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The Baby Boomers have been referred as the pig in the python. The large bulge in the age demographics has necessitated ingenuity and advancement in social, economic, political, and geographic movements. To facilitate the spike in numbers of this age group, families moved to the first suburban neighborhoods, experienced an economic boom as manufacturing and marketing moved goods into those homes, and spurred a political and environmental consciousness that challenged the status quo. As Baby Boomers reach retirement, the need to share their great wealth of knowledge amongst the younger generations is tantamount for sustaining and even advancing what we know. It is only fitting that Knowledge Management has advanced to a level for effectively capturing that knowledge, via the semantic web.
Thomas Davenport, in "Some Principles of Knowledge Management" lists five activities to invest your time and money for effective Knowledge Management:
- Knowledge Capture
Capturing knowledge is accomplished by storing it in an organized electronic file repository. Collect more than just documents in this repository. An effective knowledge management system should be able to collect multimedia files (e.g., audio recordings, videos, virtual reality worlds, etc.) and search these file types so they can be retrieved again. Knowledge Management also encompasses expertise: Who knows what. Just because someone has been certified or once knew a great deal about a subject area, the progression of both time and knowledge advancements may indicate someone else is a more appropriate expert on a topic. Regular daily logs of employee tasks can develop into an accurate reflection of timed expertise and applicability.
- Adding Value to Knowledge
Capturing knowledge is only the beginning of developing a Knowledge Management system. Regular reviews of this knowledge should refine the information for current consumption. Depending on the type of information in the document, it will have a determinable expiration date. Recording changes to this information (not overwriting it) can help you determine time-in-place records of knowledge while providing you with the most up-to-date and relevant information that is needed.
- Knowledge Categorization
Categorization is essential to retrieving information in a meaningful way. Electronic filing systems have a way of editing the profile of the document where you can manually tag a document with key words, or categories. This process is a good start to capturing your assessment of the information. However, it is prone to error and subjective interpretation. Search engines can index files and automate the categorization of the information that it scans. This approach also has its drawbacks: Artificial Intelligence has advanced over the years, but it is not at the point where it can accurately categorize every file in your system. The best approach would be a hybrid of these two. Run an automated categorization of your files, and then refine it with the human eye to correct nuances in categorization.
- Information Technology Infrastructures and Applications
This technology is comprised of a document management system, search retrieval system, and an intranet to unify the two. These systems will take time and money to develop. Do not be surprised when it takes between six months and two years to build. Once these systems have been released, ongoing maintenance and updates will be required to keep the system up-to-date with your users' demands and expectations.
- Educating employees
In every activity of developing a knowledge management system, involve your employees. Their insight will help you build a system that will address their needs, and ensure its continued use. The employees will get a sense of ownership, and will be helpful to champion and market the system to their coworkers.
The Semantic Web for Knowledge Management, Part 1 |
