Where does all the knowledge go?
As the economy becomes increasingly bound in a knowledge society, many companies are wondering how to re-use existing knowledge before it becomes obsolete. An EU-funded research project, supported by the Fifth Framework programme's Information society technologies (IST) programme is working on an answer. 'In a dynamic economy, knowledge becomes obsolete more quickly than even the tangible economy,' says management consultant Dr Edna Pasher (pictured), one of the two Israeli partners of the NIMcube 'new-use and innovation management and measurement methodology' consortium. 'The Technion did research on knowledge getting obsolete and found that graduate knowledge is 50 per cent obsolete after one year. We are looking at new product development from the point of view of knowledge management, how to manage the invisible assembly line. Our aim is to try and help managers within organisations find the best balance in re-using existing knowledge and invest in creating new knowledge, and how best to export knowledge in innovation processes to create new products,' she tells CORDIS News. The NIMcube consortium, which includes partners from Israel, Sweden, Germany and the UK is studying ways to manage the intangible economy and particularly how to prevent the waste of knowledge. One of the problems, says Dr. Pasher, is that even though it is clear that knowledge exists within organisations, it is not always clear where it actually is. The group believes that looking at the core competencies of an organisation is an important factor for success. The project began by looking at best practices and aims to develop theories for knowledge management. It also considered needs in areas articulated by the industrial partners. From its studies, the consortium aims to design a NIMtoolkit, which will provide organisations with the tools needed to assess their intangible assets. Finally, NIMcube hopes to disseminate and exploit its results. The IST programme contributes some 1.6 million euro to the project, which is now in its second year. And so far, 60 companies have already expressed an interest in the project findings.