Sensitivity is one of the two fundamental values of marketing. It is the result of contact with the market and allows us to understand both the purchasing behavior of customers and the way of acting of companies that compete to serve them.
Being sensitive may seem like a pretty loose guideline for someone, in the day-to-day professional practice, to become an excellent marketer. Recognizing that sensitivity results from good knowledge management helps a lot when taking action, so it is essential to put its basic aspects into practice.
It goes without saying that the topic has become important as a result of the information explosion, overload, or chaos, if we want to call it that, which comes from the hand of the personal computer, nowadays portable and easy to connect to. net. And that it has also become an indispensable requirement in school and work.
To begin, we must understand that knowledge management refers to a way of thinking that leads us to organize and integrate that information that we, as individuals and / or as a company, consider important.
It consists of devising a strategy to transform dispersed pieces of information and unite them through a systematic scheme that allows us to take advantage and grow our personal knowledge.
We all handle different types of information and store it on different media. We surely keep telephone numbers, appointment schedules, bank accounts, work notes, personal notes, email, earrings, business cards, etc. in different places.
In other words, minute by minute we create, generate, acquire, evaluate, appreciate, organize, classify, store, consult and distribute information without a scheme that integrates it efficiently.
How to land this concept personally?
A few years ago, the Tecnológico de Monterrey, a school where I teach a Marketing Strategy class, decided to require its students to have a personal computer. A very important reason for the unpopularity of this measure, among many others, was that they were never told why they should have it.
As the reaction was generally negative, my colleague with whom I do team teaching in this matter, and I decided to duplicate an exercise that had been carried out at the Stanford School. Same that you must do personally, before moving on to the subject of business knowledge management.
The starting point is to positively consider technology and try to make the most of it, not fight it. The main purpose of the exercise is to place our lives on the hard drive of the personal computer, to manage our personal knowledge in an environment that optimizes it.
What to include Everything. Papers, directories, agendas, newspapers, files, electronic reports, documents, books, magazines, electronic pages, etc. How to do it?
1. Develop a mental scheme of self-knowledge. That is, from the information with which we live, work and study.
2. Create an organizational structure that makes it easy to save and dispose of the information.
3. Use technology as an extension of personal and collective memory to store and process information.
The exercise has certain minimum requirements:
(1) Create a directory structure
(2) Specify very precise rules for naming folders and files
(3) Leave open the possibility of growth and accommodate new information
(4) Have the facility to quickly backup the hard drive.
The Individual Challenges that are faced when carrying out the exercise occur mainly during the tasks of categorizing or classifying types of information and assigning names to distinguish concepts, events and activities that take place in our lives.
What do you obtain? Specifically, two things are accomplished: organize the computer hard drive and develop synthesis and reflection skills to solve problems and make decisions. The second, thanks to the need to value what is really important to us.
Today, personal computers are more familiar to us and we accept their advantages more easily. Still, there will be a lot of information that we handle outside it, even if it is through another type of personal computer, such as a cell phone, an electronic organizer, the Palm or a tablet pc.
How to land this concept in the company?
In companies, decisions are made based on two types of information, explicit and implicit. Unfortunately, in my experience, I see that those that are taken on the basis of the knowledge that everyone takes for granted that prevail prevail.
Implicit decisions are based on intuition, hunches, insight; that is, in the result of personal experience. Which is fine, only it's very difficult to share with others.
Explicit decisions are made on a rational, formal, systematic basis, expressed in concepts and figures that are easy to enrich, keep up to date and, above all, to share with others.
The exercise that we must do, with or without computers involved, consists of:
1. Collect relevant data
2. Organize them in a context that translates them into information
3. Value them with a meaning that turns them into knowledge
4. Make value judgments that transform them into wisdom
5. Prepare ad-hoc documents
6. Make them accessible to those who need them
7. Use them to decide
8. Update and enrich them continuously
The documents that one finds in the company have to do with operation reports (billing, sales, visits to customers) that convert data into information, and from there go on to express themselves as knowledge in advertising communication platforms and strategic market plans.
Knowledge is an unlimited resource, without diminishing returns and increases by sharing it, since both parties preserve and enrich it. The message then is that knowledge must be generated and shared through formal and well-directed efforts.
Business Knowledge Management consists of using data to translate it into explicit information that becomes knowledge that can be used by everyone and that can be transformed into business wisdom by making better decisions.
We conclude with a quote from Larry Prusak, Managing Partner of IBM Global Services Consulting: “I call my field Knowledge Management, but in reality knowledge cannot be managed. What can be done is to manage an environment that optimizes knowledge ».
