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The biggest hurdle that faces any knowledge management tool is: will people use it? Full Article >>

K-Logs are the internal intranet style use of blog tools.  Author John Robb mentions three keys in using blogs for knowledge management:

1) The tool must be EASY to use.

2) The tool must deliver visible benefits immediately.

3) The tool must gain value as more people use it (network effects).

What’s missing, or assumed here, is that all it takes is the right tool to get employees to share knowledge. 

I don’t buy it.

Even if the tool could run off speech recognition, or a Genie-like blink of the eyes and nod of the head, many people still just won’t know what to say.  What to share.  What they learned that someone else could benefit from. 

Any why do we expect them to?  Writing and Communications are disciplines unto themselves.  Handing great, cheap, easy to use tools for writing and communicating to people lacking significant training in these areas is like handing your local postman a really nice, easy to use welder, and expecting him to create high-pressure air tanks that same day.

No - we’ve learned this lesson over and over again when it comes to technology.  In parallel with looking at the tools, we must develop the necessary skills in the people who will use them. 

For Klogs, How do we also teach that storytelling ability?

Update - that Genie comment wasn’t so far out there after all.

Comments are closed, but you can read the comments other people left.

1. Bru on May 29, 2004

   Hi Micheal,
   Very interesting post…
   I’ve quoted you on my last entry -> http://www.codewitch.org/archives/000250.html

   Sadly can’t find a way to trackback, so I’m notifying you through this comment

2. Michael Boyink (Author) on May 29, 2004

   Hi Bru -

   Thanks for the comment…Yeah…I haven’t implemented trackbacks as I’m (conceptually anyway) trying to target my site to the clients I have, who are still struggling to understand the basic nature of blogs, much less blog rolls / trackbacks /etc.

   Well…that and I don’t get quoted much anyway…;)

   I actually happened into your post via Technorati (and found your reference to PubSubs there).

   I agree - motivation is also key.

   I might come at this issue a bit differently being a Communications guy at heart, but it’s always struck me as odd that when a company needs a well-engineered product they hire an good engineer.  When they need that product marketed well, they hire a good marketing person.  When they need someone who can sell that product well, they hire salespeople.

   But when they think that the entire company would benefit from better internal communications, they look to a tool rather than hire communicators.

   And to your point, given a tool and even given being trained in Communicating, unless there is motivation/reward involved in knowledge sharing, it just plain won’t happen.

   It’s the “really important, but always neglected” departmental intranet page all over again, with a cool name.

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