The Community Roundtable

Empowering global community leaders with research-backed resources, training, and tools.

  • About Us
    • Our Values
    • Our Team
    • Our Clients
      • Client Success Stories
    • Community Leadership Awards
      • Community Leadership Awards 2024
      • Community Leadership Awards 2023
      • Community Leadership Awards 2022
      • Community Leadership Awards 2021
  • Services
    • Benchmarking and Audits
      • Community Performance Benchmark
      • Community Readiness Audits
      • Community ROI Calculator
      • The Community Score
    • Models and Frameworks
      • Community Maturity Model™
      • Community Engagement Framework™
      • Community Skills Framework™
      • Community Technology Framework™
      • The Social Executive
  • Research
    • The State of Community Management
      • SOCM 2024
      • SOCM 2023
      • SOCM 2022
      • SOCM 2021
      • SOCM 2020
    • Community Careers and Compensation
    • The Community Manager Handbook
      • 2022 Edition
      • 2015 Edition
    • The Social Executive
    • Special Reports
    • Case Studies
  • Events
    • Connect
      • Connect 2024
      • Connect 2023
      • Connect 2022
    • Community Technology Summit
    • Professional Development
    • Resource Bundles
    • Upcoming Events
    • Community Manager Appreciation Day
      • Community Manager Appreciation Day 2025
      • Community Manager Appreciation Day 2024
  • I’m looking for…
    • Community Engagement Resources
    • Executive Support Resources
    • Community Reporting Resources
    • Platform and Technology Resources
    • Community Strategy Resources
    • Community Programming Resources
    • Community Career Resources
    • Something Else
      • Vendor Resource Center
      • Community FAQs
      • Community Management Podcasts
        • Community Conversations
        • Lessons From The NEW Community Manager Handbook
      • Community 101
        • Community Management Glossary
        • Community Management FAQs
      • Case Studies
      • Community Webinars
  • Community
    • The Network
      • Member Login
      • Join The Network
      • Roundtable Call Library
    • The Library
      • Subscriber Login
      • Subscribe to The Library
  • Blog

Tacit Knowledge, Communities, & The Power of Pull

August 20, 2010 By Rachel Happe

This week we were fortunate to have John Hagel join our members to discuss his latest book, The Power of Pull.  One of the markers of a good book is that everyone who reads it gets something different out of it and TheCR Network members found a wide variety of topics that sparked their thinking, including:

  • Why passion is emerging as such a critical performance asset for individuals
  • The evolution of knowledge stocks to knowledge flows that are always changing
  • The ability to influence how serendipity happens and increase its productivity
  • The importance of constant innovation in today’s organizations
  • The critical element of trust that is required to learn and innovate quickly

What really hit a cord for me was the importance of recognizing, encouraging, and respecting what is tacit knowledge today because of its critical role in innovation.  Tacit, unspoken knowledge is the beginning point for new knowledge creation and with it, innovation. John points out that tacit knowledge – created at an organization’s edges – is unformed, sometimes inarticulate, and hard to communicate.  The people with tacit knowledge are often discounted because they cannot articulate a polished and fully formed concept.  This is where trust becomes so important.  If someone we trust comes to us with a new idea, but one that is not fully formed, we are much more likely to take them seriously and really listen to it then to dismiss it. So relationships are key to the discovery and evolution of tacit knowledge.

For me – the discussion of the nature of tacit knowledge gets to the heart of why communities are becoming so valuable in today’s environment.  Communities are what enable individuals within organizations to form trust-based relationships with people outside of the organization.  The trust relationships that form allow rapidly evolving tacit knowledge to be discussed, refined, and combined in ways that allow an organization to rapidly take advantage of the new opportunities the knowledge creates.  Those organizations that can more effectively build communities will benefit disproportionately from the newest information in ways that more closed off organizations cannot. In a world where the speed of information is increasing daily, this competency will drive huge value creation for those that can harness it and it begs the question: what is your community strategy?

Enhanced by Zemanta

About Rachel Happe

comments powered by Disqus
Community best practices

Resources for the people who build online communities.

ABOUT US
Our Values
Our Team
Our Clients
Careers

RESOURCES
Vendor Resource Center
Podcasts 
Community 101
Case Studies
Webinars

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Benchmarking and Audits
Models and Frameworks
Research
Professional Development

QUICK LINKS
Blog
Newsletter
About The Network
About The Library
About The Academy

LOGIN
The Network
The Library
The Academy

Contact
Support
Partnership
Inquiries
Subscribe to
Our Newsletter