Who is the Knowledge Champion within your

organisation?

Why, that is easy!, some of you may say, we have a role that corresponds
to what the literature calls the Chief Knowledge Officer (Gray, 1998). Others
may say: We dont have a Chief Knowledge Officer post so we dont have a
Knowledge Champion. Yet others may say: We dont have an individual on
the Executive Board with responsibility for Knowledge Management so it falls
by default to the Librarian surely they are the Knowledge Champion?!

Of course, you are all partly right where there is a Chief Knowledge Officer
(CKO) within an organisation, whether by name or function, you would
sincerely hope that they would be a Knowledge Champion. Certainly if they
are not (or indeed if the Librarian is not) there is something potentially wrong
with Knowledge Management in your organisation. However the concept of
the Knowledge Champion is closely allied with the theory of Diffusion of
Innovations promoted by Rogers (1995). Knowledge champions are
innovators. They are also opinion leaders. They will usually have a specialist
function within the organisation and possess expertise in knowledge
management as well as a thorough understanding of their domain, the firm
and the industry. As knowledge sharing works best in the absence of a formal
hierarchy using a hierarchical Chief Knowledge Officer role can actually
damage the creation of a successful knowledge based organisation. It can
result in everyone within the organisation pigeonholing knowledge
management as the CKOs responsibility. It can assume that they also have
the leadership skills to complement their undoubted technical abilities.

Knowledge Champions will be identifiable from the following characteristics:

They come from within the organisation and know the organisation, its
culture and its key players;
They have had a certain length of experience which gives credibility to
the entrepreneurial and building aspects of the job;

Managing knowledge is everybody's responsibility, but it can end up as

nobody's responsibility. By all means get your organisation to create a Chief
Knowledge Officer post to be responsible and accountable for the Knowledge
Management Strategy but also identify the Knowledge Champions within your
organisation who will help to move this from Strategy to Culture.

References and Further (Optional) Reading

FOLIO (2007). Stakeholders and Opinion leaders Making Your Case

Effectively (Machiavel) Course. Briefing #2.
http://machiavel.pbwiki.com/f/stakeholder.doc
Gray JAM. Wheres the chief knowledge officer? BMJ 1998; 317: 83240.
Iles V and Sutherland K. Organisational Change: A review for health care
managers, professionals and researchers. London: NHS Service Delivery and
Organisation Programme, 2002: 56-58.

Jones, N.B., Herschel, R.T. and Moesel, D.D. Using knowledge champions
to facilitate knowledge management. Journal of Knowledge Management
2003; 7 (1): 42-63.

Rogers, E (1995) Diffusion of Innovations, 4th ed., The Free Press: New York,
NY.

Skyrme, D J (2002). The 3Cs of Knowledge Sharing: Culture, Co-opetition

and Commitment. I3 Update / Entovation International News. No. 64.
Available at: http://www.skyrme.com/updates/u64_f1.htm [Accessed 29 April
2008]