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This article that I have found is very interesting. It deals with the youngest professor in history, 19 year old Alia Sabu. She has mention something that is very relevant to knowledge management which is “Knowledge is power – especially when it is shared.” Since we know that the creation of knowledge is essential to managing knowledge then we first have to share the knowledge that we have created. In sharing this knowledge we are enabling each other to have some idea about what has originally been done and how others knowledge can improve your knowledge. This may help the individual that you have shared your knowledge with go further in the specific field that they are in or in a new direction. This apparent through Sabu’s answer about her teaching career. “It’s something where you can make a difference. It’s not just what you can do, but you can enable a lot of other people to make their changes.” Remember that when you share your knowledge you are enabling others to grow in their knowledge and expertise.
Northern light has introduced a free search engine for business news, articles, and blogs. it also provide an option of automated meaing extraction and collaborative social computing features.
The search engine will automatically connect the business researcher with thousands of relevant business news, leading business publication, which automatically save users time and provide highly reliable sources. furthermore, the users can analyze their search results and extract meaning from the articles or blogs.
Further the product offer market intelligence Wiki and a series of widgets designed to leverage the search activity. The Market Intelligence Wiki provides a detail overview of selected industries and business trends, with a detailed picture of market segments, issues, breaking news, companies and government regulations. actions
This article deals with customers on the internet who want to search for specific information and their frustration with the online search. Zachary McGeary, principal analyst at Jupiter Research states that, “Customers often are not sure how to phrase their questions or search requests. In addition, over half the customers who report usability problems say that their searches offer too many results to be helpful.” The problem with asking question on the internet is when customers ask them in ways that are not considered standard. This causes many issues but as technology continues to enhance the systems that allow for the customer to ask questions are becoming more aware of natural language. This means that a customer can ask a question in any way that he or she pleases and the system will attempt to find the answer regardless of how the customer phrased the question.
http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Feature/Web-self-service-searching-for-answers-41338.aspx
In an organization, you want to have a competitive advantage over your competition. However, competitive advantages are not easily obtained and ever harder to keep. One way of gaining a competitive advantage is to implement an Enterprise Resource Planning systems or ERP.
The Enterprise Resource Planning system allows a company or business to consolidate and integrate all the different aspects of its business practice. The ERP systems are information systems, but they incorporate the entire organization and are online networking systems that allow cross-functional processes using a common database. There are many organizations that use the ERP systems to gain to competitive advantage by consolidating and integrating all the different aspects of its business practice to provide an overall view of the corporation. Also, the ERP systems give you much better access to real time information, which can make decision making much easier and more accurate.
However, ERP systems are very complex and hard to implement. These systems require huge amounts of time and money to implement and to keep them running properly. Though there are ERP systems that work great and give the company a competitive edge, most have failed. Companies continue to use ERP systems because if they are implemented correctly, they do give the company a competitive advantage over the competition. Also, in some markets, if your competitors are implementing these systems, it may be wise for you to consider it. Because of how beneficial these systems can be and how hard they are to implement, knowledge management approaches are being used to help the implementation process.
In the knowledge management structure, knowledge goes through four stages; creation, storage/retrieval, transfer, and usage/application. Knowledge creation is both creating new knowledge and/or replacing old knowledge that is no longer relevant to the organization, but not getting rid of knowledge because you store it for future reference. This is the next stage, knowledge storage/retrieval. It is important for an organization to store all its knowledge, including the knowledge it replaces, because it will allow the transfer of knowledge in the organization. This knowledge transfer references the old and new knowledge to keep from repeating mistakes. Finally, there is knowledge application. This step refers to putting all the knowledge that you know have into every aspect of your organization. In an ERP systems case, this will help with integration into the whole organization because you will not have to reinvent the wheel every time you run into a problem. However, the knowledge management approach is also affected by the organizational culture.
In every organization you are going to have individuals who are not excepting of change and do not want anything to do with the new system. This change often forces individuals inside the organization to learn new ways of doing a task or performing a process. These individuals, if left unchecked, can pose a serious problem to the knowledge management process, which will effect the integration of the ERP system. It is imperative that the organization makes sure it members understand why they implementing a new system and not just told to do it. If the individuals are more excepting of the new system, they will seek help and learn from other people in the organization, which it knowledge management.
The advantages of a successfully implemented ERP system are great. However, you must first be aware of the risk associated with ERP systems, and understand how to combat these risks when they occur. ERP systems can give a company a competitive advantage if implemented correctly or can loose the organization millions if implemented incorrectly. This is why many companies are using knowledge management with the implementation of the ERP systems. Though it does add another step to the implantation, it decreases the risk of failure and allows the company to learn from its mistakes.
(Sorry about the weird spacing, I couldn’t get it to line up the right way)
Knowledge Transfer in Multinational Firms
Knowledge management is a key factor to the success of multinational firms. Many times in fact it is reverse knowledge transfer that gives the firm competitive advantage in its particular industry. Success to an increasing extent is dependent on the ease and speed in which knowledge is able to flow between the parent company and its subsidiaries. What has been identified as knowledge in this paper is forms of know how, such as product design, business practices, quality issues, distribution expertise, customer handling, and so on. The foreign subsidiaries become dependent on localized knowledge sources and their own local knowledge generation. It is a subsidiary’s ability to be accepted into the context of the society that will bring about product innovation and a better understanding of what this particular market is looking for. This means that local relationships become sources of knowledge that can relate to upgrading products, operation procedures, and business practices. This knowledge can then be transferred back to the parent company in a reverse knowledge transfer practice.
Reverse knowledge transfer is not a practice that is accepted in all organizational cultures. Many times in organizations you see knowledge disseminated by the parent company to its subsidiaries this is called hierarchical knowledge flow. This is a one way flow of knowledge and is less likely to allow a company to gain competitive advantage in localized markets of multinational firms. An external knowledge flow allows for a two way transfer of knowledge among subsidiaries and the parent company. The most progressive flow of knowledge is a network flow of knowledge in which knowledge is transferred from parent company to subsidiary and vice-versa and between peer subsidiaries. This is the most ideal transfer of knowledge as it is free flowing and allows for everyone to benefit from each others best practices.
Many times what prohibits reverse knowledge transfer is the organizational design. The parent company must identify the subsidiary’s ability to generate knowledge, and promote the exchange of that knowledge. In order to promote this exchange there must be direct links not only to the parent company from the subsidiary, but also between each subsidiary giving them a peer-to-peer aspect of knowledge transfer.
In many cases intra-firm linkage is based on trust and a personal relationship between the two subsidiaries. When trust and a feeling of reciprocity are present there is a much greater chance that knowledge transfer will take place. The question remains how a parent company can encourage this linkage between subsidiaries? The transferring of tacit knowledge is also encouraged by a tight link between companies. The basic understanding of tacit knowledge will encourage the transfer of knowledge as it will allow each company to better understand the information and interaction it receives from other subsidiaries.
Reverse knowledge transfer does not necessarily lead to a greater success for the overall corporation. There are times in which one’s ability to integrate this knowledge base and make use of it is hindered. Again this comes back to a company’s culture and their acceptance or capabilities of new methods. It must be reiterated that knowledge from logistically dispersed subsidiaries can be a crucial source of competitive advantage, but it is not always.
When discussing the relevance of reverse knowledge transfer in knowledge management it is essential for the rapid progress of some multinational firms. Reverse knowledge transfer allows the parent corporation to benefit from its subsidiaries and disperse its new knowledge throughout its corporation. Everyone then can benefit from best practices as they see fit in their organization.
Sources:
Rabbiosi, Larissa, comp. The Evolution of Reverse Knowledge Transfer with Multinational Corporations. Vers. 1. May 2005. Politecnico Di Milano. 25 Feb. 2008 http://www.triplehelix5.com/pdf/A108_THC5.pdf
Yang, Qin, Ram Mudambi, and Klaus Meyer, comps. Asymmetries Between ‘Traditional’ and Reverse Knowledge Flows in Multinational Firms: a Study of Acquisitions in Transition Economies. Vers. 1. Sept. 03. Temple University. 4 Mar. 2008 <http://www.klausmeyer.co.uk/publications/yang_mudambi_meyer_knowledge_transfer070328.pdf>.
As we talked in our last class about (ECM) enterprise content management, i found a really good article in KMworld magazine which elaborates more on this topic. This article talks about Sharepoint, a product of microsoft for storing and sharing of data on the web and how it is being instead of enterprise content management.
This articles describes why companies increasing use sharepoint instead of enterprise content management. The first reason is that, it’s much cheaper for companies to deploy sharepoint than enterprise content management. Since in today’s growing economy, most companies who enters the market doesn’t have the budget to spend on expensive (ECM), so they deploy sharepoint as a middle-ware in order to integrate ECM repository and Sharepoint interface.
Sharepoint application provide a platform to integrate all the application throughout the organization. It is well suited in a collaborative environment, which means that it provide the opportunity to work collaboratively. For example, it provides formal and informal environment such as disscussion board, Wikis and message board where the individual can share their ideas and knowledge expertise and can search for solutions.
The companies can store different sort of documents such as product, product sales, technical problems and technical documents which are all in Microsoft word format. Sharepoint also enable the company to store the most recent formats of documents in Wikis.
The future prospects of Sharepoint is to expand the software and enable the software to capture and store data through it is customer relationship management. Sharepoint is already being used by around 100 Million customers and its revenue was over $1 Billion in 2007.
A couple of weeks ago I told you about the program that Google offers as a kind of group knowledge sharing space.
I am currently using Google Docs, and am really enjoying it. For another class, we have to give a team presentation and we decided to you it to reduce the amount of time that we had to meet in person and set up meeting times, which was inconvenient for us all. On Google Docs we all were able to start accounts and set up a PowerPoint presentation. Each person can contribute to the PowerPoint: adding and changing slide where needed. It’s actually pretty cool. We are able to see when someone makes a revision and other different features. BUT THAT’S NOT IT!
When my team member sent me an email link of the PowerPoint (she is the creator, so has more control) I was able to paste it to a new tab. It sent me to our document with a side panel that we could chat on line, about our presentation; giving feedback and advice to each other on our perspective parts.
I encourage everyone to try it out!! This is really working for us, and has reduced a lot of stress from having to find time to meet which is not always easy.
I found a really cool article and model for situation handling. This article talks about how different decisions require different skills and different knowledge. This is a very interesting topic, especially since it will be useful in a real world setting. Here is a paragraph from the article and the link to the full article.
“ Important situations vary widely. Some are well known and require routine, even automatized knowledge. Others are complex and require extensive, at times abstract, knowledge and metaknowledge. In well-known routine cases, effective situation-handling involves many steps and requires different kinds of knowledge to support the primary tasks of Sensemaking, Decision-Making/Problem-Solving, Implementation and Monitoring. Similar steps are required for both simple and complex personal situation-handling cases and for organizational situation-handling.”
As I mentioned in my previous post, I have had my fair share of meetings and not all of them were as horrible and people tend to believe meetings are. I was reflecting on this and trying to decide what exactly it was about certain meetings that made them run well. I decided it mostly depended on the facilitator. I believe the facilitator doesn’t always have to be the person assigned to be in charge because frankly, it is half learned and half know how. I say this meaning that I believe you can teach some one better ways to facilitate or tricks to keep conversation flowing, but you cannot teach someone to be 100% unbiased. No matter the subject, whether they are interested or not, people will always favor an idea or position. By asking someone who is not a participant in the meeting a little of this is alleviated but it always remains.
You also cannot teach leadership the ability to truly guide a group of people. I am sure everyone has been to a meeting like mine where you are sitting and listening to the person in charge who appears to know all of the “rules” of facilitating a meeting, but they have no control over the situation. People are constantly getting off subject, they are wanting to leave, and problems keep arising. The facilitator has been to leadership classes and mediation classes but they are trying to apply theories that they have learned and it doesn’t work. I fear this is one of the major flaws of knowledge management when applied to the meeting aspect of it. I believe we are growing up in a society where people believe they can do anything as long as they have learned the proper skills with which to do it. That is wrong. What you face in your life and what you are born with are two major factors that decide how well you will be able to do something, knowledge and theories only go so far. Facilitators who do not have that certain presence when leading a group will not be able to clearly and completely run the meeting properly.
This can also be applied to most of what we are learning now in class. The theory behind the sharing of information within the company via an application that relates you to questions you are interested in is brilliant, in theory. When applied and combined with the unpredictability of human nature problems will happen. Questions will go unanswered and repeated. People will get annoyed with their constant computer buzzing and stop checking it as often. People might become compulsive checkers and ignore other such work related problems to try and help others, i.e. facebook. To make something successful like this program you need the right people to be using the right program. My generation has been brought up to believe that we can do anything and while I am not saying you shouldn’t strive to do anything you want, but people should realize the extent of their self potential and drive to know what they can and can’t do well.
i was reading an article regarding Wikis and blogs in kmworld.com. The article talks about how wikis and blogs are becoming a part of KM solution and how the companies and organization will use them as source for their knowledge management solution in near future. as the article describes that KM has driven to a much greater extent by the broad user base rather than being mandated primarily from above. Many of the innovations are incorporating social networking capabilities. A good example is provided by blogs and wikis. Often installed as rogue software initially, they were inexpensive, easy to deploy and allowed users to contribute content easily. Now, IT departments are evaluating them for strategic use in the enterprise. The goal is to continue to offer easy publishing and management, while meeting enterprise realities for permission controls. In addition, the potential for having many wikis and blogs create innumerable silos of information would counteract the benefits of ease of use.
KM provides pragmatic solutions as well as a vision for managing information. Companies need to follow rules for compliance, and they need to be efficient. More and more organizations have virtual teams that need to collaborate and connect people.
KM has evolved to the point where collaboration and contribution is as much a priority as information access. KM is no longer just about connecting people to content, it is also about connecting people to people. The effective design simplifies functions such as search and browse, but also provides efficient contextual access to collaboration tools such as discussion groups and tagging. KM environments are no longer measured only on how well they lead users to relevant knowledge; the new measure is how effectively they promote participation.
In contrast to earlier generation business intelligent (BI) systems, future systems will increasingly allow users to interact directly and in real time through Blogs and Wikis where they can add their own data. The Endeca (endeca.com) Information Access Platform let users query corporate databases and other information stores from an interface that corresponds to key measures of interest to that individual. For example, salespeople can look for prospects likely to be most productive—which ones have the highest historical sales, which ones have warranties that are about to expire and so on. Results guide the user’s daily activities, allowing workers to make data-driven decisions.
Users who want to add tags can type in the beginning of a word and a list of options will be presented, or completely new ones can be incorporated. Searches bring up results not only from relational databases and other enterprise information stores but also from comparably tagged blog and wiki content. Increasingly, organizations will be making good use of the volumes of unstructured data they collect, integrating it with structured, quantitative information to gain insights into performance. The formerly separate functions of BI are also working more synergistically. Visualization techniques that help users absorb and respond to critical data, such as key performance indicators (KPIs) presented in dashboards, are an important aspect of usability. Users personalize presentation of key performance indicators using a codeless, browser-based, drag-and-drop interface. Insight is geared toward providing real-time operational data.
KM of the future will include more solutions delivered in the software as a service model, in which the vendor or a third party hosts the software in a one-to-many format. Customers pay a monthly fee and upgrades are managed by the host. The availability of more products in this model will make KM solutions accessible to more companies, especially small to midsize organizations. However, large companies that prefer to focus on their core competencies have also shown that they are willing to delegate that IT function to external companies. Enterprise blogs will not become a substitute for ECM systems that keep track of documents for compliance. But they could help capture and distribute answers that are uncovered when humans have to deal with troublesome compliance issues.
