KM benefits

What do you do if you want to know what's hot music this week or how to make a cup cake? Me? First thing I do is going to web site and searching it. Most of people would use this term, "google it". I don't actually google it, cause I tend to stick with what I have been using for long time. So instead I go to google, I go to another website, which called Naver and it is a portal website as Yahoo. The reason I love to go to this website is that it provides this service that everybody can interact in the form of Q&A. It is similar that Yahoo provides as Answers. When I first experienced this service, I was suprised that therewere so many people who wants to know what I want to know and these people had similar experiences that I had. Also there were so many people who is willing to give the answers and share their experiences with others. I didn't even need to write a question, cause there were the question and answers already. I know there are many other ways to gain the knowledge, such as blog and youtube as we mentioned in the class.These other options provide more specifics with photos and movies, however it would be depend on what you need to know.The best part of this service is that people can reply to each others. It allows the interaction between people.Already so many people are using this kind of web, and I believe that they are experiencing in KM even they noticed or not.

Isn't it suprise how naturally we sink into the KM technology? How effectively these tools work in our daily life? I'm so sure that most of us are experiencing the KM benefits already. As I have personal experiences in KM benefits, I did some research on KM benefits in organizational perspective this time. And I found some interesting study on it.

The following tree has been synthesized from the outputs of three separate situations and highlights some commonly found benefits.

The arrows indicate which benefits lead to higher level benefits. The benefits on the left are those that are the most visible or quantifiable. Those to the right are the result of several factors, including non-KM factors, combining. In this particular tree, three different classes of benefit have been used:

Knowledge Benefits - these are those derived from more efficient processing of information and knowledge, for example by eliminating duplication of effort or saving valuable time. For example, a survey carried out by the AMS knowledge centre showed that information management professionals at a knowledge centre could find relevant information 8 times faster than non-IM professionals.

Intermediate Benefits - these are how the knowledge benefits could be translated into benefits that can be expressed in terms of efficiency or effectiveness. A common example is that best practices databases helps to eliminate less efficient operations through transferring knowledge from the best practitioners.

Organizational Benefits - this class of benefits are those that impact some of the organization's key goals, such as productivity and customer service.
As a result of such analysis, it is possible to track savings of time in accessing knowledge, though to better customer service by giving them more relevant, validated and timely solutions to their problems. It is quite common to have 4 or even five classes of benefits. For example, organizational benefits can be divided into two classes, one internal benefits, the other customer or market-related benefits.