There is no need to prove the fact that we live interconnected. Furthermore, the exponential and continuous growth of connection among humans revolutionized the way we see the world and how we interact with it. Thus, nowadays communication is established between two nodes that at the same time are constantly receiving, producing and distributing information.

The emergence of this collaborative dynamic throughout the enterprise field modified social structures related to roles and sense of belonging, which has driven to a cultural change within companies that ought to embrace this new logic in order to manage knowledge communities and sub-communities.

On the one hand, network logistics breaks down the paradigm of linear thinking and discourse typically organized according to hierarchies that sought to build unambiguous cause-effect relations, yet, it defines the concepts and people who are part of it in a collaborative multidirectional way. On the other hand, and this is key, information can become collective knowledge, valuable for everybody, as a result of interaction among people.

Elinor Ostrom, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 2009, defined knowledge as the assimilation of the information and understanding of how to use it.

Enterprise knowledge as KPR (Knowledge Pool Resources)

As more participation increases the quality and quantity of resources it also enables the acceleration of knowledge improvement and innovation. The development of an enterprise network revolving around resources is a positive transformation that will reposition resources to more active roles such as entrepreneurs, contributors and knowledge producers. In turn, it will bring two major benefits:

Quality: While collaboration and interaction among participants generates a systemic workforce that transcends the sum of individual contributions.

Fidelity: Also, in line with quality, the network members themselves are the main beneficiaries of its appropriate management which translates into stronger commitment to their work.

Ultimately, this means increased access to relevant information needed to achieve specific solutions designed for each particular situation. In this sense, it will provide the employees, who are more familiar with the current situation of the company, with the opportunity to drive problem solving initiatives themselves.

Considering that this cultural change is based on collective knowledge construction, it is no surprise that it brings about a new employee model: more proactive, used to gather information, share knowledge and propound new ideas.

This new type of employee publishes contents, comments, votes, gives opinions and demands collaborative tools such as forums, shared documents, chats and other virtual communication tools. It is necessary for the company to be prepared and provide the right setting in order to take advantage of this new kind of employee. In light of this new scenario in which common-pool resources management is key, companies need new Enterprise Content Management tools that favor discussion, democratize knowledge and boost innovation.

Among the enterprise collaborative ecosystem one can find internal collaborative networks, reference centers, social media channels, corporate sites, blogs…. Now, how do we manage, preserve and deliver this content in an organized way? Let’s talk about ECM and Enterprise Social Networks.

As we stated before, companies generate a great amount of non-organized content every day (emails, images, videos and documents). It is evident that having a tool that enables content management will allow companies to make decisions more quickly and efficiently, at this point it is worth noting that Enterprise Content Management has become a fundamental practice.

Enterprise Social Networks are a technological tool to share knowledge and enhance both business communication, and participation of individual employees, improving productivity and increasing collaboration towards innovation.

In short, the implementation of Enterprise Content Management practices can become a clear competitive advantage. In order to know more about ECM and what business solutions exist for this practice do not hesitate to contact us. We will be happy to help your business deploy.