Studds knows
December 12, 2007
My job involves knowing a reasonable amount of stuff. Not as much as, say, someone investigating the development of nerves in the gut and how that effects feels. But a deal more than you need to know in order to serve beer. To help me know all of this stuff we have a Knowledge Management System. This KM system involves what are technically referred to as “buckets.” Inside this buckets, we place PDF files. We access these buckets through a website. The buckets are organised in a tree structure. There can be as many as 7 clicks to get to a file. There is a rudimentary search feature. The normal way to find an answer is to know where it is, or be told where it is. Those things that are frequently needed are bookmarked in IE.
Now, I said that this is to help me know all this stuff: that’s not really true. It’s more a knowledge repository. The idea is to get all the knowledge out of people’s heads before they leave the company. New staff have to learn it the old fashioned way. I’m finding out the hard way that this is not so easy. Which has got me thinking: what could be done to make it easier? This blog is a place for my thoughts and discoveries on this.
I’ve got a bunch of ideas already, which need developing. I’ve clicked through to Wikipedia and ooh’d and aah’d at terms like “Information Theory” and “Expert Systems.” What I propose is a two-pronged approach. On the one hand, I’ll expand and work out some of my thinking. On the other, I’ll explore at some reactions to the literature. I start tomorrow!
