Knowledge and Information Professionals: Common Goals and Shared Vision
The knowledge management interest group in Tulsa, Oklahoma started in 2003 with the objective of creating a platform for the knowledge and information professionals to exchange ideas and share experiences. Recently the group has been registered officially as a non profit professional society under the name Green Country Knowledge and Information Professionals or in short GC-KIP. GC-KIP is an evolving umbrella group of diverse knowledge and information management (KIP) professionals who share a common goal of advancing the intelligent sharing of personal and organizational knowledge. Professionals represented in GC-KIP include knowledge managers, content managers, IT specialists, information analysts, librarians, archivists, records managers, document managers, Web developers, and information architects. All these people have one common task which is dealing with various aspects of information and knowledge management. With the information influx and the scarcity of knowledge, organizations are turning to these professionals to help them protect and enhance their intellectual asset. With the inevitable loss of knowledge due to outsourcing, restructuring, aging workforce and globalization, knowledge management is being promoted as an important and essential factor in organizational survival and adaptability.
To remain competitive, organizations need to examine their knowledge management practices and have the capacity to develop, organize, retain and utilize their human and knowledge resources. Customers now more than ever want better products and services. As we become part of the global village, many of the products and services which organizations offer have to be transformed to meet these challenges. Technology opened the door for small business to compete globally on an equal footing with larger organizations. This forced larger companies to restructure and consider outsourcing the majority of their activities in order to reduce costs. This was apparent in many sectors in Oklahoma’s economy, such as the oil and gas, telecommunications and manufacturing activities. Technological advances and globalization have opened the doors for increased competition. Knowledge management needs to be seen as a critical and strategic resource. Organizations need to pay special attention to their knowledge resources that are no longer protected by geographical barriers or filing cabinets. Some of the knowledge management practices such as learning organization, communities of practice, knowledge sharing, and knowledge organization provide organizations with the means by which they can protect their intellectual capital and minimize the knowledge loss. Managing intellectual capital effectively not only minimizes knowledge loss but also dramatically improves the human performance output. Realizing the importance of knowledge management, much university around the country and overseas including University of Oklahoma, started graduate programs in knowledge management to educate a new generation of knowledge professionals capable of working at different levels in their organizations. Knowledge management, being inter-disciplinary in nature, draws upon the theories and practices of a number of fields including information technology, business and management, communication and cognitive science, and library and information science. Graduates from the Master of Science in Knowledge Management program will be equipped with a set of core competencies in the key areas of organizational learning and communication, intellectual capital, knowledge management technologies and tools, knowledge management measurements, knowledge organization, and information management.
The increase in job postings at the executive level for positions such as knowledge managers, chief information and knowledge management, chief knowledge officers and so on is an indication of the growing interest in this area. It is also the types of executive jobs and opportunities that graduates from the KM programs can look for when they are considering a career change or professional development. As outsourcing and restructuring activities continue, organizations are bound to turn to knowledge management in recognition that the talent and the innovative capabilities of their employees is their best resource.