Knowledge on the Hoof

I read a very interesting article in CIO Insight magazine, April 2005, titled “Hide and Seek.” It only goes to reinforce all the other information we are seeing these days about the struggle to find and leverage corporate IP. Again, “...over 80% of corporate data is ‘unstructured,’ or does not reside in an indexed, organized, or easily searchable database.”

Quoting the executive director of knowledge transfer (nice to know such a job exists!) at QCSI, a medium-sized software development company: “About 90% of the company’s information resided in the heads of about 10 percent of out workforce.” The term that comes to mind here is "Knowledge on the Hoof." Maybe the 1950's TV character Rowdy Yates is the appropriate metaphor for the learning manager of the future. The cattle are going to move wherever the grass is greener, whether you're there or not--so you might as well be there to facilitate their movement in a direction that maximizes financial gain at the end of the trail. Keep them doggies rollin', rawhide!

Estimates from companies larger than QCSI stay closer to the 80/20 rule, but the point is still well taken—organizational IP is isolated (trapped!) and can’t be readily accessed by others who need it, let alone leveraged by the enterprise for competitive advantage. This knowledge transfer director went on to describe the search solution his company developed, and proudly reported “...the search application saves each employee 20 minutes per day, which translates into roughly 150 hours of freed-up time per week, companywide. That’s big bucks.” Sounds to me like this company has its priorities straight and is making good progress--while the rest of the industry is focused on training. When QCSI goes public, I'm going to invest.

My conclusion? Either a number of people have started drinking the same Kool-Aid recently, or there is a growing consensus around two points: the most important corporate knowledge is currently inaccessible (since it's on the hoof), and people waste a heck of a lot of expensive time trying to find what they need know--and are operating in the dark at least half the time.