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Knowledge Application 185

can be annotated references, components (programs or text), templates, patterns, or
other types of containers. For example, consulting companies often reuse project
proposal templates as they convey the company brand and they contain useful reus-
able objects such as testimonials, company description, and so on. The goal is to
reduce the time it takes to complete tasks as well as to help maintain higher standards
regarding the quality of the work to be done. The benefi ts to new employees are
enormous as they are able to attain “ day one ” performance with the help of such
a reuse library, that is, they are able to perform at a fairly high level on their fi rst
day on the job. The other major benefi t is the work that is not done — because it was
possible to see that someone else had already done it. The savings involved in not
“ reinventing the wheel ” can be considerable.
KM aims to support learning organizations that provide all employees with access
to corporate memory so that both the individuals and the organization as a whole
improve. Corporate memory is often incomplete, as it has captured only explicit
knowledge. KM attempts to also make accessible the valuable tacit knowledge and add
this to the corporate memory. While it is possible to reuse tacit knowledge and this
is done all the time during knowledge-sharing interactions, reuse tends to refer to
packaged explicit knowledge. Reuse of explicit knowledge affords a longer-term advan-
tage. Whereas tacit knowledge reuse can benefi t the individual who sought the advice
of a more experienced colleague, knowledge objects that are accessible through the
knowledge repository are accessible to all workers, and they remain available for as
long as they are useful.
That being said, it is imperative to try to include or at least be able to point to
where the tacit knowledge associated with a given knowledge object resides. It is never
possible or even desirable to try to render all knowledge explicit. If knowledge workers
can easily locate and communicate with individuals in the company that are con-
nected to a given knowledge object (e.g., they are familiar with how it is used, they
have been trained, etc.), then the ability to apply or to make use of this knowledge is
greatly increased. In the example of the proposal writing knowledge object or tem-
plate, hyperlinks can easily be included to not only good examples of past proposals
that were successful (best practices) but to the individuals who were involved in their
preparation so that they can be contacted for advice, a read through, or other forms
of help.
The essence of problem solving, innovation, creativity, intuitive design, good analy-
sis, and effective project management involves more tacit, rather than explicit, knowl-
edge. By putting tacit knowledge in a principal role and cultivating tacit knowledge
environments, KM can play an important role in application development, and