OrganiK

The OrganiK project aims at the research and development of an innovative Knowledge Management system that will provide a semantic fusion of enterprise social software applications that can reside within the firm or in several collaborating companies and can enable the effective managing of organisational knowledge while being adaptable to small knowledge-intensive companies. See also the project’s web site.

The majority of today’s enterprise knowledge management tools, techniques and methodologies have been developed with large firms in mind, and are therefore not ideally suited to the characteristics of small knowledge-intensive companies. Current knowledge management (KM) systems are not only expensive to purchase, they also require significant resources to be committed to their deployment, maintenance, and daily operation. Typical knowledge management systems focus on predetermined workflows and rigid “information-push” approaches that reflect the philosophy behind working practices in large enterprises.

In contrast, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) mainly rely on informal person-to-person communications and people-centric operations. These generally take place on an ad-hoc basis and are not standardised. By and large, their size and structure mean that SMEs have a set of distinctive needs that require the deployment of a new breed of digital environment for generating, sharing and refining organisational knowledge.