Thinking about something not new…
In a corporate KM context we think how to improve knowledge sharing. Once you realise that it’s not a technology problem most of discussion goes around “why people share/do not share knowledge?”, motivation and culture.
From another side if you start zooming in and study knowledge-sharing motivation of real people it’s easy to find out that many don’t mind to share, but don’t do it because nobody asks them or because they are not sure that others need to know. It seems that the problem is not with motivation to share, but with motivation to ask. So, I guess we have to turn the problem upside down: “why people do not ask for knowledge of others?“
This question may be more difficult: sharing your knowledge at least makes you an “expert” while asking others can “show” how “stupid” you are. Next to it there is “not invented here” syndrome and higher satisfaction of inventing your own solutions rather than reusing work of others.
My questions:
- Why people ask/do not ask questions (search for expertise of others)?
- What can be done to create an environment that motivates people to ask more questions?
- Will an environment where people ask questions improve knowledge sharing (and contribute to KM)?
Any ideas, comments, references are welcome.
Tags: asking questions, knowledge sharingArchived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2003/07/16.html#a673; comments are here.
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