The first time around, knowledge management was hardly a smashing success. When organizations several years ago tried to take advantage of the experience and insights of their workers, they captured information in large, structured data systems for access and retrieval. Unfortunately, those systems were often cumbersome and difficult to use, leading to low levels of participation and abandoned knowledge bases. Workers also suspected their own positions might be at risk after they shared their personal insights and knowledge.

Today’s intensely competitive global economy is forcing everyone to reconsider knowledge as a competitive differentiator. Change happens too fast for people and organizations to rely exclusively on structured processes and the rigid IT solutions that support them. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on retiring baby boomers. The high turnover of the “Millennial Generation” right behind them will create new challenges for maintaining knowledge capital at work.

The technology behind knowledge management today is considerably more mature than 10 years ago. So, too, is our growth in understanding about the role of knowledge in empowering people. Rigid, structured systems for data capture can easily be supplemented with more user-friendly applications that provide better integration into day-to-day work.

However, technology alone is not enough. Microsoft believes that organizations must also be willing to change their practices and culture in order to succeed. This article summarizes the Microsoft vision for possible knowledge solutions and architectures that will support teams and organizations over the next decade.

Organizations can improve how they manage their people by enabling knowledge transfer and by simplifying the information work environment. Simplification can be achieved at different levels, ranging from personal information management to team knowledge sharing to simplification of business processes and workflows.

Automation of rote information work processes such as status reporting and project notification can reduce the burden of “information overload.” Integrated collaboration platforms can also help team members simplify and coordinate their activities using shared workspaces, calendars, and schedule services. Presence data for real-time communications helps bridge the challenges of time and distance, while subscription services and automated alerts help ensure awareness of new information or the need for immediate action.

Workers in structured environments such as call centers benefit from flexible knowledge management systems that augment their existing IT applications. Increasingly easy to use, such tools include ad hoc communication, open-ended information search, and informal environments for sharing knowledge such as blogs and wikis. Integrated collaboration and communication can simplify the way people interact and help them adapt more rapidly to change.

In traditional logic diagrams, functions and their interfaces are clear and precise. But in the dynamic knowledge environment (DKE) of tomorrow, there is no escaping the blurred edges and confused boundaries that exist in real life. Fortunately, the right mix of technology and several classic knowledge management principles can work together to bring a DKE into focus.

Lessons Learned and Best Practices. The core of knowledge management is gaining access to the knowledge that people have obtained in the course of doing business. This requires that people willingly participate by contributing to the knowledge base—a potential stumbling block to implementation in organizations that lack incentives for workers to share what they know.

A robust DKE helps organizations to support participation in several ways. Management can promote blogs, wikis, and internal discussion forums where valuable contributors receive recognition and reward. The information shared in these forums is self-organizing and also searchable within the knowledge repository.

Improved Access to Information. Improved search and file management technologies help people find information according to meaningful content tags, wherever it’s stored. In a DKE, the search function is available across all applications and devices, and can be embedded and invoked from within everyday applications.

Finding the Right People. Meaningful expertise can exist throughout an organization without regard for formal divisions of labor. A DKE provides several ways to locate and engage the right people, including expertise identifiers that can be built into the organizational contacts directory.

Distributed Mentoring and Coaching. A DKE encourages people to share knowledge with one another. For example, real-time communication via instant message, online meetings, blog comment threads, and remote application-sharing sessions provides direct opportunities for dialogue.

Driving Innovation. The primary advantage of a DKE is its ability to embed knowledge into processes. At each point in the process, participants have access to the people and information they need to maximize their contribution. All the knowledge within the organization can be brought to bear on problem-solving. This leads to innovative solutions that incorporate the best, most up-to-date expert and customer feedback.

Learning from Customers. A DKE assists people in using customer data by enabling them to customize it according to their needs. When data is accessible and pervasive across the entire enterprise, organizations can build dashboards and alerts into personalized workspaces and provide offer customer-facing workers a single view of the relationship to provide better service.

People as Process. It is virtually impossible to design a process that anticipates every potential outcome. A DKE embraces people as part of structured processes and enables them to access the resources they need in a more flexible and responsive way. When people are empowered as a part of process-driven work, organizations can achieve the economy of structure, combined with the responsiveness and adaptability that only people can provide.

Making Better Decisions. Business Intelligence (BI) offers executives a view into enterprise data to support decisions—a critical capability in a dynamic, competitive marketplace. Yet organizations that invest in dedicated BI solutions without consideration of the whole knowledge ecosystem may end up with significantly greater IT cost, duplicated capabilities, and system incompatibilities.

Measuring Knowledge Utilization. Productivity gains from collaboration have always been difficult to quantify. By centralizing the knowledge infrastructure, organizations not only gain the benefits of efficient information search and transfer, but also the ability to observe and measure patterns of search, communication, collaboration, contribution, and process performance.

Microsoft has been creating the building blocks for a people-centered Dynamic Knowledge Environment for over 30 years. The latest releases of the Microsoft Office system, Windows, and Microsoft server technologies offer the richest tools for knowledge creation, collaboration, content management, enterprise search, and unified communications—all within the familiar Microsoft Office interface that people already know and use.

But technology is not the only necessary component for a DKE. Success depends on a total organizational commitment to a culture of learning. Knowledge contributors should be recognized and rewarded. Incentive structures should be examined and modified to encourage people to develop their own skills and the skills of their colleagues.

As workforce transition accelerates because of trends in demographics, globalization, and technology, organizations must act quickly to preserve their knowledge assets. Microsoft encourages all customers to look beyond the tactical solution categories and think about the business productivity infrastructure as a whole. In that way, organizations can begin moving toward the benefits of a DKE in a systematic, economical way.

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