A recent revisit with classics by Thomas Davenport and Laurence Prusak - if you aren't already a devotee, there is a treat in your future - brought home among many other key takeaways the powerful value of undocumented knowledge. Here's a daily life illustration:
Someone unfamiliar with winter weather in Copenhagen may check the data and understandably conclude that with Fahrenheit temperatures in the 40s and occasional showers, a light coat and umbrella will do for a visit. Without the "extra knowledge" from someone who has spent time there, discomfort could result: Ah, that would be insufficient - you need something to protect against the bone chilling dampness, the unrelenting whipping wind, and the miserable sideways rain. Don't count on your visit to include the few gust-free, dry days Copenhagen gets in January! We could not expect weather data providers to capture such experiential recommendations systematically.
Vacation packing mistakes are quickly remedied through a visit to a store ... but for organizations working to harness intellectual capital, solutions to challenges involving "clothing up the naked data" are more elusive. Difficult to capture because it is awkward if not impossible to classify and codify for future access in practical ways, extra or contextual knowledge can nevertheless be worth a fortune in saved time and avoided trouble if it surfaces at the right time. Just think how often you may have heard statements similar to:
"Where I worked previously, we used that product and found ... "
"Several speakers at the conference I attended last month called to attention how there's more to it than what you read in the literature about ... "
"I hear so many good things about this small company from colleagues in other firms, perhaps we should still ... "
"Didn't this proposal come up a while back? If I remember correctly, there was a situation where ..."
"If you look in the archive, you should be aware that during the fall of that year ... "
"Peter had a workaround for that glitch ..."
"The trick is to use the notes field to hold the ticket numbers, that's how I track how many ... "
"Maybe not the place to hold a meeting that time of year because ... "
Of course, making contextual knowledge surface at the right time and place is a matter of active collegial communication and opportunities for interaction supported by the corporate culture. I recommend a visit to Amazon for works by Davenport and Prusak - and a quick review of my previous IKM checklist blog entries will provide angles for reading.
