KMTALK ASIA

KMTALK recently had a brief chat with Dr. Altaf Abdul Gaffar from the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on the importance of managing knowledge in his institution and in the development sector as a whole. Dr. Altaf has been working in the Operations Planning & Services Department of IDB for the last 4 years.  The Islamic Development Bank is a Multilateral Development Bank works towards fostering economic development and social progress in the Muslim world. It has a number of 1000 staff from 63 different nations.

Our first question to him was- How do you see the importance of technology in a development organization like yours?

Altaf: Information Technology (IT) is a key to the operation of a development finance institution. Given the multi-national nature of these institutions, there is a significant IT requirement. [Read more →]

Microsoft and IBM are into the WAR!- the war to capture the enterprise portal market. This year both the companies have launched extra features to embed social networking functions more explicitly in their portal solutions. As identified by many, social networks are now the driver for fresh ideas, which leads to faster decision making, creativity and innovation. Both Microsoft and IBM are in the race-offering new Web 2.0 like features embedded in their portals.
 
SharePoint 2010 is considered by Microsoft as better, faster, and more secure processes. [Read more →]

1. Your staff stop to complain, they come in and go back on time. They are very quiete in meeting. They do not critique ideas. They just say yes and stay out of trouble.
2. Your staff stop to complain, they come in late and go back early. They want to be somewhere else. They drive Honda Accord to work and enjoy their vacation.
3. Your staff oppose on every single change. Either quietly or loudly.
4. Poor participation in organization activities. Number of turn ups are very low despite of interesting events laid out for them.
5. Your staff change organization but not job. They even accept offers that is just equal to their current salary. [Read more →]

When consultants talk about KM or propose a solution for organizations to improve profit margin by practicing KM correctly, the whole vision of the activities laid up for all staff to participate scares top management away. This is what I have encountered last year, for all KM practitioners who have the same experience, do buckle up your seat belt.

Top: I want you to help us to improve our HR, we have been spending too much on training teambuilding and yet, we received more numbers of complaints than increasing profit margin.

Consultant: I see,… well sir, when you send your staff to training, what do you have in mind?

Top: What do you mean?

[Read more →]

Social Media, Outsourcing, Downsizing, Lack of trust on tangible deliverables etc etc is making KM more vulnerable as a discipline. Though there is a common understanding among organizations that wider collaboration is crucial for survival, but the role of KM department is getting faded, to my observation. I know of at least 2 big organizations, which cut off their KM department in last year, because of economic downturn. There could be more out there. 

The rise of Social media is making knowledge creation and sharing much easier than before. People are creating tons of contents using Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Wikis. May be not all of them are useful, but there are information, facts in there. So, the role of KMers has to be changed. [Read more →]

KM is such a difficult discipline to depend on in moving up to a career ladder. I have been working in this field for the past 6 years (in 3 different industries) and I found this field has a huge potential to rise or fall.  High chances that it will fall as it is evident that the top management tends to lose interest and commitment towards KM very easily. They want some quick fix, which at many cases, KM cannot deliver. 

Out of the three, the only organization that still holds interest and allocates proper resources to do KM is the big Oil Company. [Read more →]