5 Steps for a Successful Social Knowledge Network Implementation

By Phil Green (@inmagic) Aug 25, 2010

While using social media technologies for business has been gaining momentum, understanding how to most effectively take advantage of these tools across the enterprise is still evolving. Here are 5 steps to successfully implement your social knowledge network (SKN).

Some organizations have failed to achieve real business benefits from using social technologies because they tried to bolt these tools onto their existing intranets or portals, without a goal-oriented strategy driving it.

To achieve business objectives like increased productivity and organizational effectiveness, companies must start with the business problem and the needs of the business user. From there, it is necessary to encourage acceptance and adoption across the organization.

The Social Knowledge Network

One new approach that some companies are taking is called Social Knowledge Networks (SKNs). These are virtual environments where content combines with human resource assets and subject matter expertise around a business process or problem to increase productivity, foster innovation and improve the retention and preservation of knowledge.

Content — such as data, documents, images and other knowledge assets — is the backbone of a successful Social Knowledge Network strategy. And context — such as human resources assets and subject matter expertise — is the lifeblood.

Context provides a shared reference point, a reason to connect. Collaboration happens and problem solving accelerates because socially connected people have a basis for their discussion, instead of merely voicing their comments on an intranet.

Social Knowledge Networks go beyond connecting people, and help drive our interactions to solve a business problem.

Here are five steps for successfully implementing Social Knowledge Networks in your organization. These steps are derived from a culmination of customer feedback and experience with enterprise pilot deployments.

1. Define the Problem

This is probably the most cliché step across implementation best practices. Everyone knows they need to define the problem at hand, but so few actually follow through with a process for definition, or reach a collective agreement of what that problem is. For example, knowledge retention might be one of the business issues to address by way of implementing a Social Knowledge Network, but it’s rarely the only objective.

For the initial implementation, identify an existing process or practice where past experience and information is valuable and reusable, and where the wisdom of the community can enhance content. Examples include proposal development, product development/innovation, customer service, competitive intelligence, partner relationship management and facilities management.

However, you can’t know what problems to solve, what friction points your employees encounter or what they consider relevant until you ask them, which leads us to our next step.

2. Pick your People

Whether it’s explicitly defined or not, there should already be a community of people focusing on a project or objective. This group will understand the value of sharing ideas and recommending high-quality work because with a core group of people dedicated to the task at hand, projects are easier to complete and knowledge is captured for similar tasks in the future.

Users rely on SKNs because it helps them solve real problems, makes their jobs easier and is truly relevant. Building the SKN around the needs of your core community — and addressing the challenges that they come up against will expedite the implementation process.

As the staff realizes that the tool improves their performance by making it easier to quickly produce higher-quality deliverables, participation will increase — both cross-functionally within departments, and cross-departmental throughout the organization.