How Social Media Enhances Document Control Systems
According to Wikipedia, knowledge management is defined as “the process of capturing, developing, sharing and effectively using organisational knowledge”.
Not surprisingly, in order to use knowledge within the organisation effectively, it first needs to be stored and managed in a simple way. This is where document control systems come in, storing documents through a centrally accessible dashboard.
Social collaboration for business uses a range of tools to share knowledge, add to knowledge bases and connect various individuals and departments via networks. In many ways, it is not totally unlike information management – seemingly random information is categorised into networks in order to add value to employees.
This process is collaborative of course, as more than one person needs to contribute towards the management of information. One of the biggest advantages of social collaboration is that it provides a context to knowledge and document management by merging with more traditional forms of documentation, with the added benefit of social tools such as statuses, feedback, ‘likes’ and recommendations.
For companies, this could make it easier to identify employees contributing towards the information base, while also making it easier to become ‘self-educating’.
What Does This Mean for Current DMS?
Social collaboration is still fairly new compared to document management and even knowledge sharing. As DMS software becomes more advanced and allows for easier remote collaboration, accessibility and customisation, the movement towards a more social model becomes far more natural.
Much like concepts such as Facebook would have seemed hard to believe a decade or two ago, innovation that changes the face of business processes may still seem a bit unrealistic. But when it comes to making processes simpler, faster and more powerful, there is no doubt that social tools could have a huge impact on document management and other quality systems.
