Cultivating a knowledge sharing culture at KMWorld Connect 2021

With remote and hybrid work arrangements becoming more common, never has the sharing of internal company knowledge become more important and challenging.

But the answer to this sharing problem is not resolved simply by procuring a wiki; it requires a thoughtful approach to the cultural aspects of KM to increase the chances of success.

Claude Bardy, president and founder, BC Europartners and Claude Baudoin, owner and principal, cebe IT and knowledge management, shared personal knowledge management (PKM) observations, practices, tools, and case studies during their KMWorld Connect 2021 presentation, “Personal Knowledge Management: Observations, Practices, Tools.”

A deep underlying trend is moving toward a gig economy and COVID-19 has accelerated this, Bardy said. These workers carry their own tools—knowledge—with them. The main difference between enterprise knowledge management (EKM) and personal knowledge management (PKM) is the scope.

“In both cases knowledge management is a key, if not, the business asset,” Bardy said.

Time management is also extremely important to ensure long-term success in enterprises and independently.

PKM is much broader than Electronic Content Management. It is also not a hierarchical classification of topics or a better search engine. However, those considerations can get someone started on the road to PKM, according to Baudoin.

PKM can be compared to a knowledge graph. It’s a set of connected type of knowledge objects that have something related between them, Baudoin explained.

To organize this knowledge is to create a multifaceted taxonomy with information within a polyhierarchy.

Examples of classification facets for a consultant include, by consulting domain (cloud, IoT, security, KM…), by industry sector (finance, healthcare, education, energy…), by project, or by client.

Because PKM hasn’t been a huge market, until recently, EKM tools are more prevalent, Baudoin said. A graph database can be used for PKM, but usually data scientists and data analysts typically use this. Wikis are a decent approach to PKM or a simple database can solve some of the needs.

One of the key issues is where data is stored, Bardy said. PKM Tool Requirements such as:

• Low overhead creation
• Easy and fast retrieval—great visual UI
• Access from anywhere and on any device
• Ability to work offline
• Multimedia content
• Scalable
• Continuous, automatic, secured backups
• No lock-in—complete data can be exported in a format that makes it possible to load into another tool
• Reputable, stable vendor likely to be there in 10 years

“PKM is likely to become more important as workers move from organization to organization,” Baudoin said.

KMWorld Connect 2021 is going on this week, November 15-18, with workshops on Friday, November 19. On-demand replays of sessions will be available for a limited time to registered attendees and many presenters are also making their slide decks available through the conference portal. For more information, go to www.kmworld.com/conference/2021.