One of the most underrated and under-utilised aspects of Knowledge Management is its ability to lead to innovative solutions for customers and frontline staff. Below is a real example of award winning innovation from early on in my career at WDS (See my KM origin story)

Use Case

Whilst working for WDS, back in the early noughties, we created mobile phone knowledge for Network Operators (MNOs) and mobile phone manufacturers, as well as being an outsourced call centre for technical data queries.

We created, refined, simple and easy-to-use content for the end user. Still, some of the most time-intensive and complicated problems to solve for call centre agents and customers were setting up the Internet, WAP, MMS and Email on their mobile phones. And although we had the proper knowledge to talk users through the journey, it was still a timely process and involved the customers knowing their technical settings.

A couple of intelligent people at WDS identified this problem. So they looked for a more brilliant, innovative way to deliver customer knowledge to solve these issues. They discovered they could send components of knowledge and settings directly to the mobile phones through SMS and automatically set the customer up in a matter of seconds, instead of the 15-minute calls it would take in the call centre. Due to this innovation WDS actually won "Most Innovative use of technology in a small call centre 2001", what a great night that was. (In 2001!!!! I feel old). 

Anyway, after this innovation, WDS productised this technology and made it available directly to MNOs and Manufacturers for self-service channels. First, customers would get a new device. Then, go to the MNO or Manufacturer web site and send the settings they need directly to their phone. All from the same single source of knowledge where the original knowledge articles were housed.

This technology evolved even further over the coming years by embedding the knowledge directly onto SIM cards and Manufacturer devices. So the moment a user inserted a new sim card or entered their email address, the correct settings and configurations were automatically configured without the customer knowing it. Solving a problem before the customer realised they had one.

This technology saved millions of dollars in the cost to service customers for these particular problems. And customers nowadays take for granted that setting up email and the internet on your phone is easy and automatic.

Summary

A well-rounded Knowledge Strategy should have continuous improvement and innovation embedded as part of the process. It should look at customers' problems and how knowledge can help innovatively find a better solution. Don't just think about knowledge as a static piece of content. Think about how a combination of knowledge and technology can provide real customer benefits.

Knowledge Management, when done right, will help lead to innovation.

Innovation is a buzzword for organizations striving to be the best in the highly competitive world today. How do we use the collective brains of an organization to innovate?

The easy and the simplest answer is to break the knowledge silos that most organizations struggle with, more so with flexible and WFH culture becoming a part of the corporate world. And the fact of the matter is that Hybrid and WFH culture is here to stay so the organizations that fail to come up with ways to break these silos now should be ready to face even bigger and harder-to-solve challenges in the future in terms of knowledge loss and ability to maintain their competitive edge.

Overcoming knowledge silos requires concerted action to create a culture of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and openness within an organization.

So, what are knowledge silos? 

It is the long prevalent culture where knowledge and information from a team member or a team stay within the team with no protocols in place to take it to the whole organization.

The lack of knowledge management protocols and processes to ensure the distribution of knowledge across teams and countries costs an organization lot in terms of money with the amount of time spent in research and repurposing the knowledge, tools, and processes already available within your organization.

The result is redundant work, loss of time and productivity which would have otherwise been utilized for innovation, taking care of other key priorities, and opportunities for improving customer experience.

Why Knowledge Silos Occur:

The knowledge silos occur mostly because of a missing system to seamlessly integrate and distribute knowledge across the teams and organization.

Another critical reason for knowledge silos is the failure of the leadership to communicate the organization’s vision clearly to the organization. It trickles down to the employees who fail to embrace the knowledge-sharing culture and veer off in different directions blocking the road to innovation that comes when people from different backgrounds and skills bring together their brains.

The absence of seamless integration between departments might end up impacting the company’s credibility. For example, in the absence of a knowledge management system, the sales team might end up approaching a customer for selling a product or a service that is already used by the customer, due to a lack of sufficient documentation in place.

It also might be the case, that a sales proposal for a particular service is already in place as designed by another team, however, has to be recreated from scratch due to a lack of visibility of the available assets.

How to Break the Knowledge Silos:

Overcoming knowledge silos requires concerted action to create a culture of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and openness within an organization.

Integrate knowledge management (KM) in your organizational goals: The key is to have knowledge management, not as an individual entity but embedded into the organization’s culture and individual employees’ day-to-day work.

Embrace the collaboration culture: When you collaborate, you share and learn, this is the basis of sharing knowledge and breaking silos. Research proves that companies that actively collaborate definitely lead the competitive race.  Create opportunities for team members to interact and collaborate regularly.

Recognize and reward collaboration: The next step is to recognize and reward employees who are committed to collaboration and knowledge sharing. This can include bonuses, promotions, and other incentives that encourage collaboration and break down silos.

Promote a culture of learning: foster a culture of continuous learning and development by providing opportunities for employees to learn new skills, attend workshops and participate in training programs. This helps break down silos by allowing employees to understand other areas of the organization and how they contribute to the overall mission.

Promote cross-functional teams: Encourage cross-functional teams where employees from different departments work together on projects. This not only fosters collaboration but also helps employees develop a broader understanding of the company’s goals.

Having a KM lead culture is a sure-shot way to ensure the seamless communication of data, information as well as customer experience. When the whole organization is on the same page when it comes to sharing knowledge, experiences, and insights, the outcome is bound to be an exceptionally innovative and motivated workforce and delivery of high-quality customer experiences.

Innovation is a buzzword for organizations today that are striving to be the best in the highly competitive world. How do we use the collective brains of people in an organization to innovate?
 
The easy and simplest answer is to break the knowledge silos that most organizations struggle with. With the growing Hybrid and virtual workforce, it is all the more critical for organizations to come up with ways to break these silos or be ready to face even bigger and harder-to-solve challenges in the future in terms of knowledge loss and staying relevant and competitive.
 
So, what are knowledge silos? 

It is the long prevalent culture where knowledge and information from a team member or a team stay within the team with no protocols in place to take it to the whole organization.
 
The lack of KM protocols and processes to ensure the distribution of knowledge across teams and countries costs organization considerably, with time spent in research, repurposing knowledge, tools, and processes already available within your organization.
 
Why knowledge silos occur:
 
The knowledge silos occur mostly because of a missing system to seamlessly integrate and distribute knowledge across the teams and organization.
 
Another key reason for knowledge silos is the failure of the leadership to communicate the organization’s vision clearly to the organization. It trickles down to the employees who fail to embrace the knowledge-sharing culture and veer off in different directions blocking the road to innovation that comes when people from different backgrounds and skills bring together their brains.
 
The absence of seamless integration between departments might end up impacting the company’s credibility.
For example, in the absence of a knowledge management system, the sales team might end up approaching a customer for selling a product or a service that is already used by the customer, due to a lack of sufficient documentation in place.
 
How to break the knowledge silos:
 
Embrace the collaboration culture: When you collaborate, you share and learn, this is the basis of sharing knowledge and breaking silos.
 
Integrate knowledge management (KM) in your organizational goals: The key is to have knowledge management, not as an individual entity but embedded into the organization’s culture and individual employees’ day-to-day work.
 
Having a KM lead culture is a sure-shot way to ensure the seamless communication of data, information as well as customer experience. When the whole organization is on the same page when it comes to sharing knowledge, experiences, and insights, the outcome is bound to be an exceptionally innovative and motivated workforce and delivery of high-quality customer experiences.

~~~ 

Evolution of Knowledge Management 

The fast-paced evolution of our globally interconnected economy necessitates the development of knowledge capabilities as a corporate imperative. The forebears of knowledge management devised helpful tools and methods. What they discovered is currently being used in various new business areas. 

According to the original principle of knowledge management, if knowledge is an organization's most important resource, it should be exploited and made more productive. This is still true today. However, the buzz around Knowledge management has exploded in recent years, as have its applications.

Businesses rely on a dependable knowledge management system for efficient information sharing and internal processes.

What is knowledge management?

Knowledge management is the process of gathering, storing, organizing, and disseminating information within a company. Knowledge is stored in your company's files, documents, guidelines, databases, reports, and in your employees' heads.

Leaders must allow knowledge to flow dynamically and effortlessly across all activities and departments inside the organization in a quickly shifting business landscape where taking full use of information is critical to staying competitive. The volume of unstructured data generated every day and locked away in siloed applications is the most significant difficulty in knowledge management. Emerging AI technologies will play an important role, such as natural language processing and natural language production.

These systems can categorize and organize data across several platforms, removing significant hurdles to leveraging knowledge developed within companies.

1 - Applications of AI in Knowledge Management

Unstructured content makes up more than 80% of enterprise information. Unlike structured data formats, analyzing and extracting valuable information from unstructured data such as memos, emails, text documents, films, and other forms of unstructured data. And this information is quite beneficial in the corporate world.

Knowledge mining is a new AI-driven idea that entails combining several intelligent services to quickly study data, uncover hidden insights, and discover linkages at scale. Knowledge workers will be able to access unstructured data more efficiently and make better business judgments due to this.      

2 - Chatbots powered by Knowledge Management – Knowledge bots

A knowledge bot can be built to deliver information on any topic that knowledge workers are interested in. A knowledgebot, for example, can respond to inquiries such as "Who is the senior manager for Knowmax?" "How do I upgrade my operating system?" or "What is Robin's email address?" Employees can also utilize the bot to retrieve documents from the knowledge management system, such as "Get me the sales report for 2017" or "Send me the status report for project A," etc. 

Employees can use a chatbot or a voice bot to have natural language discussions and access information via text or speech.

These bots will work as personal assistants on your intranet and in messaging apps like Teams, Skype For Business, and Skype.

3 - Quick access to personalized information with the help of a Semantic search

Cognitive enterprise search is a critical component of current information management systems and is essential forproviding individualized search experiences.

For example, a simple search on the firm's "Rebranding Directors" should not only return information on therelevant people in the company, but it should also tailor the results depending on the user's profile, such as location, geography, interests, work role, etc. Furthermore, the search should consider the language requirements of personnel all around the world.

4 - Omnichannel approach

All intranet packages will need flexibleand diversified capabilities that allow for easy cooperation. Everything elseis secondary to modern employees' preference for convenience and accessibility.

As a result, increased compatibility of intranet and knowledge base management technologies with a mobile interface are anticipated to emerge as an important knowledge management trend.

The goal is to provide employees with all the necessary tools at their fingertips, regardless of where they work.

Employees must juggle between applications,programs, and tools outside of the knowledge management system for various tasks such as project management, communication, and content creation, among others. 

The workplace apps and the knowledge management system can be brought together under one integrated digital workplace suite using intranet software. Getting into multiple programs and switching between them will be less of a challenge for an employee. 

5 - Cloud-based technologies

The software as a service (SaaS) paradigm is gaining traction in the digital workplace. Intranets with knowledge management systems are increasingly being sold as an Intranet-as-a-Service model. 

This is an appealing alternative for businesses that want flexibility and a cloud-based monthly subscription plan over a hefty upfront expenditure. This trend is also fuelled by an increased need to access information from any location.

Conclusion 

Employees will be able to access the knowledge management system more quickly and effectively if the user interface (UI) is well-designed. The staff's ability to adapt to the system is directly influenced by what they see on the screen. As a result, the backbone of an effective knowledge management system must be an appealing, compact, and adaptable interface. 

In an ever-changing business world, knowledge is power, and when effectively tapped, it allows businesses to stay relevant and innovate. A modern knowledge management system makes use of artificial intelligence (AI) to acquire, organize, and distribute business data efficiently.

Lastly, as you prepare to capitalize on these new trends, you might be tempted to overdo and choose the tools, not in line with your organization's processes. Hence, it is more important to monitor these efforts in a timely fashion.

In today's business world, innovation is key to success. Innovation is often thought of as a one-time event. But innovation should be fostered and encouraged throughout the year. One way to do this is by implementing new techniques for knowledge management. Knowledge managers have been tasked with the responsibility of providing their employees with timely information on various topics that are pertinent to their work environment. To encourage innovation, they can use these 6 techniques: 

1. Incorporate brainstorming into meetings

Create a collaborative environment where people are encouraged to share their thoughts and ideas with each other. Brainstorming sessions allow participants to come up with ideas without judgment from others. During brainstorming sessions, your team can solve problems by breaking them down into smaller, more manageable pieces. These can be done in person or via video conferencing.

Encourage people from every level in your organisation to speak up about what is working well and not so well within their work environment. This includes encouraging individuals who are not typically seen as leaders to participate in discussions during meetings.

Brainstorming sessions also allow people who might not typically speak up at meetings to feel more comfortable doing so because they know someone will listen and take note of their idea no matter how ‘out there’ it may seem at first.

2. Be a facilitator, not an evaluator

Establish goals and objectives with your team, holding them accountable for meeting those expectations. Guide employees to excel in your company’s objective and give them clear directions. Give feedback on their performance and progress towards these goals, instead of just giving criticism. Encourage new ideas by allowing employees to share their thoughts and concerns about meeting company objectives without fear of being judged in the moment.

Some knowledge managers believe that encouraging emotional intelligence is a way to encourage innovation in the workplace. It is essential for people to feel like they are having their thoughts and feelings validated, as well as being able to voice abstract ideas without fear of judgement or retaliation.

This will provide employees with new perspectives on problems they may not have even thought about before. Encouraging creativity through praise and recognition can also foster an environment where everyone feels like their contributions are valued, which helps propel innovation forward.

3. Invest in training for employees to learn and develop their existing skills

If you build on skills that your employees already know, they'll be more invested in the training and feel like it was a worthwhile investment of their time. Hold workshops periodically in various areas such as communication skills, customer service skills, value selling and more.

This is also a good way to train people who are new to an organisation or have transferred from another department because it will help them learn about how things work at your company without getting lost in too much jargon.

Innovation thrives when knowledge workers can share ideas with one another and collaborate efficiently across different departments within organisations. Knowledge management techniques such as these provide managers with tangible ways of fostering innovation by supporting collaboration among team members while providing tools for developing new approaches for day-to-day tasks.

4. Embrace failure — it's okay if some things don't work out as planned because you can always learn from them or try again later

Be a problem-solver. Create a culture that focuses on continuous improvement as opposed to doing something right once or having one-time success stories. Have whistleblowing systems in place to easily identify when things are going wrong.

This is the most important characteristic of an innovation-friendly manager. When employees come to you with problems or ideas for improvement, demonstrate that you're willing and able to provide assistance in solving these issues. Asking them questions about how they've already tried tackling their challenge will help give them confidence that you'll be receptive to their feedback. After all, it's vital not only to listen but also act on what we hear from others if we want our workplace culture to encourage new thinking and creativity.

5. Showcase the work of others in your company

Demonstrate to your employees the need for innovation by highlighting other people's work. For example, your company can start with developing an ‘Innovation of the Week’ series.

The Innovation of the Week can be a weekly feature for your company that highlights creative and innovative projects from within your organisation. The idea behind initiatives like these is that it helps each employee think about how they are adding value to their team or solving problems in new ways, as well as making them feel appreciated for their contributions.

Develop events that encourage knowledge sharing, such as holding monthly lunches where all employees can share what they've been working on so far. You can do quarterly presentations focused around one particular theme where everyone demonstrates what they know best.

6. Avoid the echo chamber — create a culture of dissent by encouraging people to challenge ideas

Encourage people to share their perspectives and insights. Create open forums where they're allowed, even encouraged, to challenge ideas and theories.

Encourage others to provide feedback on each other's work before it is finalised; this will help generate new ideas for the project or content at hand. You can incorporate members from other divisions in your company to get more perspectives.

Invite outside speakers who can offer different points of view from those that are currently represented by staff members within an organisation. If you seek out feedback from both inside and outside the organisation on how best to do things, this will give you a better idea of what is working in an area as well as what could be improved.

Encourage employees to take risks and explore new territories for ideas, products, or services. You can do this by allowing people time during the day to explore topics that interest them without any direct involvement in projects assigned by managers so that they may develop creative solutions.

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