People often ask me: “My organization isn’t an APQC member, but I want to learn more about knowledge management and take advantage of APQC’s resources. How can I do that?” First off, if you’re new to knowledge management, I highly recommend checking out Knowledge Management Overviews, our complimentary collection of summary articles. These pieces introduce concepts and methods like communities of practice, knowledge retention and transfer, expertise location, and Web 2.0 using examples from APQC’s best practices studies. They’re quick reads and a good way to get up to speed.
My second suggestion is to start attending APQC’s monthly knowledge management community calls, which are open to anyone and everyone. Each call is a one-hour conversation about a specific KM topic, approach, or case study. This year’s calls featured a combination of APQC subject matter experts along with guest speakers from Alcoa, ConocoPhillips, Fluor, GE, Hivemine, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Rockwell Collins, Schlumberger, and more.
APQC members have the added option to access archived slides and recordings from the calls at any time. If you are a member and missed any of our calls from this year, you can catch up here: APQC's 2011 KM Community Calls. Even if you’re not a member yet, recordings from two of this year’s calls are currently available to you through our Web site:
- Creating a Knowledge Based Work Force: The Intersection of KM and HR - February 2011 KM/HCM Community Call
- Embedding Knowledge in the Flow - November 2011 KM Community Call
I hope this information is useful as you find new ways to leverage APQC’s knowledge management resources in 2012. As always, if you have any questions, please post them in the comments section below!