The Tools & Technologies Needed for Knowledge Management

ARTICLE SUMMARY & REVIEW (Week3-Class4)
(By MIM-SUMMER: Ashwini, Dick, Eleanor, Kai, Holger)

Title: The Tools and Technologies Needed for Knowledge Management (KM)

Theme: This article aims to provide an overview of KM software market, broadly Consisting of two categories: KM infra-structure tools and technologies and KM access software.

SUMMARY

The author, referring to different definitions of knowledge management, recognizes the enormous value that human resources bring to an organization. She suggests that effective leveraging of knowledge, enabled by appropriate technology infra-structure providing the base for establishment of KM solutions, leads to organization environments where knowledge sharing and collaboration becomes a ‘BAU’. KM infra-structure tools and KM access software are the two major categories of KM software market.

KM Infra-structure Tools and Technologies

Data Warehousing Infra-structure: These include tools and application software that focus on extraction and analysis of data captured from business applications to support business decision-making.

Content Retrieval/Management software: These tools, supporting un-structured data management requirements of KM initiatives, enable users to organize information at the object level based on topical areas rather than full documents.

Business-ware Management Systems (BWMS): They enable knowledge capture & use by providing support for real-time application integration and business process automation.

Collaborative Applications: They focus on core functions like email, shared folders/databases, group calendaring/scheduling, and custom applications for knowledge sharing and collaboration.

KM Access Software

Enterprise Information Portals (EIP): This software, augmented by KM tools, provides individual/group access to both structured and un-structured data.

Intellectual capital Management (ICM) Software: It builds and manages the employee competencies inventory, monitors and manages processes by transferring know-how into corporate policies and procedures.

Workforce/Skills management Applications: They determine location of corporate expertise, help in hiring/deploying/retaining employees for supporting KM initiatives.

Emerging KM Tools & Technologies

The new emerging technologies include ‘knowledge exchange platforms’ for trading in knowledge, corporate learning management software, knowledge workflow management software, and knowledge profiling technologies.

REVIEW

The article provides a bird’s eye view of the various tools and technologies available in the KM software market. The simple language, good writing style, logical flow of subject matter has served the intended purpose of introducing the reader to the tools and technologies needed in KM. However, the importance of adoption of these technologies by the ‘people’ component of a KM system has been totally ignored and there is a scope for improving the structure of subject matter.

Reference:
Duffy, J. (2001). The Tools and Technologies Needed for Knowledge Management, Information Management Journal, 35 (1), pp 64.