This post was originally published on lessonly.com.
There’s no doubt that technology has revolutionized how the world accesses, stores, and shares knowledge. Now, with no more than a few clicks, we can find out why the sky is blue, book a doctor’s appointment, or buy a flight to a country halfway across the world. Modern knowledge management also wouldn’t be where it is today without tech.
“How so?” you ask. Let’s find out!
1. Discoverability
In 2018, a total of 2.5 quintillion bytes of data were being created every single day, and this is predicted to reach 463 exabytes by 2025. Try wrapping your head around that number!
Despite all the benefits of tech’s knowledge creation and storage capabilities, it makes sifting through it all to discover the right piece of knowledge at the right time like trying to find a needle in a haystack. A data and analytics survey by IDG found that the average business has 347 terabytes of data stored, but they only manage 162 terabytes. This shows that companies have a mountain of potentially valuable knowledge that lays there unanalyzed, unused, and untapped.
Knowledge management software which includes search functions, tagging, folders, and categorizing tools, help get around the issue of knowledge discovery. Still, the sheer volume of data most companies now possess means these functions only go so far.
This is where artificial intelligence comes in. AI is quickly becoming an essential component in organizational knowledge management. That’s because an AI-powered knowledge base simplifies knowledge discovery through a range of processes. For example, machine learning observes patterns and behavior over time and learns from these experiences to make intelligent predictions and provide automated solutions to users’ problems, all with very little human intervention needed.
In the case of knowledge management, machine learning algorithms analyze what teams search for and then predict the answers they are trying to access by looking back at previous queries that were made in the past and what answers people were satisfied by. Here at Lessonly, our AI technology can detect common questions asked and create automated FAQs for teams to access.
2. Centralization
Another aspect of technology that has transformed the knowledge management space is how it centralizes vast amounts of knowledge previously spread out over multiple locations. After all, an organization’s various departments tend to have very diverse types of knowledge and manage and share their knowledge differently.
For example, CRMs are typically the most important platform for managing pipelines, logging interactions, and accessing client directories for sales representatives and account managers. Content management platforms focused on images, graphics, and brand guidelines for marketing and design teams are their holy grail.
Commonly, departments don’t have access to each other’s specific tools and platforms, meaning knowledge is often siloed and inaccessible for large swaths of the company. But, a knowledge base is a central platform that unites all of a company’s knowledge, including FAQs, how-to videos, onboarding documents, company policies, directories, and more, in one well-organized space.
So, when it comes to researching knowledge management tools to use in your company, a really important factor is integration. With Lessonly Knowledge, you can connect over 16 different platforms and apps, including Slack, Google Drive, Confluence, Jira, and Dropbox, and combine their data into one source of truth. This dramatically reduces silos and makes knowledge more accessible across the board.
3. Collaboration
Technology has also shifted the way companies create and share knowledge. Now, teams can collaborate on a task no matter the location with the help of video conferencing software such as Skype, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and more.
Collaborative platforms and tools come in different shapes and sizes, including portals, forums, groupware, and social networks. These all act as vital hubs for all aspects of the knowledge management process.
One of the most popular in recent years, Slack, has become a knowledge management staple. On this platform, you can directly message a fellow team member with a query or get placed in different group chat channels that unite people over a particular department, task, or project. People can connect and exchange knowledge and ideas, share common issues, and get feedback on their work. What’s more, web-based applications like Google Docs have also been transformative, where teams can write up, review, edit, and comment on documents live simultaneously.
The benefits of these collaborative tools are endless: they facilitate team innovation, strengthen corporate culture and knowledge sharing, develop organizational memory, encourage feedback and interaction, and help teams self-regulate their work. We could go on and on!
So, there we have it. Knowledge management’s most significant challenges, including discoverability, silo issues, and lack of knowledge sharing, are all being solved thanks to technology.
