations and requirements can be properly developed, interpreted, and coordinated. Companies first need to determine the necessity of a KM system for themselves. As Erik Brynjolfsson pointed out, "the same dollar spent on the same system may give a competitive advantage to one company but only an expensive paperweight to another." KM systems are successful when developed for the specific corporation. Simply taking an existing package and attempting to fit it to the organization will most likely result in a data dump and not effective Knowledge Management.
2. Security Costs Another cost associated with Knowledge Management concerns the security issue. Security issues of KM include outside vendors managing the system as well as open access to company information and control of that access.
Companies' concerns regarding the security and confidentiality of data and other information are important; however, they also recognize that activities that require access to secure and sensitive information may be contracted to vendors. Outsourcing has been in effect in private industry for a number of years. Commercial organizations such as banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, and organizations with extensive research and development activities have designed processes by which their most closely held information is often processed in an outsource environment.
Contractors have long operated in the most secure environments in government and industry. The language in secure environment contracts requires contractors to take necessary precautions. In addition, contractors working in such situations are often required to establish and promulgate security procedures with the appropriate Federal agency auditing compliance by the contractor and the contractor’s personnel.
The other major security concern regarding KM systems is the dissemination of sensitive information. As employees are allowed wider access to corporate processes, information critical to the success of the company could find its way outside the organization. Providing adequate access to information, while ensuring the safety of vital corporate products and procedures is a dilemma of KM.
3. Information Pollution Besides the security issues, companies face poor decision making due to information overload. As the information via the Internet, World Wide Web and other technologies is proliferating, people are experiencing a form of pollution. Brad Hoyt of Hoyt Consulting says "pollution and not information overload, because there is a subtle difference".
Overload implies people are overwhelmed with so much information that decision making becomes more cumbersome instead of more efficient. Pollution on the other hand actually refers to making information less suitable for a given activity. Companies.Knowledge Management – A Practitioner’s Guide Page 10 must watch for irrelevant information being pushed upon users. As the users' experiences become more polluted with inaccurate, useless information the channel of viable information will eventually dry up. This leaves corporations to limit KM systems to truly accurate and useful information or risk achieving completely opposite results than intended.
4. Over Dependency
Over dependency on data may actually retard the decision process and allows excuses for bad decisions. According to Tom Davenport, "if you're spending more than one-third of your time on technologies for Knowledge Management, you're neglecting the content, organizational culture and motivational approaches that will make a Knowledge Management system actually useful." A recent Business Week article claimed, "Computers that think are almost here...The ultimate goal of artificial intelligence -human- like reasoning - is within reach." The fact is that firms wishing to effectively manage knowledge today need a heavy dose of human labor. Humans are very good at certain types of activities, computers at others. Human beings may be expensive and difficult to manage, but they are quite accomplished at certain knowledge skills. When
we seek to understand knowledge, to interpret it within a broader context, to combine it with other types of information, or to synthesize various unstructured forms of knowledge, humans are the recommended tools. Computers and communications systems, on the other hand, are good at different types of things. For the capture, transformation, and distribution of highly structured knowledge that changes rapidly, computers are more capable than people.
Computers are increasingly useful, although still a bit awkward, for performing these same tasks on less structured textual and visual knowledge. However, the truth is most people don't turn to computers when they want a rich picture of a particular situation. People do not see computers as capable of replacing human decision-making capabilities, but instead computers should be used to enhance the human abilities with faster access to and organization of information.

Why is Knowledge Management Difficult?

 Knowledge Management – The Tower of Babel
There are many problems associated with finding out these knowledge assets and being able to use them in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Enterprises need:
· to have an enterprise-wide vocabulary to ensure that the knowledge is correctly understood;
· to be able to identify, model and explicitly represent their knowledge;
· to share and re-use their knowledge among differing applications for various types of users, this implies being able to share existing knowledge sources and also future ones.
Knowledge engineering methods and tools have come a long way towards addressing the USE of a company's knowledge assets, They provide disciplined approaches to designing and building knowledge-based applications. There are tools to support the.Knowledge Management – A Practitioner’s Guide Page 11 capture, modelling, validation, verification and maintenance of the knowledge in these applications. However these tools do not extend to supporting the processes for managing corporate knowledge.
In any case, the knowledge modelling techniques that exist to support the use of the knowledge, along with traditional physical assets management techniques, provide a starting point to manage fully the knowledge assets within a company.

How to Manage Knowledge?

 Karl Wiig described three "pillars" for knowledge management: survey and categorise knowledge; appraise and evaluate value of knowledge; and synthesise knowledge related activities.
Therefore, from a practitioner’s perspective, the four key components (or a KM Roadmap, as it is referred to by those inclined to use jargon) of managing intellectual assets are:
· Identifying the intellectual assets
· Capturing the intellectual assets
· Sharing (leveraging) the intellectual assets
· Monitoring and Review
Identify
Identifying intellectual assets is done through knowledge audits. The goal of this stage is to locate and map knowledge in the organization. It comprises of an audit of "intellectual assets" that highlights unique sources, critical functions and potential bottlenecks which hinder knowledge flows to the point of use. This “knowledge audit” provides answers to the questions like:
· What knowledge is needed?
· Where does that knowledge reside?
· What form is it in?
· What does it contain?
· What is its use?
· How accessible is it?
Capture
Capturing intellectual assets is the way in which knowledge is stored or held, in a reusable format, for future use. This is not only technological formats, but includes the narratives and corporate folklore told by members of the organization. This section answers questions like:
· What are the opportunities for using the knowledge asset?
· What would be the effect of its use?
· What are the current obstacles to its use?
· What would be its increased value to the company?
· How to plan the actions to use the knowledge asset?.Knowledge Management –
· How to enact actions?
· How to monitor actions?

Share
Sharing of intellectual assets is the way in which knowledge is disseminated and leveraged throughout the organization. The combination of ideas and knowledge in the sharing stage can create new knowledge for individuals, groups and the organization. Sharing of knowledge includes organizing, accessing and utilizing knowledge.
Review
The KM initiatives need to be constantly monitored and reviewed to leverage it to the fullest extent possible. Deviations have to be noted and appropriate realignment procedures and processes have to be institutionalized by answering questions such as:
· Did the use of it produce the desired added value?
· How can the knowledge asset be maintained for this use?
· Did the use create new opportunities?
Holistic Approach: To a Preferred End-State
To begin to realize the value KM offers, organizations must take a holistic approach in identifying, capturing, sharing and monitoring the intellectual assets that reside in networks and organizations. At Planetasia.com, we think of our projects in terms of people, process and technology. Our “One” Methodology epitomizes this perception. Similarly, KM should be viewed as a cause and effect of the people, processes and technologies resident in an organization.
Given our belief in people, process and technology (an example of a cultural filter that impacts the way we use knowledge as a company), we realize that no one component will let a company reach its potential from a KM perspective. All three areas should be in accord and support the overall goals and strategy of the organization to more effectively construct meaning, create knowledge and make decisions. What are the tools and enablers for Knowledge Management?
Knowledge Management Tools
Knowledge Management has become such a key part of corporation's business strategies that several approaches to Knowledge Management implementation have developed. Combinations of software and hardware tools create a wide variety of options for today's knowledge conscious businesses. Software tools include the applications used to maintain knowledge bases, while hardware options offer solutions to environment issues.
Is KM = IT?
The current paradigm of KM is founded heavily on the precepts of information technology. Therefore, there is often a tendency to equate any KM initiative with IT. Recently, debates have focused on a pragmatic balance between technology and these other, less tangible, areas. Apart from IT, knowledge management has other important dimensions. The most important of these is culture. Corporate culture must be modulated to promote the sharing of knowledge and new skills are needed. Knowledge Management Enablers.
Culture
Cultural Aids
A collective need for information and a sense of urgency result in a culture that is eager for a solid KM program. Most organizations' problems, regarding KM, will be around.Knowledge Management – A Practitioner’s Guide Page 14 making sure that there is a solid process that is enabled by technology and that everyone understands their role in the KM program. In other words, many will nod their heads in agreement that KM is a good thing - the hard part is changing the behavior of the participants to make the successful. Furthermore, companies need to consider three simple things according to Robert Monastero, director of human resources for Xerox Information Management (Fitter, 1999). Those three things are: 1. The work employees do 2. The environment in which they do it 3. The rewards they receive for doing it well
Organizations must make work interesting for the employee (some people like programming, others don't). Next, create an environment that the employees enjoy and further develops their skills. Finally, reward and recognize employees (both individuals and groups) for work that is well done. Reward and recognition is not in money or salaries alone-it can be in other ways that are culturally valuable. Again this illustrates how KM programs are both a cause and effect of the environment that they are in.
Cultural Obstacles
Typical obstacles to successful KM programs are the "knowledge as power" attitude and little to few immediate rewards for sharing information and knowledge. Collaboration is not the typical, historical mode of operation for most organizations.
However, as organizations are becoming flatter and as more teams are being employed, more knowledge must be shared through collaboration.
Unfortunately organizations tend to recognize individuals and not an entire group. The knowledge as power mentality coupled with poor recognition strategies (individuals, not groups) causes workers to hold on to knowledge rather than collaborate openly.
This skewed recognition strategy fosters a lack of trust within the organization. Trust is an important element for communicating and sharing knowledge. KM expert Karl-Erik Sveiby says, "trust is the bandwidth of communication."
In other words, the amount of trust or safety that we feel in sharing knowledge effects how meaningful and valuable our communication interactions are.
Not only do knowledge workers have to fear sharing knowledge with others, they may also fear that they are no longer of value to an organization once management has made their tacit knowledge explicit.
Who uses knowledge management?
Last year, when the consulting firm CAP Ventures surveyed 200 Fortune 1000 companies, it found that 63 percent already had KM programs in place and 21 percent had programs in development. Another 16 percent were in the planning stage. About two-thirds of the companies surveyed are using well-established tools like intranets, help desk and customer support applications, and information retrieval and groupware tools. More than half are using document management, hypertext, electronic publishing tools and decision support systems..Knowledge Management The list of companies who have adopted some sort of formal knowledge management reads like the veritable who’s who of corporatedom. What is most interesting in all these experiences is that those who have tasted the benefits of KM swear by its efficacy.
Proof of the pudding…
Notable KM success stories include:
3M At 3M, a company that prides itself not only on learning from its mistakes but on turning them into profitable products, researchers don't need to go home to pursue a personal project. They are free to do research on the job, with full access to company equipment and facilities. This laissez faire policy is part of the message that the St. Paul, Minn., household and office products company sends to its 70,000 employees in more than 60 countries: What you know and learn could turn into another of 3M's 50,000 products. In fact, the company actively encourages new product development by requiring that 30 percent of annual sales come from products less than four years old.
Monsanto Life Sciences For Monsanto Life Sciences, a division of Monsanto Corp., business success is driven by innovative, value-added products that can be patented. Monsanto focused its knowledge management efforts on innovation by leveraging the talents of these highly skilled professionals. Using electronic discussion forums to help bring its people together to share ideas and brainstorm, Monsanto created fertile ground for innovation.
Andersen Consulting Management consulting firms are the poster children for knowledge management. More than in any other industry, the competitors in this field compete directly on the basis of knowledge: what do their people know, and how can they share it with their clients? Like all of the leading management consultancies, Andersen Consulting has invested heavily in its knowledge management practices. Andersen Consulting understood that to make its knowledge repository useful and to keep it fresh, it would have to be more than a dumping ground of documents. Andersen spelled out specific job requirements for knowledge professionals. These employees are subject matter experts who cull through documents to ensure quality, relevance and currency. They make particularly worthwhile "gems" easy to find, and eliminate redundant or obsolete content. In this way, Andersen ensures that the company's most relevant and current knowledge is not only captured, but reused.
British Petroleum As an early adopter of the KM concept, British Petroleum kicked off its knowledge effort in late 1994. It began experimenting with new technology that would make it easy to communicate and share know-how and experience across its flattened organization..Knowledge Management – A Practitioner’s Guide Page 16 The investigation led to a Virtual Teamwork program that combines desktop videoconferencing and collaboration technologies with coaching. The system relies on Intel ProShare, as well as Microsoft's Windows 95 and Internet Explorer on the desktop and NT Server on the network. It integrates intranet and Internet capabilities, including discussion rooms on Microsoft Exchange. The technology works because BP has been careful to address the behavioral aspects. In 1995, BP launched a pilot program that focused on performance delivery in critical business areas, such as the construction of offshore oil platforms. This, in turn, led to demand throughout the organization.
Hughes Space Another early adopter that is giving knowledge management a high priority is Hughes Space & Communications, the El Segundo, Calif., manufacturer of communications satellites. The firm's internal "knowledge highway" enables employees to handle complex multiyear projects by accessing past solutions without having to reinvent them. Hughes began the project in 1994. Using a combination of an intranet and Lotus Notes, it implemented a concept known as "lessons learned," which enables the company to leverage the valuable experience of its employees to improve efficiency and save time and money.
Xerox In May 1996, Xerox established AmberWeb, an intranet-based virtual workspace that enables employees to share research and documents through bulletin boards and calendars. (AmberWeb is a collection of web-based CGI scripts written in Python object oriented code that runs on both Sun UNIX and Compaq NT servers.) Teams can create their own settings and publish documents without going through the webmaster. In the first 18 months, 10,000 employees joined, prompted by word of mouth. That number doubled last year to 20,000, out of a total work force of 80,000. AmberWeb also evolved into a Xerox product, DocuShare, which was launched last June.
At its Palo Alto Research Center, Xerox generates knowledge about collaborative and knowledge-sharing systems, visualization technologies and virtual workspaces by mixing anthropologists and artists with computer scientists. Because each specialist asks different kinds of questions, the answers that emerge tend to be creative and wide-ranging.

What is the future of knowledge management?

 Knowledge Management – The Road Ahead.
In its journey so far, knowledge management had moved beyond being a fashionable initiative to an issue that is taken seriously. A pragmatic approach to knowledge management is gaining ground. The big bang approach of early knowledge.Knowledge Management – A Practitioner’s Guide Page 17 management pioneers has been replaced by step approaches focusing on initiatives that will deliver quick business benefit.
When organizations move to from the first phase of experimentation to the second phase of institutionalization, they hit complexity. They have too much information and need to find ways to bring order to the chaos. They have to find ways to make useful knowledge easy to access. Technology such as the internet and information libraries play an important part in the third phase, when organizations start to create discussion groups and find new ways of moving the knowledge through the organization.
The technology to support knowledge management is beginning to mature and some organizations see the potential gains from a more pragmatic approach. Knowledge management is part of an overall change program that an organization will have put in place to cope with the competitive pressures of the modern business environment. The whole-hearted adoption of knowledge management has also influenced structures and hierarchies within organizations. Increasingly, organizations don't have tiers of people and management hierarchies – they have homogeneous workforces, a paradigm shift, which is going to be further accentuated in the future.
To continuously improve upon the advantages of KM, organizations should constantly innovate, create, maintain, and renew, if necessary, their business models to fit within the industry. The challenge that most organizations face is to utilize those advantages to further adapt to the fast changing pace of the new business world. This adaptation is expected to take the form of accrued advantages of KM systems in terms of building knowledge bases. Additionally, there are future trends to ancillary technologies that will also improve the KM system. These technologies include Intranets, paperless offices, and other process changes.
Researchers believe that future development of KM should also be based on the balance between the technological and human elements. The practice is referred to as "knowledge ecology" and is based upon the observations of natural ecosystems. The idea is that natural ecology keeps itself in equilibrium, just as knowledge should. Traditionally, Knowledge Management focused on information, but knowledge ecology adds the context, synergy, and trust elements of human behavior to facilitate the translation of information into results-focused knowledge.
Another important future trend of KM is the notion of "Knowledge Intrapreneurs." Undoubtedly, empowerment opens up the information and knowledge base of the organization for all members at every level. This allows employees to technically and mentally engage in a more innovative and productive working environment. Such individuals in this knowledge-based organization would be acting as "knowledge Intrapreneurs". According to researchers, these individuals "are expected to contribute to the organizational knowledge-creation processes based on developing knowledge.Knowledge Management – A Practitioner’s Guide Page 18 relationships and knowledge exchanges within and outside the formal boundaries of the organizations."
The future of Knowledge Management focuses on the expectations of a dynamic business market. Not only will KM systems of today require change and updates, but also people using them will be trained to think of knowledge as a key strategic tool. We may soon seen 'knowledge Intrapreneurs' working to achieve 'knowledge ecology' for their corporation. As Intranet usage increases and companies move toward an increasingly paperless environment, the management of information will become more critical. Although systems must adapt to change, their presence will become a requirement of effective competition.

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