Knowledge Management as a Learning Organization Foundation

As the new economy demands the faster information processing to produce a better strategic decision, the knowledge management is one of the most important things that the organization should have to adapt the hyper competition in business world today. According to McElroy (2003) there are 2 perspectives of knowledge management, the first one sees knowledge management as a knowledge sharing (organizational learning) and the second one as a knowledge making (innovation management). This article focuses on the first perspective where knowledge management is used as a organizational learning.

Then first we should know the definition of the organizational learning,

Organizational learning as known as organizational development is an area of knowledge within organizational theory that studies models and theories about the way an organization learns and adapts. For Organizational development (OD), learning is a characteristic of an adaptive organization, i.e., an organization that is able to sense changes in signals from its environment (both internal and external) and adapt accordingly. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_learning).

In that definition, we identify the characteristic of learning organization as the adaptive organization. That means the organization is able to response very well from stimulus either comes from inside or outside. But in fact, the organization or even a big organization like corporations, don’t have the ability to accept the changes that happen from inside the body of organization nor from the outside. This problem is the manager’s responsibility and requires a good leadership to solve it. Kasali (2007) mentioned 5 things that changes demand to the organization to have, they are vision, skills, incentives, resources and action plans. Those 5 things are the area of manager should be concerned to support the learning organization.

Toyota can be the best practice of the organizational learning. Liker (2004) described how Toyota manages its organization to be the learning organization. Toyota made an internal document as its sharing knowledge called Toyota Way, the document contained 14 principles and famous with its 4 main points, which are philosophy, process, people and partners, and problem solving. The document also focuses on Kaizen, a continuous improvement and learning philosophy. Then we can identify Toyota as a corporation that use knowledge management for sharing knowledge.

Knowledge Management is a foundation for every organizations or companies to survive. It helps organization/company to grow with continuous improvement and adapts with the changing business environment. The concept of knowledge management as a sharing knowledge should be clearly understood by top management in a company. The good sharing knowledge in a company may enable people in organization to make an innovation as a making knowledge. The sharing and making knowledge in organization enables a company to stay competitive in changing market environment.

The information manager should first identify and understand the characteristic of a company and people where he/she works. There are 3 areas how we implement in an organization; they are Techno-Centric, Organizational and Ecological approach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management). A company using techno-centric approach may establish the strong intranet and internet connection and permit people in organization using mobile devices frequently. After selecting the approach, the information manager could create or design the system and distribute it to whole organization members to enable continuous improvement as a learning organization.

Reference

From Wikipedia. On April 28, 2009 – 3:02 pm

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_management

From Wikipedia. On April 28,2009 – 3.05 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_learning

Kasali, Rhenald. (2007). RE-CODE your change DNA. (pp.18-27). Jakarta: PT.Gramedia.

Liker. Jeffrey K. (2004). The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer. McGraw-Hill Professional. (digital version)

McElroy, Mark W. (2003). The new knowledge management: complexity, learning, and sustainable innovation. (pp. xxi). Butterworth-Heinemann. (digital version)

Managing Environmental Issues in Hospitality Industry

Being "a Green" is now something that is compulsory for any industry in the world. Being a green means all the business activities should be environmental friendly in order to balance the world ecology system. In hospitality industry, this kind of the big challenge for any owner of the hotels. The customer of the hotel tend to think freely of using the all facilities that they have paid. They don't think to limit using the water and the electricity because they all have already been paid. There should be a guidance on how we face this problems to be the opportunities. The less using of water and electric facilitation will not only reduce the contribution the global warming as now anyone say. However, it can be a cost efficiency to the business then the hotel could manage their expenses into a more add value to the customer.

In my opinion, all palyers in hospitality industry should really consider about this issue. This idea can be communicated to the customer by showing them how "greeny" is the hotel operation. This can be a new selling poin to acquire more new customers in the future. And this could be a news value for any hotel that introduce this green concept to the media.

I know it's not a simple job. There needs a creativity to develop this PR campaign to the audience that may not aware about the global environmnetal issue. That's why we should change the apatism of customer to be more giving attention about how the condition of the world now.

RSS for Corporate Communications

Penyebaran berita di dunia internet menjadi lebih mudah dengan teknologi yang berbasis XML ( eXtensible Markup Language ) ini. Sebelumnya perlu diketahui bahwa RSS adalah kependekan dari " Really Simple Syndication ". RSS sangat mendukung penyebaran berita dari sebuah corporate blog yang mana ini sangat membantu proses dari sebuah corporate communication. Segala bentuk pesan dari korporasi seperti press release, product review, news event dapat ditempatkan dengan mudahnya di dalam sebuah :

1. Konten website seseorang
2. News Aggregrator (cth. Google News,Google Homepage )

Dengan adanya RSS, kita tidak harus mengunjungi website/blog seseorang untuk melihat berita terbaru. Cukup dengan membuka website/blog kita maka kita akan dapat memantau berita terbaru yang dihasilkan oleh sebuah konten blog/website tertentu yang kita distribusikan.

Kemudahan penyebaran berita korporasi ini menjadi lebih terasa ketika perusahaan ingin menyebarnya terhadap pihak media. Para pihak media dapat dengan mudah mensindikasi berita perusahaan terbaru dengan mengunakan teknologi ini. Para jurnalis dapat memantau kejadian-kejadian penting tanpa harus selalu mengadakan kontak langsung terhadap perusahaan yang terkait. Tidak heran RSS kini dianggap sebagai Media Relations Tool yang cukup efektif.

Corporate Blog : Part 1

Definisi Corporate Blog

Blog yang merupakan kependekan dari Weblog, telah menjadi sesuatu hal yang fenomenal dalam menuju masyarakat informasi di negara kita. Banyak alasan seseoran nge-Blog, Mulai dari yang hanya sekedar ingin mencurahkan isi hatinya (baca:curhat), berbagi pengalaman hidup, hingga usaha personal branding seseorang yang menguasai suatu bidang tertentu. Adapun fungsi utama dari sebuah Blog adalah :

1. Menyajikan suatu informasi secara up to date
2. Membangun sebuah hubungan dengan pembaca Blog tersebut

Melihat kedua potensi tersebut maka munculah ide bagi suatu organisasi/perusahaan untuk mengadopsi konsep tersebut. Kita yang saat ini sering dikatakan berada dalam era informasi, menjadikan isu komunikasi sebagai hal yg mempunyai peranan penting. Nah, Blog itu merupakan suatu media komunikasi perusahaan kepada publik agar dapat terjalin suatu pemahaman dan hubungan yang baik.

Dengan demikian dapat didefinisikan :

" Corporate Blog adalah Blog yang diterbitkan dan digunakan oleh suatu organisasi/perusahaan sebagai media komunikasi terhadap publik sehingga tujuan perusahaan dapat tercapai "

Publik yang dimaksudkan dibagi lagi kedalam 2 bagian :

1. Internal Publik/Internal Organisation ( Employees/organisation members)
   
2. Eksternal Publik / External Organisation ( Customers, Governments, Suppliers etc.)

Blog Internal dapat diakses oleh semua member perusahaan dengan jaringan intranet perusahaan tersebut. Dengan adanya Blog ini, diharapkan partisipasi antara para karyawan untuk melakukan suatu tugas / project tertentu dapat menjadi lebih baik.

Blog External memiliki lebih banyak fungsi dan ragam. Blog ini memiliki banyak fungsi daripada Blog internal. Fungsi-fungsi tersebut adalah :

1. Menyajikan informasi berupa aktifitas perusahaan
2. Mempromosikan suatu produk/servis kepada customer atau calon customer
3. Menjadi alat percakapan bagi perusahaan dan publiknya guna menciptakan suatu hubungan yang baik (NB:apabila perusahaan memperbolehkan komentar)
4. Sindikasi berita yang lebih baik dengan mengunakan RSS terhadap pihak Media ( a good media relation)
5. Menaikan Pagerank sebagai bentuk aktifitas SEO/SEM perusahaan yang baik sehingga informasi perusahaan dapat dicari dengan mudah oleh search engine.
   

Defining Corporate Communication

Terdapat beberapa pengertian tentang Corporate Communication dari para ahli, untuk mencari acuan dasarnya, penulis mengambil definisi CorpComm dibawah ini :

Corporate communications is the process of facilitating information and knowledge exchanges with internal and key external groups and individuals that have a direct relationship with an enterprise. It is concerned with internal communications management from the standpoint of sharing knowledge and decisions from the enterprise with employees, suppliers, investors and partners. ( From Wikipedia)