Knowledge management has become an important aspect of almost every business nowadays – and it’s clear why. But what could be challenging to some knowledge managers is keeping their systems in check. This is when technical writing can be incredibly useful, so here’s everything you need to know about the importance of technical writing in knowledge management.

What Is Knowledge Management?

To put it simply, knowledge management allows businesses and organizations to identify, create, capture, acquire, share, and leverage information and knowledge. In this case, the said information or knowledge is viewed as a valuable asset. Knowledge management is mostly performed with the help of knowledge managers and knowledge management systems.

Knowledge management systems help categorize, capture, use, and analyze knowledge used within your business for different processes as well as for decision-making. This kind of knowledge transfer lets you easily share information between your departments and teams. With a knowledge management system that is set up correctly, you can train employees more effectively, make your activities more cost-effective, improve productivity, and so on.

What Is Technical Writing?

Technical writing is a style of writing used mostly for formal or official documents, instructional manuals, policies, business procedures, and more. In other words, it is a very broad term, but at its core, technical writing is about gathering the right technical information and writing it down for documentation and other purposes.

Jean Cornish, an expert from the writing services reviews site Trust My Paper, says, “Some businesses make sure to have at least one in-house technical writer while others think that anyone can do the job. This is far from reality. Technical writing requires certain skills to be done correctly. Moreover, it plays an important role for businesses of all kinds as it allows companies to keep documentation in check, organize business processes, and more.”

How Are the Two Connected?

So, how exactly are knowledge management and technical writing connected? Both work with information or knowledge, so both technical writers and knowledge managers often have to perform extensive research to collect relevant data that they can then use. But beyond that, technical writing is essential for successful knowledge management.

AI and machine learning allow knowledge management systems to develop into more accurate and highly-functioning programs. However, categorization is still often lacking in quality, especially considering that there are new laws and policies being introduced every day (e.g. GDPR, privacy regulations). This is why technical writers are so important for knowledge management.

These are professionals who can use their skills and experience to provide more comprehensive descriptions and instructions than a machine ever could. Technical writers use techniques such as the Pyramid Principle to create more accurate documentation for knowledge transfer. With more high-quality documentation, your overall knowledge management will improve too.

What Are Some Best Practices to Follow for Technical Writing?

Harris Park, an expert from the custom writing reviews site Supreme Dissertations, explains, “Ideally, you will want to hire at least one technical writer to work on your knowledge management. However, if you don’t have the resources to do so just yet, you can start learning technical writing skills yourself.”

To help you get started, here are some technical writing best practices to follow:

• Outline Your Text: Before you start writing, it’s a good idea to first make an outline of the text you are about to write. Structure is extremely important for technical writing, so the best thing you can do is organize all of your information beforehand. You can also format your text for easier readability with the help of paragraphs, subheadings, bullet-point or numbered lists, and so on. Also, keep in mind the layout you might have to follow depending on the type of text you are writing.
• Be Reader-Oriented: Always put your reader first and foremost. Don’t expect your audience to have prior knowledge on a particular subject unless this is very basic knowledge. If you refer to particular concepts, explain them or link to resources that explain them. Don’t skip steps in instructions or guides. And, of course, use simple and clear language that your audience can understand. Too much jargon can be intimidating and confusing.
• Combine Text with Visuals: Though you are a technical writer, you still need to consider situations when you will have to supplement your text with visuals. In some cases, it’s simply not enough to have just the text. This is when you will have to combine text with visuals (e.g. photographs, illustrations, infographics, schemes, or even videos). If a process you are describing is particularly complicated or nuanced, a visual you include might be better at explaining it than your text.
• Review Your Text at The End: One thing you should always do when you have finished writing your text is review it. Check that all of the necessary information is included and that it is structured in a logical and clear way. Make sure that there are no grammatical, spelling, or punctuation errors and that your wording and word choice are all right. Make the final changes before you submit your work to your organization’s knowledge management system.

Conclusion

To sum up, your knowledge management strategy can definitely benefit from technical writing. Use the information in this article to help you get started and begin implementing technical writing into your knowledge management by hiring qualified technical writers.

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A reactive approach to running a business is just not enough. Instead, you need to actively find new ways to provide value to customers. This is why a proactive approach must be adopted. One of the ways you can be more proactive is by combining your knowledge management system and CRM. 

Integrating knowledge management (KM) with CRM has become a necessity. It allows organizations to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. When it comes to managing customer relationships, every bit of information is important. The worst mistake that you can make is overlooking issues.

A robust KM and CRM integration will support your business in ways that you cannot even imagine. Besides, around 89% of customers expect businesses to provide the best experience. Read our guide to find out how integrating knowledge management and CRM can prove beneficial.

What is a Knowledge Management System?

Before we cover what a KM and CRM integration can do for you, you must understand the purpose of a knowledge management system. It is an IT system that stores and retrieves knowledge for improving collaboration, understanding, and alignment.

Not only can a KM system be used by teams within the organization, but it can also be used to center the knowledge base for customers.

What Is A CRM?

CRM stands for customer relationship management. It is a tool that helps businesses establish long-term relationships with customers. It assists with developing, acquiring, and retaining customers.

The software ensures smooth and efficient interaction with consumers to increase overall profit. It gathers customer data from various channels to provide detailed information about customers to make the right decisions.

A popular CRM that you might have come across is the Real Estate CRM. It is a powerful tool that can be integrated with your KM system to provide outstanding results.

How Can Knowledge Management and CRM Can Support Your Business In 2021?
1. Increases Productivity

One of the ways KM and CRM integration can support your business is by increasing productivity.

The integration will enable your employees to access company information and commonly asked answers directly from the KM system when responding to customer requests in CRM.

It would help eliminate research time and the need to conference with other employees, which would significantly increase productivity. Besides, switching between applications would only require customers to wait longer, which would frustrate them.

2. Reduces Redundant Tasks

Another way a KM and CRM integration can provide support to businesses is by reducing redundant tasks. The CRM system will update the information learned during every resolution, whereas solutions for repetitive issues can be converted into an article on the knowledge base.

As the world of business evolves, you must eliminate redundant tasks to stay ahead. Otherwise, your company would become redundant altogether. Keeping up with the latest innovations is the only way you can compete with major players.

3. Improves Customer Satisfaction

By integrating KM and CRM, you get to provide your customers with self-service capabilities which they can use when they visit your website. They can easily browse through the FAQs online and find a solution for the problem that they might be facing.

Moreover, if there is no answer or resolution for the issue, your customers would be instantly routed to a live agent who can take over things from there. New cases would be automatically generated by the system, which would alert agents. Thus, you will benefit from improved customer satisfaction.

4. Increases Effectiveness

Keep a complete track of the questions, emails, and calls with the help of the integration. It will ensure that you benefit from a clear measurement of Effectiveness. Find out how well your team is doing to ensure accountability and improve Effectiveness.

Besides, you also get to find out which issues are the most repetitive and active for making sure that you can resolve the issue for good. Only when you monitor each issue extensively will you be able to provide real value to customers.

As you respond to customer needs, you will be able to build knowledge where appropriate and track Effectiveness. This would allow you to monitor the productivity of customer-facing employees and motivate them to work harder.

How to Integrate Knowledge Management and CRM?

Integrating KM and CRM is not easy. However, it is possible by following the steps mentioned below.

1. Source the Information for the Integration

The first thing that you need to do to integrate the two systems is to know what knowledge to document. Find out which problems, questions, and issues customers face the most and how you can document their answers.

Make sure to involve the CRM team to determine which issues customers frequently face. There are different pieces to the puzzle. Hence, you must ensure that every piece is integrated to cover the entire customer experience.

2. Organize the Integration

The next step that you need to take is to organize the integration. Here is how you can do this.

• Chunk articles into topic categories.
• Determine the most frequently asked questions.
• Create a separate page for knowledge management on your website and integrate it with supplementary resources like live chat.
• Measure the Effectiveness of the integration by including a feedback mechanism.
• Use different types of media such as text, images, and videos since people learn differently.
• You should also consider leveraging Google Analytics for developing advanced customer education training.

3. Continuously Optimize the Integration

Finally, you have to continuously optimize the integration to keep customers satisfied. Analyze customer success and track metrics such as conversion rate and bounce rate to make necessary improvements. Make sure to evaluate customer feedback to keep track of every minute detail. Then, you can proceed with the changes to provide greater value to customers.          

Takeaway

KM and CRM provide extensive support to businesses. By integrating the two, you can take your business to the next level. Our guide aims to provide you with a foundation on the topic. Always remember that a proactive approach is the best way forward.

By implementing the integration, you can expect to increase productivity, reduce redundant tasks, and increase Effectiveness. Hence, it is about time that you started planning the integration.

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In today’s healthcare industry, we need all the help we can get. COVID-19 continues to cause sickness and even death among the population, filling hospitals and overwhelming medical staff. There aren’t enough professionals to comfortably manage the situation or stem the tide of demand on the horizon as the population continues to age up.

Fortunately, Knowledge Management (KM) is here to help the medical industry handle extreme levels of demand by collating, organizing, and disseminating important public health information. As a result, we can apply practical solutions and insights in dealing with even the most disastrous of situations.

By collecting data, making care more accessible, and empowering health research, KM brings new levels of practicality and efficiency to healthcare today. Here are the important details.

Collecting Healthcare Data

The COVID-19 response has been an exercise in adapting KM systems to produce better health outcomes. In fact, much of the response has stemmed from the use of these tools in collecting healthcare data regarding the coronavirus and its spread. Public health experts have used KM frameworks to evaluate everything from exposure data to the pressure on front-line workers. From there, they can cultivate unique solutions.

Knowledge Management is integral to gathering the kind of data needed for any large-scale health response. Epidemiologists, for instance, require comprehensive access to positive tests, spread information, and rising numbers. KM systems collate this information in a singular dashboard, providing epidemiologists with the insights they need to structure intuitive next steps that protect public health.

In this fashion, KM is critical to a practical health approach. After all, the ability to manage knowledge like data makes all the difference when formulating an effective response to emergencies like a global pandemic. Without this transparent and comprehensive view, public health officials would be completely at a loss for how to implement policies that truly make a difference, instead forced to rely only on hearsay.

In turn, maintaining a comprehensive center of valuable data gives health providers the means to make healthcare more accessible. This is possible through advancing technology and the marketplace of valuable data.

Making Care More Accessible

KM makes healthcare more accessible by democratizing insights for a greater user base. 97% of Americans have smartphones and this massive demographic means that data and knowledge can be cultivated where they are most helpful, like when it comes to emergency care solutions.

For instance, medical smartphone IDs are applications that make important healthcare metrics available to first responders even if you are unconscious. The medical professional simply has to push a button or scan your wearable device to get info like your name, blood type, known allergies, and emergency contact information. This is, of course, if you have allowed your device to offer such information and the providers are savvy enough or have been trained to look for it.

Medical smartphone IDs are just one of the many ways medical knowledge has become more accessible in the situations in which it is most needed. This has life-saving potential, as the ability to quickly identify a patient and pull up their conditions and risk factors could make the difference in first-response care.

But emergencies aren’t the only times KM makes care more accessible. The entire telehealth industry—popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic—exists because care providers can streamline their knowledge for easy access when it comes to treating patients over the web. This means active databases in which patient identity can be quickly and accurately verified alongside all their treatment history.

KM is revolutionizing the healthcare industry through practical and accessible applications like telehealth. In turn, care providers now have access to more medical data than ever before, which further empowers both knowledge and care solutions.

Empowering Research

Last but far from least, Knowledge Management plays an essential role in empowering research. This is because data comes with the territory of accessible care. Now, care professionals are simply applying this available data into more powerful information systems, equipped with AI analytics and cybersecurity protections.

Little has disrupted the future of KM quite like these tools. With AI, for instance, health researchers can scan and connect thousands of data points in an instant. No longer will experts have to manually review diagnostic imaging or rely on invasive visits to gain insights about a patient. Instead, AI applied to big data sets can pull out connections in symptoms, risk factors, and avenues for treatment.

This means that research can now be done on an unprecedented scale, as well. All a smart KM system has to do is de-identify medical data to ensure HIPAA protocol is maintained, then analytics can be applied to health-related problems. Imagine the knowledge that can be cultivated through well-maintained medical databases. With information assembled across a global population, understanding of medical conditions can be revolutionized.

Already, KM systems are being applied in the effort to cure diseases and save lives. One AI model even outperformed a radiologist when it came to diagnosing breast cancer. With the power and potential of effective management of medical knowledge, we can implement life-saving solutions for all kinds of diseases. It all starts with the knowledge needed to enhance performance.

In today’s healthcare industry, Knowledge Management is both practical and effective. In the future, these features will only empower better care and more accessible treatment.

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Knowledge management is by far one of the most important tools in the inventory of a successful business. In other words, having a knowledge management strategy can directly impact the way your business functions and how well it performs in different aspects.

However, there’s also a different side to knowledge management. If used incorrectly, knowledge management can be harmful to your business.

Read on to find out about the successes and failures of knowledge management and how you can use it in your own business.

What Is Knowledge Management?

At its core, knowledge management is an approach to organizing and sharing knowledge within an organization or company. It’s a highly systematic approach that helps you convert expertise into value within your business. A knowledge management system (known as KMS) is a tool that will be useful to businesses of all types and sizes, no matter what your industry or niche is.

Knowledge management might seem like a fairly recent invention, but it actually has its roots in the 1980s. In fact, the term itself was coined in 1987. Management consultants were the pioneers of knowledge management at the time as they realized how important capturing, organizing, and sharing knowledge within an organization was. When businesses started transitioning to a more digital-based setup, knowledge management gained more traction.

To put it simply, businesses realized that the new tech they were integrating into their systems could be used to connect different departments as well as new and veteran employees. By using databases, wikis, and intranets among other things, businesses were able to share knowledge and information easier to build better business infrastructure.

But even though knowledge management might seem like a solution to all of your business problems, it’s not that simple. There are many challenges to using knowledge management and many ways how everything could go wrong if you use knowledge management incorrectly.

Successes of Knowledge Management

Obviously, it’s worth starting from the successes or advantages of knowledge management. Here are just a few major ones:

• Better Organization: First and foremost, knowledge management can help you get better organization within your business, both in terms of processes and the way you manage data. It will be easier to find and recycle or reuse resources and information which will lead you to…
• Structured Business Processes: More relevant information and resources will help you create better products and services and maybe even outperform your competitors.
• Informed Decision-Making: By using your knowledge correctly, you can perform more informed decision-making. This will lead you to develop a better strategy for your business.
• Faster Problem-Solving: By making informed decisions, you can solve problems much faster. In other words, you can increase productivity as well as operational efficiency of your teams and individual employees.
• Easier Sharing of Expertise: Knowledge management allows you to share expertise easier between your employees. This will help them grow and develop while fully utilizing your intellectual capital.
• More Innovation: Using knowledge management means using all the skills, resources, and information you have which can indirectly lead to more innovation in your business. Besides, you could even predict market trends before your competitors.
• Improved Communication: As you share knowledge within your business, you will improve communication and collaboration between your different departments. This can diversify the opinions you get in discussions and can lead you to even better decision-making (and increased profitability).

Whether you want to improve your email marketing by helping your customer service and marketing departments work closer or you want to make your onboarding process for new employees run smoother, knowledge management could be the tool you need. That being said, there are still some things to consider before you get started.

Failures of Knowledge Management

Undeniably, knowledge management has many benefits, but it also has failures or disadvantages you shouldn’t forget about. Here are some major issues you can encounter:

• Aligning Knowledge Management with Business Strategy: Perhaps the biggest challenge for any business when getting started with knowledge management is trying to align it with your existing business strategy. You already have goals and objectives which could be difficult to pursue when you set knowledge management aims that may go counter to them. This is why it is important to consider your existing strategy before you start thinking about objectives for your knowledge management plan.
• Difficulty Finding Information and Resources: Another major challenge on your way will be actually finding information and resources. It may sound easy at first, but you will be surprised just how much knowledge and expertise within your business is taken for granted or even hidden from you. This knowledge is valuable and needs to be detected which is why you need to put together a clear set of rules and guidelines for capturing, recording, and sharing knowledge within your business.
• Absence of Efficient Knowledge Capturing Methods: To use knowledge management effectively, you will need to define the methods you will use to capture the said knowledge. It’s not enough to simply find it – you should also be able to capture it, store it, process it, analyze it, and share it. To do this, you will need to consider the budget, tools, and training necessary to execute your knowledge management strategy.
• Choosing and Integrating Knowledge Management Tech: One challenge you might not expect is choosing and integrating appropriate knowledge management tech. As mentioned above, you will need to have the right tools to execute your knowledge management strategy. If you have a tight budget, you will need to carefully consider it before you decide on any particular tech you choose to use for your knowledge management.
• Motivating Employees to Use Knowledge Management: While you might not expect it, you might get some pushback from your employees when you start trying to integrate knowledge management into your company. This is why you need to explain why your business needs knowledge management and then start nurturing a corporate culture that values knowledge above all else.

Final Thoughts

To sum up, knowledge management definitely has many benefits, but it needs to be applied correctly. If you misuse knowledge management, it could end up harming your business instead of helping it succeed. Therefore, use the tips in this article to aid you with your knowledge management strategy.

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In an age that is ushering in a more tech-focused society, smart cities are becoming standout initiatives for both governments and private sectors worldwide. In an effort to beautify cities, increase their accessibility, and improve general resources and sustainability in urbanized territories, cities are combining information and communication technology (ICT) with data infrastructure.

The ideal smart city, according to the IMD Smart City Index, balances “economic and technological aspects with humane dimensions.” Leading the field here on a global scale is Singapore, closely followed by Zurich and Oslo. Following the success of these cities, there is much to be gleaned from their data – and that is where the true benefit of knowledge management comes into play.

The Scope of Knowledge Management

But first, what is knowledge management? Knowledge management, as defined here by Zach Wahl, President and CEO of Enterprise Knowledge, is a process that “involves the people, process, culture, and enabling technologies necessary to capture, manage, share, and find information.” In community or team setting, this allows leaders to accurately assess public perception, address immediate needs, and make long-term predictions.

Because there is still room for growth in the arena of creating smart cities, the functionality of knowledge management works two-fold. On one hand, it allows local government units to efficiently approach the transition into a fully smart city via an expansive database. Currently, LGUs are able to assess the current state of their tech capabilities and accessibility then determine their strategy. As they start implementing initiatives based on this roadmap, any results from these can be studied and then added back to centralized database. This continuous chain reaction can be repeated an infinite number of times, so any new KM strategies will always be an enhanced version of its predecessor and so on.

Potential Applications in a Smart City

Effectively using knowledge management can greatly increase the success rate for developing smart cities and ensuring a smoother adoption. To further elaborate on the possibility of evolving knowledge management in smart cities let’s look at smart mobility. In a post on smart mobility by Verizon Connect, it states that it is an intelligent transport and mobility network, which is a core part of future smart city design. This is because of the influx in transportation infrastructure, on-demand ride sharing services, and shifts in consumer behavior. With the right data allocation and insight collection from knowledge management, a smart mobility ecosystem can be created in a timely manner. This can avoid the riskier pitfalls of progress, like increased pollution and congestion.

Remember, the core features of a smart city are its accessibility, connectivity, and sustainability. This is how it creates one big ecosystem that responds to its citizens and its resources seamlessly. By using knowledge management at their disposal, both governments and major players in the private sector can improve the quality of life for communities by promoting alternative modes of travel and developing infrastructure that supports these new modes, such as protected bicycle lanes.

A study featured in the IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC) reveals that context-appropriate innovations have seen the most success in different world regions shifting to smart cities. For instance, rather than implementing a generic sustainability plan, region-specific initiatives determined from knowledge management are more successful.

For instance, in countries suffering from urban air pollution and lack of safety in public spaces, such as India, the most pressing efforts are emissions and traffic. In fact, a Dalberg Advisors report in 2021 shows that poor air quality alone is a far-reaching issue that costs the country $95 billion annually. In response to these crises, data studies revealed that providing electric vehicles to combat carbon emissions, creating parking management systems to answer lack of parking and congested roads, and providing mobile apps to make public transportation payments and queuing more efficient were the most relevant solutions. The timelier and more personal the strategy, the more likely that initiatives will be supported and effective in building a smart city.

With a well-rounded approach, the application of knowledge management can also extend to health and social networks for emerging urban settings. With effective data handling, budget allocation, and consistent implementation, creating a truly smart city is a feasible reality for any region.