Bench marking and Knowledge Management

I discussed Knowledge Management (KM) with a colleague recently, wondering why it has not become as accepted here in Denmark as it has elsewhere –  the only answer we arrived at is that Danes are very individualistic, and probably because the return on KM activities can be difficult to evaluate.
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However, KM really does benefit any organisation, big or small. I read an interesting article on
KnowledgeBoard recently, explaining why benchmarking and classification systems are so useful – KM creates the systematic processes to share good practices with those in an organisation who need them.  “The most effective benchmarking projects will accelerate an organisation’s rate of change and help to overcome complacency. There’s always another company or another division that has figured out a better way of doing some of the things you do.”

Admittedly, the benchmarking part was being offered by APQC who specialise in this as a service to their members, but this thinking can easily be expanded to cover networks – freely sharing best practices is generally repaid over and over – as exchange of useful hints, as recognition of the giver’s expertise etc. We know the system works as proven by the various kon-kollega partnerships already functioning in Mikronet.

But there are still many who are unwilling to share without knowing precisely “what’s in it for me?”….

We are a very diverse network, but surely there must be some common practices that we we can benchmark and help each other with?