Knowledge Base for YWAM

Robert — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 02:27:24 +0100

The need for a dynamic collaboration tool and info repository for YWAM came out in some of the group discussions at CRIT'05 in Colorado Springs. During CRIT'05 a Knowledge Base group was formed to keep looking at this area. Here are some reflections on that. Here is a quote from Nick Carr's most recent blog entry.

Over the years, big companies have dumped a lot of money into computer systems that promise to automate "knowledge management." Most of that money has been wasted. No matter how technologically elegant their design, knowledge management "platforms" and "repositories" tend to quickly collapse under the weight of their own complexity. Using them turns out to be more trouble than it's worth - particularly for those employees who have the most valuable knowledge - and the platforms and repositories fall into disuse and are eventually, and quietly, dismantled. People go back to using efficient, direct conversations - through meetings, or phone calls, or emails, or instant messages - to exchange useful knowledge.

Read the full entry I believe that YWAM's knowledge base is the whole internet! We do not need to build a monster knowledge management "platform" or "repository" - the internet is a great place to host all our knowledge - on various websites, wikis, blogs, podcasts - whereever and whatever. The trick is finding the interesting bits! How can we make the information and knowledge published to the web by YWAMers visible to other YWAMers? This focuses our attention on search. Open Enterprise Search as I have written about before has the potential to turn the whole internet into our own knowledge base and make relevant information available to us all. It can be described as 'google for YWAM' returning results from just our own internet resources. Imagine being able to go to search.ywam.org and enter "aids" and be able to search all the articles, people, places, and projects in YWAM that are relevant to your vision for working with AIDs sufferers? Imagine being able to offer a search box on your YWAM bases website that returned results from within YWAM! At the global level of YWAM, building Open Enterprise Search or "Google for YWAM" is a project that has the potential of bringing a huge benefit to YWAM staff, bases and potential students and staff.

YWAM Information Technology - Knowledge Base for YWAM - Comments

Knowledge Base for YWAM