Law Students

Why Knowledge Management?

We forget. That's one of the key reasons for using knowledge management technologies. We all know stuff, but unless that stuff is organized in a manner that is readily accessible (and "searchable") then for the most part it is fugitive.

We all get frustrated by not finding the stuff that we need and often it is the same stuff we have searched for and found in the past. So what do we do? Well if you live on the web then you bookmark stuff. But that strategy quickly gets out of control because bookmarks are too crude an approach for what we need.

Enter Wikis (we use Google Sites), or if you live in a Microsoft universe, then Sharepoint. In any case there are a number of low cost (or free) tools that can dramatically improve our ability to find stuff if we just get started. You don't need a perfect taxonomy (i.e. organizational scheme) because there is no such thing, and likely never will be. Many have tried this approach and failed miserably after investing millions.

What you need is a Niki strategy. Just create some "buckets" where you can put stuff (links, contextual text, notes, documents, etc.) and add to it "organically" a little at a time. Get in the game. If you do you may find that in a reasonable amount of time you have a better knowledge base than most of your competitors.

Why? Because they are waiting for a magic solution to emerge and you are busy creating your own magic, a little bit everyday.

Full post as published by LawTechTV on January 29, 2009 (boomark / email).