Knowledge Management for SME's in Jakarta - some learnings

For the week 10th - 14th August 2009, I was one of three KM consultants / facilitators working with a group of participants from over 20 Asian countries for 5 intensive days of learning, knowledge sharing and practical workshops.

The event, organized by Asian Productivity Organization, APO focused on KM for SME's. My co-consultant/facilitators were Praba Nair, Director of Knowledge Drivers International (Asia) Pte Ltd, based in Singapore, and Naoki Ogiwara, Senior Consultant and "Ba Conductor" for Knowledge Dynamics Initiative, Fuji Xerox Co Ltd, Tokyo, Japan.

There were many new learnings for me, but I thought I would share some of the key principles and learnings, focused on SME's.

1.Generally, the KM education and literature available does not focus enough
on SME's so I congratulate APO for this significant initiative.

2. SME's are likely to be very interested in joining 'Knowledge Clusters'
as a KM strategy.

3. SMEs are more interested in new knowledge creation and innovation,
as they better know 'who and what they know' than larger fragmented organizations

4. SMEs can more readily start 'personal KM and team KM' initiatives

5. SMEs can take much better advantage of the use of (often free) Web 2.0
tools and do not have the same usage problems as large organizations

6. The APO is publishing a book of eight case studies 'Knowledge Management for SME's' in the Autumn and I will provide the link through this blog and website when available (I was one of the team writing the book for APO)

7. I like “Knowledge is sticky – it will not move without a process". Most SMEs need to improve or implement better knowledge processes.

My favourite learning for the week in Jakarta from the opening speech from the DG for Manpower Transmigration for Indonesia was "Our goal is to move from unemployment and earning a wage, to gaining an income through knowledge".

My favourite paradox, when I teach KM is, 'Fun is serious business'. We learn so much more when we enjoy the learning process.

There was certainly much fun and learning by all over the five days.

The group of participants present in Jakarta, Indonesia, have taken the initiative, led by Viki, to 'practice what we have learned' and create a KM forum using the social network NING.com at KM-ONEWORLD.

Why not join us?

Ron Young

more at:

www.knowledge-management-online.com