The Boeing newsletter for October 2007, Frontiers Online, has a cover story on knowledge management. Several people mentioned this a couple weeks ago, and it has been sitting in my to-be-read pile.
Boeing is working to protect the knowledge assets residing within its employees. The company's goal is to foster an environment where knowledge and the strength of its culture can be leveraged quickly to empower an adaptable, agile work force and improve productivity.
The full story is a PDF, Get our heads into it by Debby Arkell. (I am not completely sure it will be available permanently.) Here's the blurb from the PDF:
Each Boeing employee has job-related knowledge. Here’s what steps the company is taking to manage and share this collective information—and use it as a competitive advantage.
How does Boeing define knowledge management?
Knowledge management, loosely defined, is a disciplined, holistic approach to using expertise effectively for competitive advantage. At Boeing, knowledge management is made up of a comprehensive system of processes, tools, methods and techniques that enable employees to capture and share information effectively.
To me, this is an overview of a lot of efforts that are happening at Boeing. The good news is that they are recognizing the importance of knowledge sharing and creating an over-arching view to what they are doing. They even provide the reader a nice list of efforts: communities of practice, video capture, best practices, forums, mentoring, even wikis.