The virtues of a social knowledge base have been well established by the likes of Wikipedia. Their approaches and methods made comfortable by how people understand and interact with those public resources of consolidated information. The social aspect of the wiki and other social tools allows a broad range of expertise to be consolidated into a single resource. Broad engagement is encouraged and rewarded socially, independent of company hierarchy and silos. And the information gathered becomes easily accessible for future "generations" to build upon and update over time, effortlessly.

The social knowledge base also provides its own mechanism for prioritizing and organizing information. When new employees ask questions these are viewed and answered by "old hands" who have the insight and knowledge (of great value to an organization) locked in their brains. By answering this question directly or launching a wiki they expand on the resources that other new employees can call upon without having to ask again. And answers to questions build out the knowledge base where it makes sense to people to look for it, the same space where someone thought to ask the question and others will think to look for it later.

Learn more about Communifire Knowledge Management Software