Organisations have both formal and informal or tacit knowledge. The first is written down in training manuals and case studies, the second floats around in employees’ heads. The risk with this is that if those employees leave, that valuable knowledge (often practical know-how) leaves too.
A photocopier company was worried about its staff training. Their copier repair guys operated solo, going on-site to fix jammed printers without much time in the office for formal training sessions. But in this process they picked up experience of specific and how to solve them. A corporate ethnographer shadowing the repairmen found that in fact they did swap tips and tricks at the favoured cafe they met for lunch. Knowledge was being transferred, just not formally.
A famous example of deliberately ’scripting’ knowledge transfer is Steve Jobs insisting that the Pixar toilets were placed in the centre of the building so employees would be forced to interact with each other (on the way to the toilets not inside them).
Transferring knowledge from employee to employee is a way to keep tacit knowledge within the organisation. This can be enhanced by tools, like nativeye, that allow managers to capture ideas and insight from employees whenever and wherever inspiration strikes.
That tacit knowledge is then constantly being encoded in 1s and 0s and is not at risk of being lost.
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