TWELVE LESSONS TO DEVELOP AND SUSTAIN ONLINE KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITIES ABSTRACT

The development of online communities is rapidly becoming one of the important tools in Knowledge Management. Online communities have been emerging steadily and rapidly since the early nineties. Initially these online communities were being developed outside the corporate world. More recently, however, they have also become an organization reality. The concept of Communities of Practice has fuelled its growth and made it a strategic concern in a growing number of forward-looking firms. This paper presents practical lessons for organizations that aim to develop and sustain online communities in the context of knowledge program initiatives of a few leading organizations. These lessons (and the specific examples) are based on the actual experiences of eleven large organizations that were part of a large researc

Gestão do Conhecimento na Administração pública

This study analyzes the implementation of Knowledge Management (KM) practices in28 central government agencies and six state-controlled companies within the FederalGovernment of Brazil.The report analyzes the current situation of knowledge management practices infederal government agencies; describes the strategies for KM implementation; comparesthe Brazilian government situation with that of OECD countries that were surveyed in2002; proposes recommendations and guidelines for e-government knowledgemanagement policies; and presents recommendations for the development andimplementation of a knowledge management policy for the public sector.The research results highlight the importance of a knowledge management policyfor the effective formalization of KM in federal agencies, following the example of thestate-controlled companies. The study reveals that KM efforts are quite uneven in thefederal government. The large state-owned companies appear to have reached levels offormalization, implementation and results that are similar to those of publicorganizations in OECD countries. Similar results are observed in a few ministries. Formost of them, however, the KM initiatives and results are still emerging.The incipient results observed at this stage are, to a great extent, the outcome ofisolated initiatives and scattered efforts, sometimes within the same ministry; theabsence of communication and shared information about KM practices within andamong the organizations; and finally, little awareness about KM among the uppermanagement, middle managers and public servants in general. In this situation, thewidespread adoption of KM in central government will require the establishment of abroad KM policy, with strategic directives, specific resource allocation and training atthe various organizational levels.