Knowledge management is the process by which organizations create value from their knowledge-based assets. More often than not, generating value from such assets involves documenting what employees, partners, and customers know and sharing that information with employees, departments, and even other companies to shape best practices.
Knowledge management forums are the best place for information exchange, discussion and debates. Forums and bulletin boards are often informal but are a good source of information. Emails and messages posted on bulletin boards are the main source of awareness for your users. Many organizations encourage the use of forums among their customers as one of the alternatives to access support services.
Customers post their messages describing their problems and subject matter experts respond with solutions. These messages are usually public so that other clients can easily access them with similar problems in the future.
However, such forums do not always represent free-for-all websites. Forums take various forms. One of those forms is ?communities of practice? representing a group of people working on similar projects or using similar tools. Forums may also represent people in a similar job role, who may or may not be located in the same physical location. Several organizations have developed community portals that allow employees or members to share resources by posting emails, uploading files, conducting online chat sessions, and maintaining contact information.
Another type of forum is the corporate intranet, which is an excellent choice for a first-time knowledge management initiative, as it provides easy access to quickly promote the system and encourage usage.
Another type of forum is the Yellow Pages and other directories. These are excellent options for organizations with knowledge bases that consist mostly of tacit knowledge or that are rapidly obsolescent. The purpose of a knowledge management system in such cases is not only to facilitate the creation and reuse of knowledge, but also to provide a mechanism by which the source of the knowledge can be easily located.
Consulting organizations are widely known for using directories and yellow pages as a means of finding employees with the right skills for certain requirements. Knowledge management has proven to be a great source for generating value from knowledge-based assets.
