Q: For the growth and administration of an excellent knowledge management system it is essential not only to transform the organizational

behavior but also modify the technological infrastructure of the enterprise. Here it is important to understand that technology is not the solution to an organizations knowledge management needs but it is also required to facilitate the organizations knowledge management processes. Discuss the role of technology in an enterprise-wide knowledge management environment. 2 Information Technology for Knowledge Management There is an ongoing lively discussion about the role that information technology can play for knowledge management. On the one hand, information technology is used extensively in organizations, and thus qualifies as a natural medium for the flow of knowledge. Boarding in knowledge management efforts generally rely, for accomplishing their goals, on the setting up of a suitable IT infrastructure. The danger that this viewpoint sees is that IT-driven knowledge management strategies may end up objectifying and calcifying knowledge into static, inert information, thus disregarding altogether the role of tacit knowledge. Knowledge management strategies of this type would bring back the ghost of the infamous, and none too far in time, re-engineering days, when the corporate motto was More IT, less people!; they conjure grim scenarios of organizations with enough memory to remember everything and not enough intelligence to do anything with it. Part of the problem here derives from a linguistic ambiguity: nowadays information technologies are as much about creating direct connections among people through such applications as electronic mail, chat-rooms, video-conferencing and other types of groupware as they are about storing information in databases and other types of repositories. As for information databases, they can also be fruitfully re-thought, in a knowledge management perspective, as resources for the sharing of best practices and for preserving the intellectual capital of organizations. Generally speaking, investments in IT seem to be unavoidable in order to scale up knowledge management projects. The best way of applying information technology to knowledge management is probably a combination of two factors: on the one hand, the awareness of the limits of information technology, and of the fact that any IT deployment will not achieve much, if it is not accompanied by a global cultural change toward knowledge values; on the other hand, the availability of information technologies that have been expressly designed with knowledge management in view. This last topic, the design and application of knowledge-oriented information technology, provided the focus for the conference on Practical Applications of Knowledge Management held in October 1996 in Basel, Switzerland (Wolf and Reimer 1996). For this special issue of J.UCS on Information Technology for Knowledge Management we selected several contributions to the PAKM conference and asked the authors for extended versions of their papers. The selected contributions relate to technologies supporting various types of organizational knowledge during different phases of its life-cycle.

Knowledge Management requires technologies to support the new policies, procedures, systems and skills to better create, distribute, share and apply the best knowledge, anytime and anyplace, across teams, with in organization and across several organizations, especially its clients, customers, partners, suppliers and other key stakeholders. The key technologies are communication and teamwork. New technologies are rapidly emerging that act as intelligent agents and assistants to search, summaries, conceptualize and identify shapes of information and knowledge. Knowledge Portal There is often confusion between the terms information portal and knowledge portal. An information portal is often described as a gateway to information to enable the user to have one, more simplified way of navigating towards the desired information. However a knowledge portal is far more than an information portal because, as well as information navigation and access, it contains within it software technologies to, at least, support the processes of virtual team communication and collaboration and software technologies to support the 9 step process of managing knowledge. Furthermore, it contains intelligent agent software to identify and automatically distribute information and knowledge effectively to knowledge workers based on knowledge profiling. Knowledge Profiles Within the knowledge portal, each knowledge worker can update and maintain a personal knowledge profile which identifies his/her specific knowledge needs, areas of interest and frequency of distribution. Collaborative workspaces Within the knowledge portal, shared work spaces can be set up for each new team or project. These will become knowledge repositories from which new

knowledge will be distilled regularly and systematically and shared across other teams in the organisation. Within the shared and collaborative workspace, at least, the following communication and collaboration functions could be performed: Shared vision and mission Specific team objectives Knowledge Plan Team members roles and responsibilities Team contract Best Knowledge Bases or Banks Expert locator Task management Shared Calendar management Meeting management Document libraries Discussion forums Centralised email Capturing of new learnings and ideas Peer reviews, learning reviews, after action reviews New knowledge nominations Urgent requests Within the knowledge portal, it is very useful to have a facility and underlying process to enter any Urgent Request into the portal and receive back any responses from across the organisation. Rather than needing to know who might know the request is entered blindly and responses will be made if it is known in the organisation and people are willing to support and respond to this activity. This is a very effective way of better leveraging the knowledge across the organisation. Document Libraries The document library is typically the location where all documents are stored. The library should be context relative and allow the ease of control over any document type. Many organisations now employ an Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS) for this requirements but the integration of the EDRMS with all other relevant information and knowledge sources is imperative. Knowledge Server and services In order to foster knowledge networking across the entire organisation and support knowledge processes for creating, retaining, leveraging, reusing, measuring and optimising the use of the organisational knowledge assets, a centralised knowledge server is required that will: manage the communications and collaboration between networks of people enable the access, creation and sharing of knowledge between them The centralised knowledge server will manage the processes and knowledge services that generate and disseminate knowledge assets.

The key components of a generic knowledge server are: a knowledge portal interface designed around a knowledge asset schema (see KM consulting section) as a gateway to user access, security and applications Knowledge banks Advanced search capabilities collaboration services search and discovery services publishing services based on user knowledge needs and knowledge profiling a knowledge map (taxonomy) knowledge repository for information and process management Text summarising and conceptualising Intelligent agentware an Intranet infrastructure for integrated email, file servers, internet/intranet services

Technology and communication are pivotal in formal knowledge management processes. Despite broad definitions, knowledge management essentially means the systems and processes used by companies to gather information and knowledge from partners, employees and customers for use in improving market value and helping the business to grow. Small businesses can benefit greatly from knowledge management processes by improving customer relationships and communication. Breakdown Knowledge management (KM) generally relates to four common dimensions of business operations: your mission, competition, performance and change. To effectively engage in management knowledge, you need to know how information relates to your mission. Gaining advantages over the competition is a primary purpose of investing in knowledge management. Without targeted performance improvements, return on investment with KM is difficult to measure. Companies especially rely on KM when transitioning or making widespread changes. Technology Without technology, knowledge management is little more than instinctive or intuitive decisions based on experiences and expectations. Databases and other software solutions are critical in capturing customer data for interpretation. Meredith Levinson points out in her CIO article "Knowledge Management Definition and Solutions" that KM is often facilitated by information technology departments that help build the technology infrastructure and then work with company leaders to extract useful data in a format that is usable for gaining knowledge.

Communication Effective communication across the organization is necessary during the buildup of knowledge management infrastructure. Company leaders need to set objectives and strategize before working with IT to acquire necessary technology. Goals and objectives are then communicated to all departments and employees involved in the process of acquiring data or using it. Change management also comes into play when formalized KM leads to role changes or transitions in the way the company does business. Communication Tools E-mail, groupware, instant messaging, forums and other shared communication technology platforms are integral to ongoing communication surrounding knowledge management. Research or marketing teams must collaborate on determining what information is needed. IT must communicate with other departments to help generate useful information from data. Group communication tools also enable work teams that work specifically in making use of information to collaborate and discuss ideas and problems. The more these tools are integrated with the databases and other work processes, the more effective they become in the KM process.