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There is a growing recognition amongst organizations and individuals that sharing knowledge (whether formally or informally) can have positive benefits. These can include saving time and effort, learning from others’ experiences to find better solutions more quickly, developing deeper understanding and improving skills. Many organizations are now facilitating opportunities for employees to learn from each other, making the most of networking and collaborative tools that foster social interaction for learning. In recognition of that, here are our top ten tools for effective knowledge sharing.
1. Yammer. This instant messaging tool, designed for businesses, allows people to communicate and collaborate in real time. Ideas and important news can quickly be discussed and circulated throughout your organization. Yammer provides a forum where people can ask for and share information quickly, as well as discuss their ideas with a like-minded group.
2. Google Drive. Using Google’s range of cloud-based applications team members can easily create, edit, share and store their work online. It covers a range of work functions including word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Anyone can create a new document and then invite others to view and edit it in real time, facilitating more effective group working, collaboration and feedback. Furthermore, using Google Drive reduces storage of documents on internal servers, networks and drives.
3. Zoho. Aimed at small businesses, Zoho is a suite of web-based office management, collaboration and productivity tools designed to streamline and enhance key business functions. Its cloud-based applications can be used to manage processes such as invoicing, accounting and payroll. Collaborative tools help people work together more effectively using wikis, forums and document creation tools. Zoho also has a range of productivity tools such as planners, note takers and spreadsheets.
4. Mindmeister is an online mind mapping tool that is designed to enhance team brainstorming activities. You can invite collaborators via email, who then sign into a new mind map and work on it simultaneously to bring concepts and ideas to life. Mindmeister uses color-coded effects to highlight changes, and also has a live chat facility to help teams exchange ideas directly.
5. Wikis: collaborative websites that allow anyone with access to add new content or edit existing content, acting as a simple communal database. Organizations can use wikis to create and share live documents on a local or global scale. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia created by thousands of worldwide contributors, is one of the best known wikis.
6. Social media including blogs, forums and social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn can all be used to share knowledge and information. Social media applications allow users to update personal information and connect with other users to share knowledge, information and experiences- for example, Slack is an online communication tool designed to facilitate conversations between teams. Activity streaming or micro-blogging via sites like Twitter is also becoming increasingly important, where users post updates on what they are doing at a particular moment in time. And from its central dashboard, CoTweet helps organizations to track, manage, analyze and respond to conversations about their brand and products in a unified way.
7. Communities of practice. Formed by groups of people who have a common interest in a particular area of knowledge (e.g. learning and development), communities of practice are developed over an extended period of time so that people can share what they know and learn from one another. They can be physical, located within an organization, or hosted online.
8. After action reviews are professional discussions of a business event or activity that enable the individuals involved to learn from their experience. They also focus on improving the performance of an organization or a team. At the heart of an AAR is the attempt to answer they key questions - what, how and why.
9. Electronic directories. Also known as 'Yellow Pages', some organizations have created these to enable their employees to find and contact other staff with particular expertise and skills. They are like online telephone directories, with user profiles detailing individuals’ knowledge and experience, and information on how to contact them. 10.
10. Knowledge cafés. Based on the principle of creating a flowing dialog, knowledge cafés are a type of face-to-face facilitated business meeting or workshop with the aim of providing an informal, creative, open conversation on a particular topic of mutual interest to participants.
