Knowledge Management

What is Knowledge Management?

One of the hottest topics among records and information management professionals recently has been Knowledge Management. Current paradigm suggests that there is a hierarchy in which information is higher than data, knowledge is higher than information, and wisdom is highest of all.

Knowledge Management builds on the concepts and methods of Information Management, just as Information Management builds on the concepts and methods of Records Management. Records are the cornerstone of all three disciplines, which use such tools as the records retention schedule to manage the records. Information Management and Knowledge Management both also encompass non-record data, such as forms management and document creation. But Knowledge Management goes a step further still, acknowledging that not only is information vital to an organization, but that what the organization's workers do with the information is vital as well. The know-how, or knowledge, of the workers is key to the organization's success. Knowledge has become recognized as a manageable resource.

Using Knowledge Management in an Organization

Systems such as imaging and Intranet applications have been implemented to deliver needed information to the knowledge worker as quickly as possible. Whereas before the emphasis was on having the information accessible, now the emphasis is on the knowledge that the worker will add and how others in the organization can draw upon that knowledge.

Today's knowledge worker is increasingly challenged to create, capture, store, and retrieve mission-critical knowledge. At the work stations, each worker is faced with managing a burgeoning set of multimedia information: electronic files, hard-copy files, e-mail, voice-mail. Although some vertical business processes process and store their associated records on a server managed by others, everyone has a tremendous amount of information that is developed, stored, and managed on the desktop. How can this be done consistently throughout the organization?

Knowledge Management and Millican & Associates

Millican & Associates helps you take knowledge management in your organization from concept to practice through training your knowledge workers on knowledge management fundamentals and by providing desktop software which can be used to achieve organization-wide consistency.

In addition, through our other services we can help your organization develop knowledge management stratagems and policies which will allow your organization greater flexibility, responsiveness, and allow full use of the information and knowledge your organization has worked so hard to develop.

Currently Millican & Associates is developing a full-day seminar to introduce the concepts and benefits of knowledge management to managers, administrators, and policy makers.