READIT - 2009 - Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research

5
ways. This diversity facilitates the organisation in having a more holistic
approach to its business.
6.1.1.2 Externalization (Tacit to Explicit)
Externalization is essentially articulation among people through dialogue.
Discussion can capture tacit knowledge and apply it to an immediate problem.
Brainstorming Camps – The word Brainstorming was first coined by Alex
Osborn, a pioneer in the field of creative problem solving. Brainstorming is an
unstructured approach to generate ideas about a problem. The meetings
arranged outside the workplace and in relaxed environments. The employees
from different streams give their suggestions to the problem and no idea is shot
down or evaluated. The participants from different organisations, different
environments transfer some tacit insights from one to another. The
development of IT has brought a relatively new development in brainstorming.
This is a computer-aided approach to deal with multiple experts. The experts
sitting in front of the PCs in the networked environment through a software
tool that serves as a catalyst in the meeting, promotes instant exchange of ideas
between experts, and sorts and condenses these ideas into an organized format.
The experts engage in parallel and simultaneous communication. The format
allows two or more experts to provide opinions through their PCs without
having to wait their turn.
Nominal Group Technique (NGT) – The panel of experts becomes a
‘nominal’ group whose meetings are structured in order to effectively pool
individual judgment. The result is a written report. NGT is similar to
brainstorming, except that it is based on the understanding that certain group
goals can be best achieved by writing rather than discussion.
Creativity Training – Organisations keen to tap into their employee’s
knowledge base in order to innovate, should train the team leaders as well as
the team members to work on problems via metaphors and analogies.
Metaphor is a way of perceiving one thing by imaging another symbolically.
Special Interest Clubs – Interaction between individuals around some area of
interest, a specific knowledge of a particular market or technology, should be
encouraged in organisations by promoting special interest clubs. Supporting
the establishment of informal, special interest networks of people who might
from interacting occasionally with each other becomes important because
traditional boundaries between business are changing very fast.
6.1.1.3 Communication (Explicit to Explicit)
Explicit knowledge can be easily captured and transmitted to a worldwide
audience. Technology helps by motivating people to capture and share what they have
or what they know.
Meetings and Seminars – Presentations, lectures delivered in the seminars,
conferences, meetings help in direct dissemination of explicit knowledge to the