Jakob Nielsen is a name some of you may recognize. He is a self-appointed guru on all matters regarding usability of web sites and web-mediated work tools. You can find much of his work summarized on his web site titled Useit.
Last week Nielsen came out with his list of Top 10 designed business Intranets for 2011. Here's the link.
I noted with interest Nielsen's comment "If there's anything that has been overused, abused, and hyped beyond the level of cliché, it's "knowledge management." Thus, it might be better to say that many of this year's winners were strong in "managing knowledge" on their intranets."
Managing knowledge. This is a concept where I see drug and medical device teams struggle all the time. One reason for the struggle is the slow uptake of tools that can help foster an effective work environment and change deeply ingrained cultural practices.
I believe intranets, such as WIKIs are great tools that should be deployed at the project team level. These platforms become incredibly valuable from the moment a clinical development plan is written until well after a dossier is submitted to the regulatory authorities.
While it is true that knowledge management is not a technology issue, effort must still be spent in providing a suitable environment to facilitate knowledge capture and sharing.
I am suggesting the use of team specific intranets as a way to promote cultural change in an organization, at the level of knowledge-sharing activities and also for shaping broader work behaviors. In most companies where I train or consult, little has really changed since the 1960s in how people approach the planning and authoring of documents. Using intranets, like a WIKI, can quickly get a team applying best practices in terms of pre-writing planning.
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