Knowledge Framework:

Knowledge is intangible, dynamic, and difficult to measure, but without it no organization can survive. Tacit: or unarticulated knowledge is more personal, experiential, context specific, and hard to formalize; is difficult to communicate or share with others and is generally in the heads of individuals and teams. Explicit: explicit knowledge can easily be written down and codified.

KM Framework
KM [Knowledge Management] involves blending a companys internal and external information and turning it into actionable knowledge via a technology platform.
Knowledge Management is the explicit and systematic management of vital knowledge and its associated processes of creation, organization, diffusion, use and exploitation in pursuit of business objectives Knowledge Management as a discipline to develop fluid connections and content supporting an organizations responsiveness, innovation, competence and efficiency by helping an organization know what it knows. .

 All KM is a discipline not a process or technology.

KM is not an end itself. It is in support of achieving business goals. KM is concerned with connections. Connecting people to people and people to content. By building these connections, we increase the likelihood of valuable knowledge being exchanged and being applied. The value of knowledge comes from its exercise not from its mere existence. KM is concerned with content. Knowledge is valuable when it is continually refreshed and used. Content has increasingly short shelf like, loses value quickly and becomes a commodity over time.

KM Framework
People are the source of and users of knowledge. They bring powerful insight and expertise as they apply knowledge to the business problem at hand.

Since people are the key to knowledge management, it is crucial that we understand the dynamics of how people develop and share knowledge in team communities and large organizational group.

Company Profile in a Nutshell:

International business Corporation (IBM) manufacturers and sells computer services, software and hardware as well as financing services in support of its computer business. IBM offers its products through its global sales a distribution organization operating in more than 150 countries, worldwide with over 300000 employees and $80 billion revenue. More than half of its revenue derived from sales outside the United States.

 KM efforts in IBM span in three areas

Internal o The internal focus started in IBM as early as 1994 within the Global Services Software Group business units. In 1998, a corporate KM effort (KM Blue) was established under the auspices of Human Resources with the goal of raising awareness of KM within the business units.

Offerings and Services. o The offerings focus was initiates in the Lotus brand of Software Group business unit more than 5 years ago with products such as Notes/Domino (e-mail, calendar, application development)

Research o The research activities range from basic and applied research with associated patents and publications from IBM research labs worldwide to client-focused consortiums such as the IBM Institute of Knowledge-based Organizations. This institute drivers leading edge thinking and research by thought leaders such as Larry Prusak and David Snowden.

IBMs KM Strategy:
The company's KM initiatives date back to the early 1990s, when the company was reorganized under Louis Gerstner (Gerstner). Before that, the company was running as silos due to which information sharing was limited. Then, Gerstner included information sharing as one of the parameters in performance appraisal system to determine compensation. IBM's initial efforts in managing knowledge focused on providing information about co-workers and work to enable reuse of the same. This effort started with asset reuse program, which was formalized as Intellectual Capital Management program. Asset management Expertise location Collaboration On-demand learning

Asset management
IBM's first KM initiative in 1994 involved asset management from the business unit perspective. The strategy was to provide a knowledge base of the work and knowledge of colleagues so that the assets and intellectual capital could be reused, enabling IBM to deliver client solutions with more quality and speed.

One asset management solution is Knowledge View, which is a knowledge sharing program targeted at IBM's Business Consulting Services (BCS) unit. The suite of repositories contains intellectual capital, key resources and discussion forums that all support the consulting business, and provides a place for those who sell and deliver consulting work to access reusable assets IBM also supports a Worldwide Asset Reuse program targeted at the company's Global Services division. That group of repositories promotes asset-based services by capturing key assets and making them available for reuse.
When IBM's software group started in 1999, it designed Xtreme Leverage as a knowledge sharing and collaboration tool aimed at software sellers. Xtreme Leverage has achieved some extreme results in the past few years. It is the only place for software sellers to go for content and expertise--down from five--and attracts more than 40,000 users and approximately 800,000 page views per month.

Expertise location As IBM started focusing on collaboration, rather than teaming, the ability to identify and access expertise in an organization with 300,000 employees became a significant problem.

The organization started Blue Pages as a corporate wide directory enabled with instant messaging and e-mail linkage. It goes beyond IBM's corporate directory because it provides a searchable resource for employees looking for a network of experts to collaborate with or to help solve a business problem. Employees can even provide a photo to personalize their listing.
Today, 84 percent of employees are registered in Blue Pages, and more than 4 million searches occur each week. Productivity is the easiest measure in terms of business value.

 Collaboration
IBM provides employees with virtual spaces that encourage collaboration. Its Collaboration Central, for example, is a company wide portal for collaboration guidance, tools and best practices. It also offers remote teams online collaboration space in Team Rooms to share information and work collaboratively. In the last few years, employees have created 50,000 Team Rooms, with approximately 27,000 currently active. IBM also offers open collaborative sessions called Jams for all its employees to collaborate and share knowledge on a particular topic. The Values Jam, for example, relates to mission statements.

On-demand learning
This form of workplace training started in 2004 to give employees an ongoing set of learning opportunities. On Demand Workplace portals focus on critical job roles within IBM and deliver asset management programs and best practices directly to the right audience.

Learning@IBM is an example of a new application on IBM's On Demand Workplace that streams profile-driven learning right to learners' desktops. It ensures employees are focusing on learning that is relevant to their specific job role by providing learning recommendations and resources based on job role, geography and business unit. In August 2005, Learning@IBM had 100,000 visits and more than 400,000 page views.

Social Systems:
Communities Teams Leadership Compensation