What Is Personal Knowledge Management And Why Is It Important?
Personal knowledge management (whose focus is to find, connect, learn explore and grow) grew out of a combination of knowledge management and personal information management. Just to focus this a bit more, personal knowledge management is supposed to help an individual be more effective and to work better.
Yes the focus is the person, but the idea is to help the person work better/more effectively in groups and corporations. This of course is diametrically opposed to the traditional knowledge management that is centered on making the corporation more effective, by using what the people who work there know.
This area of knowledge management came to be because it was felt that staff (called knowledge workers) needed to be and take responsibility for their own growth and learning. That they need tools so they can evaluate what they know in given situations, figure out where the gaps are and fill them in. Sure this usually implies technology, but doesn't have to.
Utilizing this personal knowledge management answers the resounding question we all ask when faced with a request to change or do something different in our workplaces - "What is in it for me?" Now this is the individual employee talking. It's a little harder to get the collective to realize that individuals who are effective in turn make the organization more effective as a whole. Personal knowledge management systems usually have four components. Not all of them have to be introduced to the staff. The components are just in time canvassing, knowledge harvesting, personal content management and personal productivity improvement. This last component mostly focuses on things like knowledge fairs, and one-on-one training sessions to help employees effectively use the knowledge resources available to them. As with just about everything that people do, say or participate in, there are always criticisms. Personal knowledge management has its critics. People think focusing on the individual isn't a good thing. That personal knowledge management isn't new, and it's just a recycled version of personal information management. The most telling argument, and one that does seem to have some degree of merit to it, is that knowledge is not an individual product. It comes as a result of connections, talking and social interaction. And if you stop to think about that, it makes sense. Oh, we may have innate knowledge about some things, but for the most part our other knowledge does come from external sources. Basically, it's up to each individual to decide whether or not they want to participate in personal knowledge management or not. While it may be of benefit, it's a personal decision that only that person can make.
Knowledge Management
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