Weblogs as Base for Knowledge Management Systems?

cpfeifer asks: "I'm joining a small startup that needs a knowledge management solution. I know that 'knowledge management' is seen an empty buzzword, but after working at a company where the communication is very poor, I see the value of allowing folks to post their own news instead of having it filtered through some sort of corporate newsletter. I've seen the commercial portals (Plumtree & others), but after seeing a couple of OSS publication systems (phpNuke, Slash), I think these would fit the bill quite nicely." Aside from some of the basic features found in weblogs (posting, archival, sorting and searching), what else is necessary for the proper maintenance and use of such a system? How hard would it be to adapt existing weblog-ware to this task?

Comments

Reduce turnover

[ObviousGuy]

The most important and accessible location of information is in your experienced employees' heads. It's great to have things written down and all and it should certainly be encouraged, but even with such knowledge, it is much easier to interpret the writings if the person is still on staff.

So bottom line: Pay the engineers a lot. Don't let them leave the company.

The real problem is forcing people to use it.

[cyberkreiger]

I installed Bugzilla at work, because i was tired of people putting post-its on my screen and mentioning bugs at coffee-break.

To get people to use it, i had to turn into a bitchy hard-ass.
Whenever someone had a bug they wanted fixed i went "Have you entered it in the Bugzilla? No? Then i don't know anything about it."
In short, i refused to fix any bug unless it was entered into the bugzilla.

Now, i was in a position where i was able to do this without the risk of getting fired. (Although i felt a little uncertain about this at times... especially when my boss claimed it was too much work for him to be bothered to use the bugzilla, when he could just talk directly to me. )

Of course, once people got used to Bugzilla, they started liking it.
After all, in the end it's about making it easier for everyone to obtain information and do useful work.
You just have to get over the acceptance threshold.
Unfortunately, a bit of forcing is required to change the ways people work, and not everyone is in the position to do this.