Intranet Portals ? Collaboration through Team Rooms

Knowledge Management for beginners

Knowledge Management (KM) can be defined simply as the process through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets. Knowledge assets are often grouped into two categories:

(1) Explicit Knowledge
Generally, everything and anything that can be documented, archived and codified. Examples include patents, trademarks, business plans, marketing research and customer lists.

(2) Tacit Knowledge
The rest. Tacit knowledge is the know-how contained in people's heads. The challenge inherent with tacit knowledge is figuring out how to recognize, generate, share and manage it.

Most often, generating value from such assets involves sharing them among employees, departments and even with other companies in an effort to reach ? or go beyond - best practice.

Where Collaboration technologies can help? and hinder

For explicit knowledge, the focus can usefully be described as "connecting people to things", whilst for tacit knowledge, the focus is "connecting people to people".

As such, structured and unstructured search technologies are usually the core of strategies to encourage greater sharing of explicit knowledge; the user searches for a document either by typing some text into a search engine or by clicking through a document taxonomy.

Similarly, a well structured "yellow pages" directory, where one can search for people with particular skills or experience, forms the centrepiece of tacit strategies; where the aim is to connect people often for 10 minute telephone conversations / requests for help that could save a week's work.

Both explicit and tacit strategies are, however, much enhanced when combined with Collaboration or "work-group" technologies. By creating "communuities of interest" around cross-functional themes, individuals can share documents, plans and other material, find and discuss issues with subject-matter experts and even allocate tasks and calendar items to each other.

For example, a community for "customer insight" might have members drawn from call centre operations, marketing and IT teams (to name but a few) who share a common interest in better understanding the customer need. They could each contribute into the team space document repository materials that (once added together) create powerful new insights and possible future revenue enhancement. By sharing, they (a) gather a sense of belonging to a wider network of similarly minded people, (b) gain knowledge that helps each to better achieve their objectives and (c) gain recognition for being an expert in their particular area.

Benefits (for your business case) include: (a) better customer service through improved response times, (b) faster new product development and time to market, (c) enhanced employee retention through rewarding knowledge sharing, (d) reduced Opex through the streamlining of processes, (e) reduced IT network and storage cost growth through a reduction in email file attachments.

There are, however, risks to collaboration, where poorly implemented. For example, if individual community documents are not accessible through the overall portal search, then you risk creating information silos, where only a select few can access information that is of much wider use. Also, part of your portal benefits are likely to stem from people visiting all areas of the site and learning about other departments and teams. If people spend all their time in their own team rooms, the benefits of this wider perspective will be lost.

Typical Team Room Functionality

Most intranet portal offerings contain some collaboration functionality, either (a) as a standalone optional module, (b) as a partly integrated standard portlet or (c) as a fully integrated function, combined with email systems.

Typical elements include:

1) Shared Calendar:
The team can maintain a single calendar of notable team events or shared deadlines. Where not fully integrated to email systems, this functionality is sometimes only sparingly used.

2) Discussion Forums:
The team can set up and post to threaded discussions, where issues or opportunities can be fully explored. It can take time for people to really get used to using this functionality and taking such discussions off the email system. A key role is that of the moderator, who can (a) spark new discussions, (b) invite people to join them, (c) deal with any abuse of etiquette and (d) capture and structure the result (e.g. a key decision) before archiving the thread.

3) Shared Documents:
The team can workflow, version control, security protect and store / retrieve documents, including policies, reports, analysis and plans. This functionality is often the most heavily used and of particular value for project teams, where many hundreds of key documents may be created in the course of delivery.

4) Allocate Tasks:
The team can set-up tasks and allocate them to themlseves or other team members. Reminders appear in the team calendar and (where there is email integration) in the email inbox of the task owner. Again, it can take time to get people usign this functionality but ? once working well ? can be of immense value for teams driving at particular outcomes and deadlines.

Some final thoughts

Collaboration technologies can be a very powerful addition to your knowledge management strategy, complementing structured search and yellow pages functionality. It is important to get the implementation right. In particular, to really think about ways to move people from email to teamrooms (e.g link to files in a teamspace rather than attach them) and to ensure that documents in teamrooms can be accessible via the wider portal search functionality.

About the author:

David Viney (david@viney.com) is the author of the Intranet Portal Guide; 31 pages of advice, tools and downloads covering the period before, during and after an Intranet Portal implementation.

Read the guide at http://www.viney.com/DFV/intranet_portal_guide or the Intranet Watch Blog at http://www.viney.com/intranet_watch.

---

Google News Updated : Wed, 08 Oct 2008 02:50:04 GMT ACORN office in Vegas raided in voter-fraud probe - The Associated Press ABC News ACORN office in Vegas raided in voter-fraud probe The Associated Press - 2 hours ago LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada authorities seized records Tuesday from a group they accused of submitting fraudulent voter-registration forms - including for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys. Non-Profit Raided In Voter Fraud Probe CBS News ACORN Nevada Office Raided Washington Post MarketWatch - CNN Political Ticker - USA Today - Cleveland Leader all 197 news articles Publ.Date : Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:01:25 GMT Nashville Knockout: What To Watch For - Washington Post Vancouver Sun Nashville Knockout: What To Watch For Washington Post - 4 hours ago Riggers lift scaffolding into place in front of the Curb Events event site at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., Monday, Oct. 6, 2008, as preparations continue for Tuesday's presidential debate. WRAPUP 5-Obama, McCain battle over taxes, economy Reuters Presidential debate: minute by minute Los Angeles Times The Associated Press - New York Times - Newsweek - Newsday all 1,781 news articles Publ.Date : Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:08:13 GMT With Outlook Dim, Bernanke Says Fed May Act on Rates - New York Times Boston Globe With Outlook Dim, Bernanke Says Fed May Act on Rates New York Times - 2 hours ago By DAVID STOUT and EDMUND L. ANDREWS WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said on Tuesday that the turmoil in the financial markets had increased the risk to overall growth and that federal regulators would have to be vigilant to ... Video: Bernanke signals possible rate cut ReutersVideo Bernanke hints at possible interest rate cut MarketWatch Bloomberg - TheStreet.com - Forex Market all 1,140 news articles Publ.Date : Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:40:38 GMT McCain, Obama discuss possible Treasury secretary picks - Reuters Wall Street Journal Blogs McCain, Obama discuss possible Treasury secretary picks Reuters - 43 minutes ago NASHVILLE, Oct 7 (Reuters) - US presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama both mentioned investor Warren Buffett as a possible pick for Treasury secretary on Tuesday but both spoke in only general terms about the qualities they would seek ... McCain, Obama agree that Buffett could lead US treasury (Extra) Monsters and Critics.com A Strong eBay, A Strong Government Forbes Wall Street Journal Blogs - CNN Political Ticker - Boston Herald - Bloomberg all 24 news articles Publ.Date : Wed, 08 Oct 2008 02:06:13 GMT Tehran confirms seizure of aircraft - Financial Times AFP Tehran confirms seizure of aircraft Financial Times - 42 minutes ago By Thomas Escritt in Budapest and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in,Tehran Iran yesterday revealed that it had forced a Hungarian-crewed transport aircraft to land after it strayed into the Islamic republic's airspace at the end of last month. Iran Withdraws Claim on US Plane New York Times US Military: Tense Encounters With Iran Occur Almost Daily FOXNews CNN International - AHN - United Press International - The Associated Press all 684 news articles Publ.Date : Wed, 08 Oct 2008 02:08:03 GMT Uneasy calm in Bangkok after day of deadly riots - Reuters The Age Uneasy calm in Bangkok after day of deadly riots Reuters - 1 hour ago BANGKOK, Oct 8 (Reuters) - An uneasy calm settled over the Thai capital on Wednesday after the worst street violence in 16 years the day before, when two people died and nearly 400 were injured in clashes between police and anti-government protesters. Video: Raw Video: Tear Gas Fired at Thai Protestors AssociatedPress Two dead as Thai troops battle protesters guardian.co.uk Xinhua - Sin Chew Jit Poh - Washington Post - Radio Australia all 1,463 news articles Publ.Date : Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:18:31 GMT Study Shows Weak Circumcision/HIV Benefit for Gay/Bisexual Men - WebMD AFP Study Shows Weak Circumcision/HIV Benefit for Gay/Bisexual Men WebMD - 1 hour ago By Daniel J. DeNoon Oct. 7, 2008 -- Circumcision offers little HIV protection to gay/bisexual men -- overall. But it might cut HIV risk in predominantly insertive partners. Circumcision HIV impact doubted BBC News AIDS Benefits of Circumcision Are Limited, Study Finds New York Times U.S. News & World Report - Bloomberg - TIME - MedPage Today all 45 news articles Publ.Date : Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:24:47 GMT Clickbank RSS Feeds Earn Money With Surveys

PARLOT::Ebooks, Scripts, Websites, and more...

Adsense websites

E-Currency Exchange: The First Bonanza of the 21st Century?

The 21st century has introduced the world to a new... Read More

eCommerce, How Much Does It cost?

Making profits with your existing website design or creating a... Read More

Alternative E-Commerce Solutions

Over the past several years, the Internet has emerged as... Read More

Make That 3 Billion

My previous article I wrote called "One Point Two Billion"... Read More

The Art of Being Human

This isn't the first time I have written about the... Read More

Credit Card Processing - 7 Things You Need to Know Before Opening an Online Merchant Account

When considering opening an online merchant account to accept credit... Read More

How To Stay Cutting Edge In Online Business

Let's face it, there's just way too much information out... Read More

Increasing E-Commerce Website Sales: A Guide for the Online Newbie

Because of this encouraging surge in activity, many individuals are... Read More

One Point Two Billion

In this surreal world of the internet, anyone, even you,... Read More

Tell Them Whats in The Can!

What does 'the can' mean? Well, its literal meaning relates... Read More

How Measuring Key Performance Indicators Can Improve E-Commerce Strategy - Part One

The problem with most e-commerce marketing strategy today is that... Read More

Drop-Shipping ? A Great Way of Making Money Online

Using the Internet to sell products and services to ever... Read More

Choosing on Order Fulfillment Service

When your eCommerce business grows to the point where you... Read More

The Check is in the E-mail

Have you ever had someone who owed your business money... Read More

Does Your Shopping Cart Have a Squeaky Wheel?

Have you ever gone grocery shopping just before a holiday?... Read More

Working With Drop Shippers

Drop Shippers, the manufacturers or distributors who are willing to... Read More

How Do You Make Money Online?

If you learn how other people make money online, I... Read More

The Clickbank Crash of 2003: Lessons Learned

I had a rude awakening recently. I checked the days... Read More

Ecommerce Comes from Customer Satisfaction

Online shopping is convenient, but many companies whose web sites... Read More

Old Habits Die Hard in the Third Age Years

I spent a lifetime in retailing and I'm still at... Read More

Top 5 Dot Com Myths Debunked

Most people who get into business know what's involved. They... Read More

Mr and Mrs Smith Go Online, as Internet Technology Moves from Fantasy to Normality

According to NOP World, 48% of all Internet users have... Read More

10 Compelling Benefits of Having A 3rd Party Merchant Account

If you have been wrestling with the idea of applying... Read More

12 Easy and Effective Ways To Create Reports

1. Combine a few of your articles into a free... Read More

Electronic Commerce Tax Jurisdiction and Principles of Permanent Establishment

The principle of "permanent establishment" is very important for avoidance... Read More