Knowledge management. It’s a term you may or may not be familiar with, but its definition is one that every business understands. According to Wikipedia, knowledge management or KM “comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences.” Or more simply put, it is the development and distribution of knowledge across an organization.
As businesses grow, evolve or shift due to market conditions, employees adapt by expanding their knowledge base while still retaining the experience and insights of the past. The knowledge of each employee at an organization is an invaluable company asset and the combined knowledge of a company is truly the engine that drives results. Just imagine the collective wisdom of the employees at Google or Facebook. (It may be able to power a small planet.)
The challenge of course is finding a way to tap into this wealth of knowledge and make it accessible to the greater organization in a meaningful way. There are barriers that inherently exist at every organization that can often stymy knowledge sharing. These barriers often can be attributed to one of the following:
- Limited Access to Executives/Leadership
- Ineffective Sharing Across Divisions/Business Units
- Lack of Communication Between Different Geographic Locations
This brings us to a pain point many businesses face: how can we effectively document and share that knowledge throughout our company? To break through these barriers, organizations need a platform that can collect information, inspire sharing and drive collaboration. Enter private social networks.
A social network that offers privacy, security & real-time communications within a community focused environment—over 50 percent of businesses have turned to private social networks to transform their business into a knowledge powerhouse. In fact, private social networks are now the 2nd most utilized enterprise social tool after blogs. Let’s explore some of the ways that private social networks help businesses master knowledge management.
Subjects: Private social networks allow organizations to establish intuitive subject trees that can categorize and segment information, making it easy for colleagues to find what they are looking for.
Profiles: Connecting people to information is important; connecting people to people is vital. Employee profiles within a private social network can include information on their experience, skills and strengths. Through search functionality colleagues can easily connect with the right internal resource to help complete a project or address a customer need.
Video conferencing: Businesses with multiple locations know all to well that interfacing with colleagues can be difficult. Advanced private social networks offer video conferencing which empowers employees to meet and collaborate with other employees.
Communities: Developing communities within a private social network allows organizations to break down a large organization into smaller groups, helping employees, customers and partners connect and share ideas and material in real-time.
We have only scratched the surface of how private social networks can help business realize the full potential of their employees and elevate their approach to knowledge management. Learn more about key private social network features or discover them for yourself by starting your own free private social network trial.
