Blooging at work

Blogging has a lof of potential as a knowledge management supporttool in business settings. The software can be used to create,store, transfer, and transform employee and organizational knowledgeto support decision-making processes and direct actions.

I presented a paper on blogging at the Association ofManagement/International Association of Management conference lastsummer in Norfolk, Virginia (USA). Here are some of the ideas thatwere introduced in the paper.

* Employee knowledge, or what is often referred to as know-how,emerges from interactions with the various elements in learningsituations, or what might be called the doing. There are twodimensions of knowledge: (1) explicit and (2) tacit. Productivity ofboth types of knowledge can be measured by the frequency or impactof learning on a new situation or extent to which the knowledge canbe reused by others.

* Explicit knowledge production among employees can be increased bydistributing artifacts via multiple communication channels andmodes. Increasing the productivity of tacit knowledge is morecomplex. Key issues are how knowledge can be expressed in a concreteform, communicated effectively, codified for reuse, and retrieved insubsequent learning situations in a coherent and consistent manner.

* Organizations are developing strategies to generate and manageboth explicit and tacit knowledge in ways that combine experience,context, interpretation, and reflection. Blogging software supportsthis knowledge management approach.* Blogging creates an opportunity for an individual to write andshare, or publish, thoughts and understandings with others, whichpromotes critical thinking (codification process). This process isessential for the transformation of learning to knowledge.

* Individuals can choose to have others read and comment on blogentries, which creates an opportunity to receive feedback and, inturn, scaffold new ideas into concrete learning experiences andsubsequent knowledge.

* The ability to establish hyperlinks to news stories, comments, andother items outside the blog validates thoughts and understandingsthat are being shared with others. This action is one thatreinforces learning for the individual through validation.

* The individual creating the blog, and readers alike, constructtheir knowledge around whatever information might be presented bydetermining how information being presented fits with their existingschemata of a situation.I also addressed some of the challenges associated with using thisapproach. In particular, barriers related to the adoption and use ofthe technology in support of learning. I am starting to assistothers in gaining an understanding of how to address legal concernsrelated with employee use of this technology.I have been invited to give a presentation at a blogging symposia onthe "legal horrors of workplace blogging" that the University ofNorth Carolina Journal of Law and Technology is sponsoring in acouple months. I will be talking about the value this technology canbring to businesses and suggesting ways legal concerns can beaddressed through the development of technology appropriate usepolicies.

Gail Taylor, M.Ed.Human Resource Education Ph.D. StudentEducational Psychology Teaching AssistantU of I Urbana-Champaign