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Taxonomy is not as daunting as it seems. In this blog series, one of EK’s taxonomy experts, Ben White, provides 4 practical steps to designing and validating a user-centric taxonomy.

In the following post we will be looking at the future of knowledge management (KM), specifically we will explore together the key tenets of what the field has to hold and how technology will change the role of the KM  practitioner.

Historical aspects of KM (some history nuggets that should be considered before reading on).  

The following timeline showcases the three generations of Knowledge Management (click image to view larger version on original post):

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." – Charles Darwin

When presented with a question or challenge, some humans are diffident about their knowledge and timid to take action.  Others bullishly push forward with confidence in what they think they know.  The underlying issue in both cases is the same:  many people suffer from false illusions of inferiority or superiority and are unable to evaluate themselves.

Over the years I have felt extremely frustrated with the so-called knowledge repositories, such as SharePoint, and the many other solutions for collaboration that exist around an intranet. Many years ago I joined an engineering consultancy firm in London called Fulcrum (which a few years later merged into Mott MacDonald). That was back in 2008 and we were around 150 employees, with small offices in Edinburgh, Madrid and Hong Kong. Those were the days were sustainable building design was going strong.

Following up from my last blog post: Too busy to get help? Take time to learn!

I hear from my Customers (our 20k+ Enterprise Services employees worldwide) almost every day, how hard it is “to find the stuff I need”, or “to find the good stuff”, out of a list of search results that sometimes spans tens of thousands of returns. And I totally get that. I feel the same way very often, whether I am looking for stuff internally, or trying to book flights for my next vacation.

So the truth is out - paradoxically in an age of digital transformation, human capital is becoming the great differentiator. Microsoft’s eye watering price paid for LinkedIn makes the argument for the increasing value of Human Capital and Social Networks. Indeed the case is even more compelling when you understand that LinkedIn is still a loss making company.

Why did Microsoft buy LinkedIn?

Too busy to get help?  In my second post in this Blog series, I talked about a situation that I think most of us find too familiar: being stuck in the “I don’t know but I don’t have time to learn!” dilemma. This week I want to start sharing some of my tips & tricks to breaking that vicious circle.

Are you too stuck in the "I don't know but I don't have time to learn!" dilemma?

In my last post I talked a bit about Digital Transformation and how the multi-faceted and extremely high-paced transformation that most of us are in the midst of right now, is rapidly increasing the need for us all to “work smarter”. To some of you, this is a bit of a cliché and something that some managers/leaders repeated more often than actually applicable, some 7-8 years back. It was one of those buzzwords that got abused to the point of ridiculousness.

Looking at a few keynotes from one of our internal, semi-annual technical conferences, and reflecting on some of the many Microsoft and Customer stories I heard on my recent travels in Europe, it doesn’t take a lot to see how they are all converging around one thing: Digital Transformation.