Establishing a Knowledge Community

Establishing a community has many components. These are related to choosing a topic, identifying the group, selecting a leader, and the extensive preparatory activities for launching and leveraging the activity. One of the basic questions relates to diagnosing the selected group and the nature of its needs:

Many organizations choose as their first knowledge community a group that already has an organic connection between its members. Is this a wise choice? Is this an easy choice?

Our recommendation is to choose the first community according to the knowledge topic that they seek to manage. Regarding the group, one should examine its type and adapt an appropriate solution profile to it:

In organizations where they are asked to characterize a knowledge community, one can encounter three main groups:

1. The Face-to-Face Community: A group of employees with a shared interest who have joint activity as a human community (face-to-face meetings). This group meets periodically and exchanges ideas orally. These idea exchanges are effective and enriching, but are usually not documented. Sometimes they are also not directed but rather coincidental (who shall we invite to lecture this time?).

2. Mailing List Group: A group of employees with shared interests who do not meet face-to-face. The group shares knowledge through an updated and active mailing list of interested parties, which is used to transmit articles, ideas, and other information that may be of interest to the group.

3. Potential Group: Those with shared interests without any regular activity of knowledge sharing in a systematic and managed manner.

After identifying the group profile, the following questions should be asked:

1. What exists today in the group?

2. What are their work habits?

3. What do they lack?

Here are several examples for each of the questions:

The Face-to-Face Community

What exists today in the group: What do they discuss, who manages the forum, how many participate in each meeting, etc. Work habits: What is the frequency of meetings? How is information conveyed? Is knowledge documented in any way? Emphasis on discussion groups. What is lacking: Direction toward goals or important topics; information documentation; completion of virtual tools; improvement in the number of meetings or number of participants in meetings; weekly updates.

Mailing List

What exists today: How many are registered on the mailing list? Is the list updated? What content is usually involved (articles, discussion summaries, etc.)? Do people frequently review the materials, or do they discard the information without opening it? Do the contents serve them during their routine work? Work habits: At what frequency are updates sent? Who usually initiates the letters? Are the contents fixed or changing? In such a group, we will check the option of a search engine for locating information. What is lacking: Information storage and retrieval, consistency in content and updates, effective organization of content, and consideration of whether to build a complementary human community.

In the Potential Group, the three questions are practically irrelevant since the group doesn't exist, there are no established work habits at the sharing level, and there are numerous deficiencies. One should check whether there are enough participants to establish a group, whether they are willing to share knowledge, and whether sharing should be incorporated as part of their work habits. Additionally, it is essential to determine the most suitable style of sharing for that group. It's important to pay attention to the following:

• It is essential to establish meaningful content before going live, so that from the first moment the user enters the system, the added value is immediately apparent.

• The technological tool adapted to that community must be accessible, convenient, and easier to use than before, meaning that using the tool will be preferable to using the phone or sending an email.

• A community without proper content and an appropriate technological tool will become another unused platform.

Establishing a community is not a simple matter. We have spread here a bit of the canvas, "a drop in the ocean." Good luck!

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Want to learn more about KM strategy?

Here are some articles you might find interesting:

• Knowledge Community - Partner Circles

• Challenges in Building a Professional Virtual Community

• Integrated Knowledge Management in the Natural Work Environment