I can see whatever the issues that were there during Knowledge Management also getting repeated when it comes to sharing and collaboration in the Hyper-Linked Organization aka Enterprise 2.0

During the turn of the century – when KM – and the dream to let employees share what they know – was directed , the KM advocates (like me!) suggested that knowledge sharing should be given rewards. The thought was that if a person does not see a benefit for himself why would he share his knowledge with the behavior.

I have changed my belief – in part due to analysing my own behaviour on the social web.

Behaviours like sharing and collaboration are Organizational Citizenship Behaviors – and are a product of Employee’s Engagement with the organization. This discretionary effort is not like one’s work behavior – and needs to be rewarded not monetarily – but psychologically.

Psychological rewards will impact only a very few of employees, and that is okay.

Highly engaged employees who would indulge in Organizational Citizenship Behaviors follows the Power Law – much like social networks’ law. In that a minority will create and curate the majority of the content.

So what are the ways that such employees can be recognized?

1. Public Acknowledgement – A leaderboard style table of key frequent contributors is a dynamic public assertion of who is helping and creating content
2. Social Voting and Curation – Like the rating system it shows the people whose content has been deemed most useful by the users.
3. Collaboration – When a person shares content about a certain domain area it reveals his/her interest in that area. Involvement of the person in that domain would be a dream.

What are the other ways in which such contributors can be recognized?

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