Each organization has a cumulus of knowledge, some of it common (related to company’s policies and procedures that apply to everyone) and most of it individual expertise, that put together generate the overall success of the company.
This expertise combined represents a valuable asset for the company and its reusable character is one of its strongest conveniences. Without even being aware of it, you probably already recycled knowledge before. Whenever you helped a colleague, shared your insights with them or when welcoming new employees by offering information to them, at a smaller scale, you reused your knowledge.
What does recycled knowledge actually mean?
I didn’t accidentally use both recycle and reuse terms. And that’s because when I talk about recycled knowledge I mean two things: knowledge that you can use with the same purpose and knowledge that you can use to make something new. What’s the catch, you say? No catch – it involves a win-win situation: while you get to benefit from your colleague’s expertise, you can as well participate with your own know-how for others to apply.
If you’re still fighting with the fear of sharing your knowledge, you might find some helpful information in this blog post.
Capture – centralize – communicate
Recycling actions ask for creative and innovative minds. And with knowledge being the raw material, anyone can be an artist! Keeping an open mind is enough to get you started.
But how do you get from that to seeing your work pursued? Take these shoulder tapping interruptions as an example. The team was assembled, the will to work together was there, the planning…not so much. So resources and goodwill make a great team together, but it won’t do its magic without a drop of structure.
The capture – centralize – communicate is the three steps strategy that will allow you to keep a lively information flow for your recycled knowledge project, as well as to not lose sight of your main focus: valuing your resources.
Putting everything into motion
Technology now facilitates all business processes and Enterprise 2.0 software deals with all types of internal communication strategies, knowledge reuse being one of it. Most of them use friendly interfaces and offer an easy to use experience. We like to think Quandora is one of those products. It’s centered around one of the most natural actions (asking questions), it follows the capture – centralize – communicate layout and it triggers all employees to engage with one another.
If you’re a StackOverflow user, you’ll immediately have a familiarity feeling 😉
Start practicing your knowledge recycling skills, stop compromising your time and resources and find the new opportunities within the professional capital you already own.
Happy Knowledge Sharing!
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