A recent article by Stephanie Carlin summarizes a talk Tom Davenport gave at the APQC KM conference. She writes:
“Davenport said that the average worker spends three hours and 14 minutes a day using technologies to process work-related information—more than 40 percent of an eight-hour workday. The tools and technologies designed to make life easier often have the opposite effect and consume too much of an individual’s time and energy, he said. There is a significant opportunity for organizations to save time and money by focusing on managing an individual’s personal information and knowledge environment. As a result, knowledge management (KM) strategies should focus on managing personal information and knowledge within the organization.”
Seems like a great opportunity for RSS and blogs.
The article provides more data from an IWPC study that Tom was involved with. In the 40% time spent on personal knowledge management, “For the average user surveyed, 45 percent of information processing time is spent on e-mail, 19 percent is spent on voice mail, and 18 percent is spent on shared networks. A much smaller percentage of time (less than 10 percent in each case) was spent on portal Web sites, conference calls, and instant/text messages.”
Davenport adds: “the idea of managing personal information to transform KM will take off for many reasons. First, people are swamped with information and knowledge. Few people today believe they do not get enough information. In fact, we get plenty of information, and we need to use it more effectively. Second, thanks to the Internet, Google, and other knowledge resources, there are greater expectations for information access. Third, because of self-service strategies employed by many large organizations, employees often feel they are on their own. Finally, devices and tools for personal information management are multiplying, and they do not always integrate well with other knowledge tools in an organization. Just when it seems like you figure something out, something else that is better and faster comes out, and you need to relearn a new technology or tool. As a result, there is a greater need to focus on managing personal information and knowledge.”
A number of companies, such as Ziff-Davis, are replacing email with blogs for certain communication to increase efficiencies and provide a searchable archive. RSS feed providers like NewsGator offer RSS feeds to multiple devices such as PDAs. Some of the reasons Tom gives for market reception to personal knowledge management efforts certainly apply to blogs and RSS. Good timing here.
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Posted by: johnsonleee | September 06, 2004 at 02:48 PM