Knowledge Management

I’m currently researching some data for a budgeting and savings planning calculator for one of our clients, and during the course of my research, I’ve been struck once again by the wealth of free data that is available to every citizen in the UK at the click of a few links.

As digital marketers I’m sure none of us need to be told about the power that intelligently analysed and appropriately presented data hold. After all, where would our businesses be without web analytics? But did you know that there are huge, shimmering pools of astoundingly robust and statistically accurate data sitting on government servers just waiting for intelligent minds to dive in? And all for free?

Here are my two top sources of free, public data – so why not hold your nose and take the plunge?
Read more…

Nielson Online have just released stats that show the reach of social networking is now greater than that of email! Extraordinary indeed, but what is slightly confused is that the metric doesn’t actually suggest that social media has overtaken email as a form of communication. (Report embedded over here at Mashable - http://mashable.com/2009/03/09/social-networking-more-popular-than-email/). 

I’m a big believer in any form of communication other than email – inevitably nothing will ever beat face to face communication for productivity – but I am also a great believer in social media as the most constructive and emotive form of collaboration. I also believe that businesses have an awfully long way to go to embrace social media behind the firewall.

At iCrossing we are shortly to complete a trial install of one of the seemingly many products out in the marketplace, to help bring social media behind the firewall, with the ultimate goal (from my point of view) to improve knowledge management …There’s that rather confusing term knowledge management again! In this instance I guess what I mean is collaboration, and the assistance of ideas generation through automation.

The product that we are trialling is called Knowledge Plaza (http://www.knowledgeplaza.be). The same team are behind the launch of one of the many recent Twitter applications – Microplaza (http://www.microplaza.com). Both tools are aimed at business use – enterprise social tools as they are known – the former being a comprehensive tool that ties in all other existing enterprise platforms like Sharepoint and email as examples.

I believe that this is the last undiscovered frontier (for the time being). Once we have enabled the most basic of human desires – interaction – effectively in the work place by the implementation of the most useful, adaptable technology, we will truly be able to put the age of email behind us. Joy!

I believe I speak for all of us here at iCrossing when I say that nothing gives any of us more pleasure than sharing our knowledge with our clients. It makes us feel good. It’s one of the great things about our company.

Whenever we get the opportunity we also share knowledge internally. There’s another word for this too – it’s innovation – and innovation is what makes agencies like ours succeed – it propels us on to loftier heights and encourages us on to grander designs.

So how do we encourage getting people together to share knowledge and innovate. Well as Knowledge Sharing Partner here at iCrossing it’s my job, and although sometimes thankless it always gives me great pleasure to facilitate getting people together.

The highlight of my role though is getting people together from both inside iCrossing and inside our client teams. This form of collaborative working is a great way to ensure not only that knowledge is shared and a benchmark is set amongst disparate teams, but also that conversation and ideas get initiated which leads to innovation and progress.

Our most popular form of collaborative working is natural search (SEO) workshops. There are still so many myths to be dispelled about the complexities of what works well for search engines. This is inevitably born off the fact that it is still possible to unethically dupe search engine algorithms, but clients are so keen to invest wisely for the future that it is key to understand that the complex can actually be made simple.

Whether dispelling the myths of natural search, or contemplating monetising social media there are lots of great interactive ways to learn. Bridging the digital divide and meeting in person is key to this. Hatching ideas and innovating by sharing knowledge could be the best way to feel good in these hard times, so let’s keep talking.