Answer Upon - Business

Are the Yellow Pages a Dinosaur?
As I write my 64th article about the Yellow Pages, it reminds me of how the best things continue to stick around. For example, the YP were started as a pamphlet in Wyoming over 100 years ago. It became an easy way to keep track of a small number of local businesses. Today, they are a household name. They are still the book picked up when someone has a need. There are few service businesses that don’t have an ad in the good ole YP.With the advent of the Internet, most nay-sayers have doomed the YP to the way of the dinosaur. They claim that people prefer the speed of the digital age. They point to more surfers using online newspapers and magazines as their first choice. But there is a fatal flaw in their thinking. You cannot compare ads online.Say you are looking for a plumber on the net. After you do your local search and get a list, a few have ads, which you may click on “one at a time.” So how can you compare features and benefits, unless you go to the trouble of creating screen shots of each ad and placing them next to each other? The printed product not only has the line listings of every business in alphabetical order, but also ads that can be torn out and written on, as needed. They can be copied, faxed and even folded up to fit in your pocket and taken with you to the place itself. This is especially helpful if they have a map or directions. Try doing that with your computer screen.They serve many other useful functions. They offer local attractions, maps, zip codes, and of course the white pages. You may say that is true for the Internet version. But, what if you would like to take them in the car? Fine, you have a cell phone with Internet access, But do you really love that tw

scope, and impact, the creation of organisational-level knowledge map requires senior management support as well as careful planning

Share your knowledge about identifying, finding, and tracking knowledge in all forms

Recognise and locate knowledge in a wide variety of forms: tacit, explicit, formal, informal, codified, personalised, internal, external, and permanent

Knowledge is found in processes, relationships, policies, people, documents, conversations, links and context, and even with partners

It should be up-to-date and accurate

K-mapping - key questions

Knowledge map provides an assessment of existing and required knowledge and information in the following categories:

What knowledge is needed for work?

Who needs what?

Who has it?

Where does it reside?

Is the knowledge tacit or explicit?

What issues does it address?

How to make sure that the K-mapping will be used in an organisation?

Note:

K-maps should be easily accessible to all in the organisation

It should be easy to understand, update and evolve

It should be updated regularly

It should be an ongoing process since knowledge landscapes are continuously shifting and evolving

Offline Readings:

K-mapping tools

K-mapping tool selection

Creating knowledge maps by exploiting dependent relationships

Creating knowledge structure map?

White pages

KM jargon and glossary

Online Resource:

http://www.knowledgemap.co.uk

http://www.smithweaversmith.com/knowledg2.htm

http://www.voght.com/cgi-bin/pywiki?KnowledgeMapping

http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=105804&d=744&h=746&f=745

http://www.orgnet.com/IHRIM.html

K-mapping Tools:

MindMapping (http://www.mindjet.com/) Click here to install (need to ask the vendor for trial serial number)

Inspirat
Mentoring: The Benefits of Being A Mentor
Mentoring is a great way to give back to your industry and to help a less-experienced person in your field at the same time.It simply refers to providing advice and counsel to this person and helping them with their career.Becoming a mentor is satisfying because the person you are helping is letting you know that you are someone they admire and hold in high regard.It’s also a great way for you to grow professionally.You might be able to help a less experienced person in your industry not only answer the same questions you had when you were in their position, you might help them avoid some of the mistakes you made as well.Plus, it can also assist in your own career. When the person you are mentoring asks questions and causes you think about the answers you give them, it can help you reflect on where you are in your own career and what areas you need to improve upon.If you believe in karma then perhaps doing a good deed such as being a mentor will end up benefiting you as well. Not that you should expect to get something back by being a mentor but you could benefit from it too.Mentoring is really an endorsement for you because it says that someone looks up to you and views you as someone they can learn from. If you look at the opportunity the right way, you can learn from being a mentor as well.
This module focuses on the basics of Knowledge Mapping, its importance, principles, and methodologies.
Key Questions
- What is K-map?
- What does the K-map show, and what do we map?
- Why is K-mapping so important?
- What are some of the key principles, methodologies, and questions for K-mapping?
- How do we create K-map?
Background
Each of the past centuries has been dominated by single technology. The eighteenth century was the time of the great mechanical systems accompanying the Industrial Revolution. The nineteenth century was the age of steam engine. After these, the key technology has been information gathering, processing and distribution. Among other developments, the installation of world wide telephone networks, the invention of radio and television, the birth and unprecedented growth of the computer industry and the launching of communication satellites are significant. Now people started to think that only information is not enough, what matters is Knowledge. So there has been seen shift from Information to Knowledge.
A bit of information without context and interpretation is data such as numbers, symbols.
Information is a set of data with context and interpretation. Information is the basis for knowledge.
Knowledge is a set of data and information, to which is added expert opinion and experience, to result in a valuable asset which can be used or applied to aid decision making. Knowledge may be explicit and/or tacit, individual and/or collective.
The term -Knowledge Mapping- seems to be relatively new, but it is not. We have been practising this in our everyday life, just what we are not doing is - we are not documenting it, and we are not doing it in a systematic way. Knowledge Mapping is all about keeping a record of information and knowledge you need such as where you can get it from, who holds it, whose expertise is it, and so on. Say, you need to find something at your home or in your room, you can find it in no time because you have almost all the information/knowledge about -what is where- and -who knows what- at your home. It is a sort of map set in your mind about your home. But, to set such a map about your organisation and organisational knowledge in your mind is almost impossible. This is where K-map becomes handy and shows details of every bit of knowledge that exists within the organisation including location, quality, and accessibility; and knowledge required to run the organisation smoothly - hence making you able to find out your required knowledge easily and efficiently.
Below are some of the definitions:
It's an ongoing quest within an organization (including its supply and customer chain) to help discover the location, ownership, value and use of knowledge artifacts, to learn the roles and expertise of people, to identify constraints to the flow of knowledge, and to highlight opportunities to leverage existing knowledge.
Knowledge mapping is an important practice consisting of survey, audit, and synthesis. It aims to track the acquisition and loss of information and knowledge. It explores personal and group competencies and proficiencies. It illustrates or "maps" how knowledge flows throughout an organization. Knowledge mapping helps an organization to appreciate how the loss of staff influences intellectual capital, to assist with the selection of teams, and to match technology to knowledge needs and processes.
- Denham Grey
Knowledge mapping is about making knowledge that is available within an organisation transparent, and is about providing the insights into its quality.
- Willem-Olaf Huijsen, Samuel J. Driessen, Jan W. M. Jacobs
Knowledge mapping is a process by which organisations can identify and categorise knowledge assets within their organisation - people, processes, content, and technology. It allows an organisation to fully leverage the existing expertise resident in the organisation, as well as identify barriers and constraints to fulfilling strategic goals and objectives. It is constructing a roadmap to locate the information needed to make the best use of resourses, independent of source or form.
-W. Vestal, APQC, 2002
(American Productivity & Quality Center)
Knowledge Map describes what knowledge is used in a process, and how it flows around the process. It is the basis for determining knowledge commonality, or areas where similar knowledge is used across multiple process. Fundamentally, a process knowledge map cntains information about the organisation?s knowledge. It describes who has what knowledge (tacit), where the knowledge resides (infrastructure), and how the knowledge is transferred or disseminated (social).
-IBM Global Services
How are the Knowledge Maps created?
Knowledge maps are created by transferring tacit and explicit knowledge into graphical formats that are easy to understand and interpret by the end users, who may be managers, experts, system developers, or anybody.
Basic steps in creating K-maps:
Basic steps - creating K-maps for specific task
- The outcomes of the entire process, and their contributions to the key organisational activities
- Logical sequences of all the activities needed to achieve the goal
- Knowledge required for each activity {gives the knowledge gap}
- Human resource required to undertake each activity {shows if recruitment is needed}
What do we map?
The followings are the objects we map:
- Explicit knowledge
- Tacit knowledge
- Tacit organisational process knowledge
- Explicit organisational process knowledge
What do the knowledge maps show?
Knowledge map shows the sources, flows, constraints, and sinks of knowledge within an organisation. It is a navigational aid to both explicit information and tacit knowledge, showing the importance and the relationships between knowledge stores and the dynamics. The following list will be more illustrative in this regard:
- Available knowledge resources
- Knowledge clusters and communities
- Who uses what knowledge resources
- The paths of knowledge exchange
- The knowledge lifecycle
- What we know we don?t know (knowledge gap)
Activity: 1
>> Can you create your personal knowledge map which shows the types and location of knowledge resources you use, the channels you use to access knowledge?
Where does knowledge reside?
Knowledge can be found in
- Correspondents, internal documents
- Library
- Archives (past project documents, proposals)
- Meetings
- Best practices
- Experience
- Corporate memory
Activity: 2
>> What are the other places where you can find knowledge?
What are the other things to be mapped?
Benefits of K-mapping
In many organisations there is a lack of transparency of organisation wide knowledge. Valuable knowledge is often not used because people do not know it exists, even if they know the knowledge exists, they may not know where. These issues lead to the knowledge mapping. Followings are some of the key reasons for doing the knowledge mapping:
- to find key sources of knowledge creation
- to encourage reuse and prevent reinvention
- to find critical information quickly
- to highlight islands of expertise
- to provide an inventory and evaluation of intellectual and intangible assets
- to improve decision making and problem solving by providing applicable information
- to provide insights into corporate knowledge
The map also serves as the continuously evolving organisational memory, capturing and integrating the key knowledge of an organisation. It enables employees learning through intuitive navigation and interrogation of the information in the map, and through the creation of new knowledge through the discovery of new relationships. Simply speaking, K-map gives employees not only -know what-, but also -know how-.
Key principles of Knowledge Mapping
- Because of their power, scope, and impact, the creation of organisational-level knowledge map requires senior management support as well as careful planning
- Share your knowledge about identifying, finding, and tracking knowledge in all forms
- Recognise and locate knowledge in a wide variety of forms: tacit, explicit, formal, informal, codified, personalised, internal, external, and permanent
- Knowledge is found in processes, relationships, policies, people, documents, conversations, links and context, and even with partners
- It should be up-to-date and accurate
K-mapping - key questions
Knowledge map provides an assessment of existing and required knowledge and information in the following categories:
- What knowledge is needed for work?
- Who needs what?
- Who has it?
- Where does it reside?
- Is the knowledge tacit or explicit?
- What issues does it address?
- How to make sure that the K-mapping will be used in an organisation?
Note:
- K-maps should be easily accessible to all in the organisation
- It should be easy to understand, update and evolve
- It should be updated regularly
- It should be an ongoing process since knowledge landscapes are continuously shifting and evolving
Offline Readings:
- K-mapping tools
- K-mapping tool selection
- Creating knowledge maps by exploiting dependent relationships
- Creating knowledge structure map?
- White pages
- KM jargon and glossary
Online Resource:
- http://www.knowledgemap.co.uk
- http://www.smithweaversmith.com/knowledg2.htm
- http://www.voght.com/cgi-bin/pywiki?KnowledgeMapping
- http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=105804&d=744&h=746&f=745
- http://www.orgnet.com/IHRIM.html
K-mapping Tools:
- MindMapping (http://www.mindjet.com/) Click here to install (need to ask the vendor for trial serial number)
- Inspirat
  Business Cards - How Do You Communicate?
  Business cards aren’t something that most people concern themselves with too much. You meet someone, you trade cards, and you have their details if you ever need to get in touch. What you might not have realised is that business cards have a long and colourful history that dates back as far as 15th century China.Business cards are descending from visiting cards, which were originally cards that servants gave out to announce the imminent arrival of their master. They acted much like a short letter introducing the visitor, eliminating the need for the visitor to explain who they were before getting down to business.At the same time, trade cards were also popular. These were a more working-class version of visiting cards, designed to advertise a service – they had a function quite similar to leaflets today. Trade cards would include contact and price details, advertising slogans, and similar things.Over time, as class barriers broke down, these two functions merged, and we ended up with business cards as we know them today. A business card is essentially a dual-function card, as it can be used to give someone your contact details both in a business and in a social setting.Today, most business cards are around the size of a credit card, and are printed in colour, often with melted plastic to give that special raised effect. Large numbers of business cards can be had quite cheaply at any given print shop – it is even possible to print your own business cards on a home printer, although they will not be of very high quality. Many people now also use some form of electronic business card, such as ones that can be transmitted over email or with PDAs, or sometimes even in the form of a l
  ind about your home. But, to set such a map about your organisation and organisational knowledge in your mind is almost impossible. This is where K-map becomes handy and shows details of every bit of knowledge that exists within the organisation including location, quality, and accessibility; and knowledge required to run the organisation smoothly - hence making you able to find out your required knowledge easily and efficiently.
  Below are some of the definitions:
  It's an ongoing quest within an organization (including its supply and customer chain) to help discover the location, ownership, value and use of knowledge artifacts, to learn the roles and expertise of people, to identify constraints to the flow of knowledge, and to highlight opportunities to leverage existing knowledge.
  Knowledge mapping is an important practice consisting of survey, audit, and synthesis. It aims to track the acquisition and loss of information and knowledge. It explores personal and group competencies and proficiencies. It illustrates or "maps" how knowledge flows throughout an organization. Knowledge mapping helps an organization to appreciate how the loss of staff influences intellectual capital, to assist with the selection of teams, and to match technology to knowledge needs and processes.
  - Denham Grey
  Knowledge mapping is about making knowledge that is available within an organisation transparent, and is about providing the insights into its quality.
  - Willem-Olaf Huijsen, Samuel J. Driessen, Jan W. M. Jacobs
  Knowledge mapping is a process by which organisations can identify and categorise knowledge assets within their organisation - people, processes, content, and technology. It allows an organisation to fully leverage the existing expertise resident in the organisation, as well as identify barriers and constraints to fulfilling strategic goals and objectives. It is constructing a roadmap to locate the information needed to make the best use of resourses, independent of source or form.
  -W. Vestal, APQC, 2002
  (American Productivity & Quality Center)
  Knowledge Map describes what knowledge is used in a process, and how it flows around the process. It is the basis for determining knowledge commonality, or areas where similar knowledge is used across multiple process. Fundamentally, a process knowledge map cntains information about the organisation?s knowledge. It describes who has what knowledge (tacit), where the knowledge resides (infrastructure), and how the knowledge is transferred or disseminated (social).
  -IBM Global Services
  How are the Knowledge Maps created?
  Knowledge maps are created by transferring tacit and explicit knowledge into graphical formats that are easy to understand and interpret by the end users, who may be managers, experts, system developers, or anybody.
  Basic steps in creating K-maps:
  Basic steps - creating K-maps for specific task
  - The outcomes of the entire process, and their contributions to the key organisational activities
  - Logical sequences of all the activities needed to achieve the goal
  - Knowledge required for each activity {gives the knowledge gap}
  - Human resource required to undertake each activity {shows if recruitment is needed}
  What do we map?
  The followings are the objects we map:
  - Explicit knowledge
  - Tacit knowledge
  - Tacit organisational process knowledge
  - Explicit organisational process knowledge
  What do the knowledge maps show?
  Knowledge map shows the sources, flows, constraints, and sinks of knowledge within an organisation. It is a navigational aid to both explicit information and tacit knowledge, showing the importance and the relationships between knowledge stores and the dynamics. The following list will be more illustrative in this regard:
  - Available knowledge resources
  - Knowledge clusters and communities
  - Who uses what knowledge resources
  - The paths of knowledge exchange
  - The knowledge lifecycle
  - What we know we don?t know (knowledge gap)
  Activity: 1
  >> Can you create your personal knowledge map which shows the types and location of knowledge resources you use, the channels you use to access knowledge?
  Where does knowledge reside?
  Knowledge can be found in
  - Correspondents, internal documents
  - Library
  - Archives (past project documents, proposals)
  - Meetings
  - Best practices
  - Experience
  - Corporate memory
  Activity: 2
  >> What are the other places where you can find knowledge?
  What are the other things to be mapped?
  Benefits of K-mapping
  In many organisations there is a lack of transparency of organisation wide knowledge. Valuable knowledge is often not used because people do not know it exists, even if they know the knowledge exists, they may not know where. These issues lead to the knowledge mapping. Followings are some of the key reasons for doing the knowledge mapping:
  - to find key sources of knowledge creation
  - to encourage reuse and prevent reinvention
  - to find critical information quickly
  - to highlight islands of expertise
  - to provide an inventory and evaluation of intellectual and intangible assets
  - to improve decision making and problem solving by providing applicable information
  - to provide insights into corporate knowledge
  The map also serves as the continuously evolving organisational memory, capturing and integrating the key knowledge of an organisation. It enables employees learning through intuitive navigation and interrogation of the information in the map, and through the creation of new knowledge through the discovery of new relationships. Simply speaking, K-map gives employees not only -know what-, but also -know how-.
  Key principles of Knowledge Mapping
  - Because of their power, scope, and impact, the creation of organisational-level knowledge map requires senior management support as well as careful planning
  - Share your knowledge about identifying, finding, and tracking knowledge in all forms
  - Recognise and locate knowledge in a wide variety of forms: tacit, explicit, formal, informal, codified, personalised, internal, external, and permanent
  - Knowledge is found in processes, relationships, policies, people, documents, conversations, links and context, and even with partners
  - It should be up-to-date and accurate
  K-mapping - key questions
  Knowledge map provides an assessment of existing and required knowledge and information in the following categories:
  - What knowledge is needed for work?
  - Who needs what?
  - Who has it?
  - Where does it reside?
  - Is the knowledge tacit or explicit?
  - What issues does it address?
  - How to make sure that the K-mapping will be used in an organisation?
  Note:
  - K-maps should be easily accessible to all in the organisation
  - It should be easy to understand, update and evolve
  - It should be updated regularly
  - It should be an ongoing process since knowledge landscapes are continuously shifting and evolving
  Offline Readings:
  - K-mapping tools
  - K-mapping tool selection
  - Creating knowledge maps by exploiting dependent relationships
  - Creating knowledge structure map?
  - White pages
  - KM jargon and glossary
  Online Resource:
  - http://www.knowledgemap.co.uk
  - http://www.smithweaversmith.com/knowledg2.htm
  - http://www.voght.com/cgi-bin/pywiki?KnowledgeMapping
  - http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=105804&d=744&h=746&f=745
  - http://www.orgnet.com/IHRIM.html
  K-mapping Tools:
  - MindMapping (http://www.mindjet.com/) Click here to install (need to ask the vendor for trial serial number)
  - Inspirat
    Are Your Business Ethics a Quart Low?
    One definition of Business Ethics is conformance to accepted professional high standards of conduct.Most businesses have prepared, documented, and published their company policies derived from their basic beliefs and philosophies, and Business Ethics is usually one of them.We must avoid even the appearance of unethical conduct.How do Business Ethics apply in the workplace?One perspective on Business Ethics is what each of us thinks about using the company equipment and information we have access to as we perform our duties:What we think about making copies of personal (non-business) documents on company provided equipment.What we think about faxing personal (non-business) documents on company provided equipment.What we think about making personal (non-business) telephone calls on company provided equipment.What we think about sending personal (non-business) electronic mail messages on company provided computers and Internet network connections.Etc.These and other non-business usages and actions are a drag on company profitability.Other applications of Business Ethics in the workplace might be:Do you copy software to take home for personal use?Do you properly dispose of classified information regardless of media type?Do you "shoulder-surf" when a colleague is entering his or her password or viewing sensitive data?Do you ask those who "tailgate" upon entrance to the controlled-access office building to see their ID?Let's be sure that our Business Ethics "dip-stick" always r
    is the basis for determining knowledge commonality, or areas where similar knowledge is used across multiple process. Fundamentally, a process knowledge map cntains information about the organisation?s knowledge. It describes who has what knowledge (tacit), where the knowledge resides (infrastructure), and how the knowledge is transferred or disseminated (social).
    -IBM Global Services
    How are the Knowledge Maps created?
    Knowledge maps are created by transferring tacit and explicit knowledge into graphical formats that are easy to understand and interpret by the end users, who may be managers, experts, system developers, or anybody.
    Basic steps in creating K-maps:
    Basic steps - creating K-maps for specific task
    - The outcomes of the entire process, and their contributions to the key organisational activities
    - Logical sequences of all the activities needed to achieve the goal
    - Knowledge required for each activity {gives the knowledge gap}
    - Human resource required to undertake each activity {shows if recruitment is needed}
    What do we map?
    The followings are the objects we map:
    - Explicit knowledge
    - Tacit knowledge
    - Tacit organisational process knowledge
    - Explicit organisational process knowledge
    What do the knowledge maps show?
    Knowledge map shows the sources, flows, constraints, and sinks of knowledge within an organisation. It is a navigational aid to both explicit information and tacit knowledge, showing the importance and the relationships between knowledge stores and the dynamics. The following list will be more illustrative in this regard:
    - Available knowledge resources
    - Knowledge clusters and communities
    - Who uses what knowledge resources
    - The paths of knowledge exchange
    - The knowledge lifecycle
    - What we know we don?t know (knowledge gap)
    Activity: 1
    >> Can you create your personal knowledge map which shows the types and location of knowledge resources you use, the channels you use to access knowledge?
    Where does knowledge reside?
    Knowledge can be found in
    - Correspondents, internal documents
    - Library
    - Archives (past project documents, proposals)
    - Meetings
    - Best practices
    - Experience
    - Corporate memory
    Activity: 2
    >> What are the other places where you can find knowledge?
    What are the other things to be mapped?
    Benefits of K-mapping
    In many organisations there is a lack of transparency of organisation wide knowledge. Valuable knowledge is often not used because people do not know it exists, even if they know the knowledge exists, they may not know where. These issues lead to the knowledge mapping. Followings are some of the key reasons for doing the knowledge mapping:
    - to find key sources of knowledge creation
    - to encourage reuse and prevent reinvention
    - to find critical information quickly
    - to highlight islands of expertise
    - to provide an inventory and evaluation of intellectual and intangible assets
    - to improve decision making and problem solving by providing applicable information
    - to provide insights into corporate knowledge
    The map also serves as the continuously evolving organisational memory, capturing and integrating the key knowledge of an organisation. It enables employees learning through intuitive navigation and interrogation of the information in the map, and through the creation of new knowledge through the discovery of new relationships. Simply speaking, K-map gives employees not only -know what-, but also -know how-.
    Key principles of Knowledge Mapping
    - Because of their power, scope, and impact, the creation of organisational-level knowledge map requires senior management support as well as careful planning
    - Share your knowledge about identifying, finding, and tracking knowledge in all forms
    - Recognise and locate knowledge in a wide variety of forms: tacit, explicit, formal, informal, codified, personalised, internal, external, and permanent
    - Knowledge is found in processes, relationships, policies, people, documents, conversations, links and context, and even with partners
    - It should be up-to-date and accurate
    K-mapping - key questions
    Knowledge map provides an assessment of existing and required knowledge and information in the following categories:
    - What knowledge is needed for work?
    - Who needs what?
    - Who has it?
    - Where does it reside?
    - Is the knowledge tacit or explicit?
    - What issues does it address?
    - How to make sure that the K-mapping will be used in an organisation?
    Note:
    - K-maps should be easily accessible to all in the organisation
    - It should be easy to understand, update and evolve
    - It should be updated regularly
    - It should be an ongoing process since knowledge landscapes are continuously shifting and evolving
    Offline Readings:
    - K-mapping tools
    - K-mapping tool selection
    - Creating knowledge maps by exploiting dependent relationships
    - Creating knowledge structure map?
    - White pages
    - KM jargon and glossary
    Online Resource:
    - http://www.knowledgemap.co.uk
    - http://www.smithweaversmith.com/knowledg2.htm
    - http://www.voght.com/cgi-bin/pywiki?KnowledgeMapping
    - http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=105804&d=744&h=746&f=745
    - http://www.orgnet.com/IHRIM.html
    K-mapping Tools:
    - MindMapping (http://www.mindjet.com/) Click here to install (need to ask the vendor for trial serial number)
    - Inspirat
      Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: The Responsibility for Job Security
      This article relates to the Job Security competency, commonly evaluated in employee satisfaction surveys. This competency evaluates how your employees view their job security within your organization. In today's often volatile or contingent labor market, it's crucial to understand the level of security your employees feel about maintaining their jobs. Studies show that employees who do not feel secure in their jobs are less likely to be committed to best assisting customers. Evaluating this competency can be especially useful if your organization has suffered recent layoffs or firings.This short narrative, The Responsibility for Job Security, is part of AlphaMeasure's compilation, Tales from the Corporate Frontlines. It tells the story of two employees with two completely different ideas of what to expect from their company in terms of employment security.Anonymous Submission:Our company had just finished the second round of layoffs in a single year. The mood throughout the building was depressing. Several of the affected employees were long timers. I knew them well, had partied with them on social occasions and played with them on the company softball team.I decided to visit them, to say goodbye and good luck. Not a happy task, but one that I felt compelled to do out of a sense of loyalty, and a small amount of survivor guilt.First, I headed for Mike's office. I noticed that he was packing. He leaned over a box, staring silently at the contents. He looked up at me with sorrow, fear, and confusion. As I stood next to him, Mike told me how shocked he was that he'd been chosen. Always a model employee, with tons of knowledge and talent, he never thought this would h
      /li>
    - Knowledge clusters and communities
    - Who uses what knowledge resources
    - The paths of knowledge exchange
    - The knowledge lifecycle
    - What we know we don?t know (knowledge gap)
    Activity: 1
    >> Can you create your personal knowledge map which shows the types and location of knowledge resources you use, the channels you use to access knowledge?
    Where does knowledge reside?
    Knowledge can be found in
    - Correspondents, internal documents
    - Library
    - Archives (past project documents, proposals)
    - Meetings
    - Best practices
    - Experience
    - Corporate memory
    Activity: 2
    >> What are the other places where you can find knowledge?
    What are the other things to be mapped?
    Benefits of K-mapping
    In many organisations there is a lack of transparency of organisation wide knowledge. Valuable knowledge is often not used because people do not know it exists, even if they know the knowledge exists, they may not know where. These issues lead to the knowledge mapping. Followings are some of the key reasons for doing the knowledge mapping:
    - to find key sources of knowledge creation
    - to encourage reuse and prevent reinvention
    - to find critical information quickly
    - to highlight islands of expertise
    - to provide an inventory and evaluation of intellectual and intangible assets
    - to improve decision making and problem solving by providing applicable information
    - to provide insights into corporate knowledge
    The map also serves as the continuously evolving organisational memory, capturing and integrating the key knowledge of an organisation. It enables employees learning through intuitive navigation and interrogation of the information in the map, and through the creation of new knowledge through the discovery of new relationships. Simply speaking, K-map gives employees not only -know what-, but also -know how-.
    Key principles of Knowledge Mapping
    - Because of their power, scope, and impact, the creation of organisational-level knowledge map requires senior management support as well as careful planning
    - Share your knowledge about identifying, finding, and tracking knowledge in all forms
    - Recognise and locate knowledge in a wide variety of forms: tacit, explicit, formal, informal, codified, personalised, internal, external, and permanent
    - Knowledge is found in processes, relationships, policies, people, documents, conversations, links and context, and even with partners
    - It should be up-to-date and accurate
    K-mapping - key questions
    Knowledge map provides an assessment of existing and required knowledge and information in the following categories:
    - What knowledge is needed for work?
    - Who needs what?
    - Who has it?
    - Where does it reside?
    - Is the knowledge tacit or explicit?
    - What issues does it address?
    - How to make sure that the K-mapping will be used in an organisation?
    Note:
    - K-maps should be easily accessible to all in the organisation
    - It should be easy to understand, update and evolve
    - It should be updated regularly
    - It should be an ongoing process since knowledge landscapes are continuously shifting and evolving
    Offline Readings:
    - K-mapping tools
    - K-mapping tool selection
    - Creating knowledge maps by exploiting dependent relationships
    - Creating knowledge structure map?
    - White pages
    - KM jargon and glossary
    Online Resource:
    - http://www.knowledgemap.co.uk
    - http://www.smithweaversmith.com/knowledg2.htm
    - http://www.voght.com/cgi-bin/pywiki?KnowledgeMapping
    - http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=105804&d=744&h=746&f=745
    - http://www.orgnet.com/IHRIM.html
    K-mapping Tools:
    - MindMapping (http://www.mindjet.com/) Click here to install (need to ask the vendor for trial serial number)
    - Inspirat
      Small Business Merchant Accounts
      Most small business owners find themselves in a Catch 22 situation because on one hand, they need to increase the customer base, but on the other hand, they cannot hire enough employees to service these new customers.Small business merchant accounts can help the small business owner to over come this dilemma. Small business merchant accounts allow the business owner to accept payments from customers in various modes such as credit cards, checks, and other electronic mediums. Electronic check processing and credit card payment processing are some of the more popular payment methods today. Payment gateways that come with a small business merchant account allow the instant processing of purchases, and this rapid processing allows the merchant to handle many more transactions more quickly.As the payment process is made simpler and safer, more customers return for repeat purchases, and the business owner does not have to hire any new employees and save time on needless paperwork. The prompt handling of purchases contributes to efficiency in a business, and being able to accept all forms of payment--from personal checks to major credit cards--can increase sales up to 40%, according to studies by the industry. All this results in increased sales volume of the business. Therefore, a small business merchant account can make the difference between survival and failure at the crucial start-up phase of a business.This method of process payments via small business merchant accounts becomes more important when the small business owner is setting up his business. He does not have enough capital when starting the business to hire more employees to service his clientele but his business success depends
      scope, and impact, the creation of organisational-level knowledge map requires senior management support as well as careful planning
    - Share your knowledge about identifying, finding, and tracking knowledge in all forms
    - Recognise and locate knowledge in a wide variety of forms: tacit, explicit, formal, informal, codified, personalised, internal, external, and permanent
    - Knowledge is found in processes, relationships, policies, people, documents, conversations, links and context, and even with partners
    - It should be up-to-date and accurate
    K-mapping - key questions
    Knowledge map provides an assessment of existing and required knowledge and information in the following categories:
    - What knowledge is needed for work?
    - Who needs what?
    - Who has it?
    - Where does it reside?
    - Is the knowledge tacit or explicit?
    - What issues does it address?
    - How to make sure that the K-mapping will be used in an organisation?
    Note:
    - K-maps should be easily accessible to all in the organisation
    - It should be easy to understand, update and evolve
    - It should be updated regularly
    - It should be an ongoing process since knowledge landscapes are continuously shifting and evolving
    Offline Readings:
    - K-mapping tools
    - K-mapping tool selection
    - Creating knowledge maps by exploiting dependent relationships
    - Creating knowledge structure map?
    - White pages
    - KM jargon and glossary
    Online Resource:
    - http://www.knowledgemap.co.uk
    - http://www.smithweaversmith.com/knowledg2.htm
    - http://www.voght.com/cgi-bin/pywiki?KnowledgeMapping
    - http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=105804&d=744&h=746&f=745
    - http://www.orgnet.com/IHRIM.html
    K-mapping Tools:
    - MindMapping (http://www.mindjet.com/) Click here to install (need to ask the vendor for trial serial number)
    - Inspiration (http://www.engagingminds.com/inspiration/descript.html) Click here to install
    - IHMC (http://cmap.ihmc.us/) Click here to install (need to have .NET Framework and JavaRunTime installed in your computer)
    - knetmap (http://www.knetmap.com/)
    - The Salamander Organization (http://www.tsorg.com/salamander/SalamanderAbout.htm)
    - Intellix (http://www.intellix.com/)
    - List of the tools can be found at http://www.voght.com/cgi-bin/pywiki?KmMapTools or here off-line
    (Learn more about KM tool selection at http://www.voght.com/cgi-bin/pywiki?KmToolSelection or here off-line)
    ________________________________________
    Categorised K-mapping
    Social Network Mapping:
    This shows networks of knowledge and patterns of interaction among members, groups, organisations, and other social entities who knows who, who goes to whom for help and advice, where the information enters and leaves the groups or organisation, which forums and communities of practice are operational and generating new knowledge.
    Competency Mapping:
    With this kind of mapping, one can create a competency profile with skill, positions, and even career path of an individual. And, this can also be converted into the ?organisational yellow pages? which enables employees to find needed expertise in people within the organisation.
    Process-based Knowledge Mapping:
    This shows knowledge and sources of knowledge for internal as well as external organisational processes and procedures. This includes tacit knowledge (knowledge in people such as know-how, and experience) and explicit knowledge (codified knowledge such as that in document).
    Conceptual Knowledge Mapping:
    Also sometimes called -taxonomy-, it is a method of hierarchically organising and classifying content. This involves in labelling pieces of knowledge and relationships between them. A concept can be defined as any unit of thought, any idea that forms in our mind [Gertner, 1978]. Often, nouns are used to refer to concepts [Roche, 2002]. Relations form a special class of concepts [Sowa, 1984]: they describe connections between other concepts. One of the most important relations between concepts is the hierarchical relation (subsumption), in which one concept (superconcept) is more general than another concept (subconcept) like Natural Resource Management and Watershed Management. This mapping should be able to relate similar kind of projects and workshops conducting/conducted by two different departments, making them more integrated.
    Knowledge is power, broadly accessible, understandable, and shared knowledge is even more powerful!

HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.hubyou.info/article/24697/hubyou-Knowledge-Mapping.html">Knowledge Mapping</a>

BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.hubyou.info/article/24697/hubyou-Knowledge-Mapping.html]Knowledge Mapping[/url]

This is an article about technical sales recruitment agency. Technical sales recruitment agencies provide services in the areas of accountancy and finance, IT and commercial and sales. It provides temporary and permanent vacancies. In this article there are some points highlighted generally about technical recruitment agencies.

We live in a strange time where managers are afraid to fire employees in fear of possible litigation. Instead, there is a great temptation to transfer or promote the misfit to another department, thereby transferring your problems to someone else. This is horribly irresponsible and does your company a disservice by allowing the employee to screw-up elsewhere (and badmouth you to boot). Do not prolong the agony. Get on with it.

All of us have knowledge, expertise, and experience that others can benefit from. We all can contribute to other’s success with our expertise. Below are ways to improve our ability to succeed in having our expertise used successfully by others.

Tags

Links

Answer Upon - Knowledge Mapping

Related Articles: