
Knowledge sharing to the next level: Bits
Sharing knowledge within the company is a challenge for many. There are a lot of knowledge among employees. Professional knowledge they use in their work, experience from routines, building relationships, methods, procedures, everything they build up through their career.
The individual employee must often experience or read into this knowledge themselves. What could be achieved if there had been more experience and knowledge shared between colleagues? In some places people are good at holding internal presentations. Write articles on an internal blog or documentation tool. Sharing knowledge on email, Slack etc. The problem is that there is a high threshold for this kind of knowledge sharing, and it is shared with those who can take it in there and then. It is not persisted anywhere.
The need for different bits of knowledge, shows up at varying, unpredictable times. And just then, that knowledge is not available, or those who may possess it are not present. Knowledge is value. If a business could persist more of the knowledge they possess through their employees, they could retain more value where they today lose knowledge the day an employee chooses to quit in his job.
Bits
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of working with the amazing team of dedicated consultants at Solidsquare. One day I thought about the challenge of sharing knowledge in a company like this. In addition to varying levels of experience and knowledge in different fields, consultants often sit in different locations. With the desire to find a better way of sharing knowledge in such contexts, I came with the idea I gave the name Bits.

The idea behind Bits was to make knowledge more accessible in the company. Give the expertise flowing around the premises a place to live. Making knowledge sharing as easy as sharing a status update, and create a place where you can learn from your colleagues without disturbing them. Bits is small, specific pieces of knowledge without context. Instead of the traditional way of persisting knowledge, in the form of long, comprehensive articles or documentation that has a high threshold both for writing and reading, the idea was that every single piece of knowledge could get its own entry into a system. Any question you could give a response could be a bit. A kind of microarticle, where a regular article could be divided into many bits. Examples of bits could be:
- What is JavaScript
- Sales tricks
- How to set up the printer
- Question for first time interview
- Lean Canvas
- Contacts in the company
- Pork tenderloin with sweet potato puree
Besides the ability to read and write bits, the advantage of concretizing simple pieces of knowledge in this way is that they can be used and combined in so many ways. The content should be identified and grouped using tags. With the use of machine learning, we could then make sure you get a personalized feed of knowledge. As you read more, the system should learn what you are interested in, what you’ve learned, and hence what it suits you to read more about. Another advantage is that future employees can take part in previously shared knowledge rather than starting on a bar slope.
Test out the idea
One of the things Solidsquare stands for is the opportunity to test ideas and projects internally. When I came up with the idea of Bits, we therefore started an extensive process. Many in the company became very engaged in this work. We chose to run a full-day workshop. We then conducted a creative process, set up a complete Lean Canvas to look at this as a business case. We went out and met a number of companies in the area we had made an appointment with, and let them test a prototype I had built, a bit like a Google Design Sprint. From there we collected the results and feedback from the test subjects and included it in the further work. We also attempted to create even more commitment and motivation by going through a careful design process, creating Slack integration and incorporating elements of gamification.
This was an incredibly exciting and educational work. We also got some relatively large customers, who tested out the solution internally. They gave us a lot of good insight.

Internal & Public
Bits was primarily intended for knowledge sharing within the company. Yet another advantage of the fragmented structure of knowledge in Bits is that you can build a knowledge network. Bits could be marked as “public”, which allowed other companies using Bits to read them. This was a bit like a social network where you can choose whether something you share should be available to everyone or just for those on your friends list. By sharing things publicly, your knowledge may also be useful to employees within the same field of study in other companies. Your business could additionally promote itself by branding bits with the names of the employee and the company they shared the knowledge through.
Effective and engaging
The vision was that this new way of sharing knowledge should be easier, faster and more engaging than traditional alternatives. One of the challenges we felt along the way was that although it is largely perceived as simpler, and with a lower threshold for sharing knowledge, it is still difficult to create enough commitment to this. When people work, they always need knowledge. They acquire knowledge from the places it exists, but it must be thought through more in order to share this knowledge when you do not know how or why it will be consumed later. This will be a challenge no matter what kind of knowledge sharing anyone may come up with.

