Knowledge Management

by Vinny Alex, CEO, Stylus Systems

Gone are the days of Data and Information. Today is the Knowledge Age. We talk about Knowledge Management, Knowledge systems and even Knowledge workers. Over the years, organizations have found that just having loads of data about activities and systems will not be useful, unless it is applied in a meaningful way to make a difference in people’s life.

Kevlar was invented in the 60’s as a material that was extremely light and yet stronger than steel (it’s most famous use today is in making bullet proof vests). But it’s taken more than 37 years to take this material and discover its use in making houses that resist cyclones.

Another interesting story is that of Post-it notes. 3M in its search for the strongest adhesive in the world, stumbled upon an adhesive so weak, it could be easily pulled off by even a child. What’s more, it continued to retain its adhesive qualities for some time after it had been peeled off, so it could be used again and again. Rather than throw off the work as a waste, 3M engineers decided to put it up on the company bulletin board. Art Fry was an engineer in another department. He saw the potential of this invention and developed Post-it notes.

What made the difference in these two stories was communication. It took Art Fry a far shorter time to use the glue, because the engineers in the adhesive department chose to share their information. Art Fry used it in a useful and relevant way and that was when information became knowledge.

As professionals in knowledge centered business, we need to constantly work at increasing our store of knowledge. Knowledge is a highly perishable commodity. It becomes obsolete quickly and unlike other products, its value increases as more people use it. Knowing this, it makes good sense to share with other what we know, and help them use it in a relevant way.

From an organizational perspective, we need to set in place systems that help and reward such knowledge sharing. But we also need to set, within ourselves, the discipline of knowledge sharing. The Programmer’s Mind, an initiative on the Stylus Internal Forum is an excellent start in this direction. We need many more such initiatives. For in a fast changing and competitive world, such a discipline would ultimately benefit us to grow.