“Good questions outrank easy answers.” — Paul A Samuelson
If you’ve been online lately you’ve noticed a lot of answering going on. There’s been an explosion of social media tools that look to create an environment for knowledge sharing. From the professional LinkedIn Answers, to the friendly Facebook Answers, to the personal Formspring and now the new kid on the block, Quora. And that’s not including the informal question and chat session that take place on Twitter on a daily basis.
With all these questions, it makes you wonder if anyone has the answer. It also leads me to believe we’re in the golden age of knowledge management by having so many accessible tools to gain, share and distribute information on a variety of topics. One of the key goals of KM is it informs, rather than instruct. This information enables individuals or organizations to move towards collaboration at a quicker pace.
While some of these question platforms are easier to use than others, the good thing is people now have a variety of ways to gain information and share knowledge. Here’s how I’m seeing these platforms being utilized:
1. Demonstrate Expertise: Some of the content being created by individuals is quite informative and thought out. Users of these answer boards are using these platforms as a way to establish themselves as experts on a topic or showcase their understanding of a topic.
2. Setting up the Sell: I’ve had some cases where I’ve answered a question in a question forum and was promotly solicited a product that solved for the question being asked. The person who asked the question was the salesguy. It’s an interesting way of gaining visibility to people who are experiencing these issues and identifying qualified leads.
I’ve also seen some really good vendor selection discussions that are educating the broader audience on pros and cons in selecting vendors. These are important conversations to be monitoring if you’re responsible for vendor selection or if you’re one of the vendors being discussed.
3. Networking: This is different than showing expertise, rather this is about finding like-minded, like-tasked people to continue the conversation offline. Peer mentoring is a great way to extend your skill set.
The last example is probably the most important along the model of true KM. The path to collaboration is the most important step along the KM model. Being able to turn positive business outcomes from knowledge received is key to helping improve organizations and individual performance.
If you approach these and other message boards with that mindset, I’m sure you’ll be able to look past the noise and find the value of the the question. I’m curious to hear the ways you’re using these forums and innovative ways you’re seeing them being used.
Like this:
Be the first to like this post.
Everyone loves a good list. If you’re a blogger, you know that a good list will drive a good amount of traffic. However, there is still a couple of lists that hold significant interest and weight. FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies to Work for is one of those lists.
