Over the past few weeks we've discussed a number of topics around the subject of Knowledge Management.
 





     
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  • Identifying if you are ready for a KM initiative.




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  • The groundwork you need to do before you get started.




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  • Understanding Business and User needs




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  • Building a technology platform




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  • and more....




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However even if you are successful and doing all of the above you must keep this thought in your mind always "At the end of the day for your KM initiative to be successful it has to be voluntary".



A large portion of any products success depends on it’s brand value and how its marketed. The same holds true for a Knowledge Management initiative. This post talks about how you can use branding as a powerful tool to promote KM within your project as well as your organization.



There is no doubting that you have a good product, otherwise you wouldn’t be taking it to the market ( being presumptuous here ) . However to ensure its success, you need the brand. Once people start associating KM in your organization with something prestigious the interest in it will automatically increase.



Strong KM practices can be run into the ground because of a lack of branding. Unlike most other job functions Knowledge Management has to be sold to the general public. You need to approach your employees like customers.



There is another reason for branding, as with most KM initiatives there is invariably a rewards and recognition program tied to it. When an employee is recognized as a knowledge contributor , the prestige is much greater when there is brand value associated with the award.



The underlying idea behind Branding is to increase awareness and promote its use, there is also the added benefit of the “wow” factor.



One of the biggest ways of doing this is to ensure that there is senior management presence in most of the award ceremonies. The idea that automatically gets conveyed by this approach is that in order to get recognized by the top brass you need to be a Knowledge Contributor.



You can do the same within your project as well. Recognize team members that perform well and actively collaborate and share knowledge with other members of the team.



Rewarding knowledge sharing behaviors will instigate other people to start sharing as well.



There is a lot that needs to go into an initiative like KM, but branding is something that almost always seems to lose out…