In recent years, we have been exposed to the 'selfie' phenomenon. This phenomenon is a social product which places the individual in the centre and allows him/her to share the social environment and everything around in his/her pictures and indirectly share his/her experiences and feelings. Famous selfie to which we have been exposed include president Obama at President of South Africa Nelson Mandela's wake, or that of Oscar Awards presenter Ellen DeGeneres who uploaded hers during the ceremony (this selfie is famous for breaking the sharing records, due to its famous participators).
Besides the fun and enjoyment of the idea itself, there is a hidden phenomenon behind the selfie, a phenomenon which is important to the world of knowledge sharing in organizations: is taking selfie pictures driving us to share more? Have we become more social? The fact is that people who don't usually like to take pictures and avoid the camera lens are sharing selfie pictures often- signifies that this indeed true.
What has caused the change? What has attracted more and more people to cooperate with this new trend? And the question most relevant to knowledge managers- is there a similar idea which can be implemented in organizations?
An innovative tool as a sharing-motivator
The answer is connected to the fact that an innovative idea can make us share more and more information, and therefore a socially-based innovative tool can make the worker share the knowledge he/she holds easily and efficiently compared to other ways and methods. The experience of the selfie phenomenon, in addition to the accumulated experience in the organization, shows that it is comfortable and recommended for workers to share and distribute information via advanced technologies which are more 'interesting' than the customary tools used in organizations (meetings, feedback, roundtables, etc).
Organizations used to use slogans in order to persuade workers to share: "knowledge is an organizational asset and knowledge should be shared in favor of the organization". These slogans hardly sound enticing nowadays. On the other hand, trying out an innovative designed tool which puts the worker's opinions and experiences in the center of attention, can serve a source of substantial and efficient inner motivation.
The flow of motivation from the individual world to the professional
Lately, the social network culture has flowed to the workplaces as well. For organizations who wish their workers to share their knowledge, this is an opportunity to hack into another motivational factor and exploit it in order to promote the organization.
At this point at the workplace, workers are intelligently utilizing the powers of digital media in order to distribute information. If a change has occurred in our personal, private world and we are now more ready to expose ourselves- this will be manifested in the workplace as well. We can explicitly see a sharing and exposure trend including more and more people. It is therefore the organization's responsibility to provide more interesting tools in order to retain and share the organizational knowledge held by the worker, tools that will actually encourage the worker to share information out voluntarily.
How can we exercise this in practice?
We can create for the workers a social environment in the organizational portal in which they can independently share and upload professional and a-professional content.
We can raise new ideas; upload pictures from social events and outings, social blogs in different subjects and professional blogs.
We can implement a social area which incorporates professionalism as well as an aspect controlled by the workers. Of course, knowledge managers possess full control and monitor the published contents. This way, they can retrieve and capture new information than can assist the organization's professional Knowledge Management system.
In conclusion, social networks exist and are continuously developing. We are all joining and want in on the experience, then why not exploit its advantages in professional portals in organizations?
Food for thought…
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