Knowledge is Money

Money, security and trust are intimately connected. So it is with knowledge. We treat knowledge and money in similar ways. We give trivial knowledge away without much thought, much like one might choose to spend small change. We will invest our most important know-how carefully, in a trusted relationship, as we would our life savings. Knowledge will not be shared openly by everyone; a choice to share knowledge is an investment decision by the source.

A knowledge management system, either as a business process, a technology, or both, will fail unless this aspect of knowledge is taken to heart. The system must act as a trusted investment vehicle appropriate to the value of the knowledge, or it will suffer from a lack of market players.

Getting Things Done

To clear your head, relax and yet be more productive, I suggest you take a look at Getting Things Done, by David Allen. The book collects a set of processes and tricks to, well, get things done. Some of the tricks you will likely already know - make lists, for example. I had not appreciated, however, the value of making quite so many lists or seen all the components brought together in such a nice way before. Thanks for the tip, Quentin!

Knowledge Management is link management

What is Knowledge Management? Knowledge Management is link management and it is the elephant that has sat in the middle of businesses since business began. Link two different ideas and you have innovation. Link a prospect to a product or service and you have a sale. Link a product to a market and you have a business.

Not every link is good. The value of a secret may be eroded if it is linked to too many people. A product linked to the wrong market might be an expensive mistake. A search linked to too many results might be as useless as a search linked to none.

We must forge useful links and break poor ones. Knowledge Management is about creating a set of good links. It is about good salesmanship, clever marketing and making valuable innovations. We create links and break links to optimise our performance.