Intro to KM: Careers in Knowledge Management
This section presents a list of career opportunities in the field of knowledge management. The information presented includes an overview of the types of job titles, experience, skills, qualifications, and salaries that one can expect to find in the field of knowledge management. Additionally, samples job descriptions for each job type are provided. The material for this section was taken from a sample of actual e-job postings from February 2002.
In addition, this section offers additional resource materials dedicated to the Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) position.
Sample Job Titles:
Chief
Knowledge Officer (CKO)
Chief Learning Officer
(CLO)
Knowledge Engineer
Knowledge Architect
Sr. Medical Knowledge Engineer
Nursing Knowledge Architect Team Leader
Systems Architect
Knowledge Coordinator
| Job Description |
Qualifications |
| Lead in the development of corporate culture, processes, infrastructure and information resources to facilitate the creation and utilization of corporate knowledge, expertise and information to create competitive advantage and support creativity. The ability to work with and influence senior colleagues including negotiation, persuasion and presentation skills. Team building leadership and motivation skills. Strong communication skills. Fundamental understanding of information content and associated issues. An in-depth appreciation of IT and its utilization. An good appreciation and human resource and staff development issues. A good understanding of business processes. More detailed information on CKO's roles and responsibilities can be found at the bottom of this page.
|
At least degree level with an appropriate post degree qualification in a professional discipline. A business related degree such as an MBA is desirable but not essential. The successful CKO is likely to be a senior, highly regarded manager, (Partner, Director, General Manager level) who has demonstrated a capacity for managing change programmes or for managing sensitive projects. Sound experience of the business sector or related industry is essential. Previous experience of leading the development of a knowledge or information culture in other organisations. Salary/Benefits: $120,000++. |
| Job Description |
Qualifications |
| The Chief Learning Officer will lead the effort to further enhance our client's reputation for best-in-industry talent development by defining, creating, and implementing a global learning strategy supported by specific training and development initiatives. The individual will be an architect of a system and curriculum which drives the development and attainment of the organization’s core competencies in all of its employees. The individual will draw from a wide array of organizational development methods, tools, and resources to design, develop, and deliver and evaluate the effectiveness of programs.
|
Professional degree in computer science or business, 7 years of software company experience in development, strategy, marketing, or customer services, Excellent communication skills, Strong planning and project management skills in a large and matrix-managed organization, Background in education and training is a plus. Salary/Benefits: $150,000 to $200,000, +15%. |
| Job Description |
Qualifications |
| Design, create and maintain technical and user documentation. This can take the form of a database, on-line help, user manuals and training materials. Responsible for investigating and gathering information on process and procedures from individuals. Will design, develop and maintain internal procedures and policy manual to centralize documentation. Responsible for some training and presentation communications. Will expand on and maintain web materials. May give work direction to lower level writers. |
The ideal candidate has a 4-year degree or 2 year technical degree and 3-5 years equivalent work experience. We are looking for demonstrated high degree of expertise with word processing packages preferably MS Word. Candidates must be able to communicate effectively with both users and builders of business applications to effectively develop useful documentation. Ability to learn new computer system and then effectively develop user documentation while working directly with the business areas is essential. Requirements also include HTML for developing Internet applications and online training documentation, strong diplomacy and communication savvy a must as well as technical knowledge in a multiplatform environment (W95, W2000, Novell, Office 97-2000, mainframe and distributed systems, hardware and software. Experience with Help Desk procedures and environment a plus as well as Business Analyst skills. Salary/Benefits: Data not available.
|
| Job Description |
Qualifications |
| Works with the sales organization during the presales process to define customer requirements. Interviews customers to gather requirements for categorization schemes. Designs categorization schemes for internal online information for customers in the Financial Services, High Tech, and Pharmaceuticals industries. Develops rules to automatically assign data to categories Creates classification schemes based on vocabulary sets, document types and business processes. Provides user training to clients. |
Graduate degree Library Science, Information Science, or a related discipline, or another degree with substantive field experience organizing and retrieving information. 3-5 years of experience working with knowledge management and search processes in a financial services, high tech, or pharmaceutical company. 3-5 years of experience with knowledge categorization and classification. Self-starter who produces high quality results with minimal supervision. Track record as a strong team player. Ability to meet tight deadlines. Excellent written and verbal skills. Demonstrated customer interface skills. Travel as necessary to customer sites. Salary/Benefits: Data not available.
|
| Job Description |
Qualifications |
| Update company wide documents. Coordinate preparation
and grading of Quarterly Exams. Coordinate material for training,
exams & certification for Orientation / Master Tech / Site Administrator
/ Equipment Specialist / MOC / etc. Update, confirm standard, and
post documents to the web. Update company Manuals (Technician, SA,
ES, & FS). Periodic revisions of company Manuals (so new Techs
have current info). |
Advanced to Expert Skills in Microsoft Word (including drawing tools). Enjoys attention to detail. Likes reading, understanding and writing technical information. Possesses excellent proofreading & writing skills. Likes gathering feedback and integrating changes in documents. Self-paced. Works without a lot of direction. Enjoys the structure of matrices. Familiarity with other Microsoft Products (Access, Excel, Publisher, PowerPoint & FrontPage) a plus, but not essential. Salary/Benefits: $30,000 to $35,000.
|
| Job Description |
Qualifications |
| Direct team activities to assure that clinical content development meets the organizational defined criteria, goals and time lines. Completes clinical content design for cross continuum clinically oriented processes including documentation, ordering, alerting and notification actions, reporting needs. Facilitate clinical/ functional design discussions with multidisciplinary teams to identify standardized, streamlined clinical content which achieves automation of care processes. Develop future state clinical process/ knowledge structures and validate its use with appropriate interdisciplinary teams. Provide coaching and guidance to team members as necessary. Develop and maintain strong working partnerships with all Cerner clinical teams.
|
BSN required, MSN preferred. 10 to 15 years nursing experience, Administration experience preferred. Salary/Benefits: Data not available. |
| Job Description |
Qualifications |
| Senior AI engineer with experience in gathering medical knowledge appropriate to specific project, assimilating this knowledge, designing data structures to use this knowledge in the application, and entering and managing the knowledge in the application, including documentation of design. Experience in building large-scale medical knowledge base that supports efficient automated inference, constraint processing, and machine learning. Expertise with natural language processing. Work directly with Medical Affairs staff to systematically gather and document relevant knowledge. Develop data structures that allow artificial intelligence to utilize medical knowledge. Import and maintain data structures within application. |
M.S Computer Science or Electrical Engineering with Artificial Intelligence training, minimum 5 years experience with object-oriented software development, C++ preferred (B.S. with minimum 10 years experience acceptable) 3+ years knowledge engineering, machine learning, data mining. 3+ years experience in medical informatics or medical knowledge engineering. Ability to communicate clearly in writing and verbally. Attention to detail and analytical. Medical knowledge/training, background experience. Experience with artificial intelligence and related algorithms/rules-based systems. Experience with C++ object oriented software design and data structures. Experience in Knowledge management concepts, principles, and practices. Salary/Benefits: $90,000 to $120,000.
|
| Job Description |
Qualifications |
| As the information and knowledge architect you will provide design strategy and leadership to leverage common information systems, information processes, knowledge, and teams to enable Member Services to achieve high consumer loyalty, reduce the cost of operations, and enhance revenue generation. More specifically, you will: Work closely with business owners, management, project managers, and IT implementers to ensure designs and processes satisfy business and technical goals . Focus on use of information and processes to enhance the customer experience, call center efficiency, and revenue generation. Use analytical skills and business experience to optimize solution design. Champion re-use, scalability, reliability, globalization, and usability Explore ground-breaking information processes to create a competitive advantages in customer analysis, understanding, and relationship-building (CRM). Create Knowledge and Data Marts to enable analysts and knowledge engineers to better understand customers and determine optimal means to enhance customer loyalty and support. Both teach and learn from other team members and peers. Use superior persuasion and communication skills both written and oral to achieve success.
|
Masters degree in computer science, systems engineering, or related technical degree and 5-7 years of experience designing information systems and/or information management processes in high scale, distributed environments. 3-5 years of experience designing databases and/or data marts. 2-3 years of experience implementing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions and/or technology solutions. 2+ years implementing business process engineering. Experienced understanding of UNIX, web, and relational database technologies. The ability to measure success using both customer satisfaction and business results. Excellent analytical, project management and interpersonal skills as well as the ability to be successful in a fully matrixed work environment. Salary/Benefits: Data not available. |
CKO positions have been created as firms increasingly realize the value and importance of knowledge as an asset. Below are articles, research findings and other information on this emerging field, including both annotated Recommended Resources and citations for Additional CKO Resources.
"The Knowledge-Creating Company" by Ikujiro Nonaka and
Hirotaka Takeuchi.
Oxford University Press, 1995. p. 156.
Nonaka and Takeuchi speak in general terms of knowledge officers at higher
management levels. They are responsible for "the total organizational knowledge-creation
process at the corporate level.
CIO, July 1995. p. 37.
The CIO viewpoint in general seems to encourage its natural audience to make
a play for ownership of knowledge management: " . . . gathering, distributing
and, ideally, adding value to information is the responsibility of a select
group of people -- IS professionals chief among them."
"Knowledge Roles: The CKO and Beyond" by Thomas Davenport.
CIO, April 1, 1996. p. 26.
Based on a survey of 26 CKOs, author Tom Davenport finds that CKO positions
"often involve overseeing efforts to use technology for knowledge capture
and distribution." Further, "CKOs have three critical responsibilities: creating
a knowledge management infrastructure, building a knowledge culture and making
it all pay off."
"The Leading Edge; Is This Job Really Necessary?" by Thomas
A. Stewart.
Fortune. Winter 1999. Vol. 40, No. 2.
On balance, yes. The growing herd of corporate executives who carry the title
of chief knowledge officer have real work to do--if they can figure out how
to do it.
"Opinion: What is a Chief Knowledge Officer?" by Michael
J. Earl and Ian A. Scott.
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/smr/past/1999/smr4022.html
(Sloan Management Review)
To understand the role of chief knowledge officer (CKO) and the evolving practice
of knowledge management (KM), the authors studied twenty CKOs in North America
and Europe using face-to-face interviews, and a personality assessment questionnaire.
All CKOs were first incumbents, most having been on the job less than two
years. The CKOs agreed that knowledge is a necessary and sustainable source
of competitive advantage and that companies are not good managing either explicit
knowledge or tacit knowledge. CKOs have two principal design competencies:
they are technologists or environmentalists. Breadth of career experience,
familiarity with their organizations, and infectious enthusiasm for their
mission are characteristic of these CKOs.
"What is a CKO--and should you have one?" by JoAnn Greco.
The Journal of Business Strategy. Boston. Mar/Apr 1999. Vol. 20, i2,
p. 20.
As a company undertakes a knowledge management program, new roles and job
titles are likely to surface. Some employees may assume the title " knowledge
broker," and facilitate the sharing and transfer of knowledge. A step beyond
that move is the creation of a more executive title, that of Chief Learning
Officer or Chief Knowledge Officer. These officers are entrusted with the
role of transforming intellectual property into a business value.
"Where's the chief knowledge officer? To manage the most precious resource
of all" by J A Muir Gray.
British Medical Journal. London. Sep 26, 1998. Vol. 317, issue 7162.
1998 Health care organizations need to develop communications strategies to
manage enormous amounts of information. The need to manage knowledge in the
21st century is discussed.
Armstrong, Curtis Paul. 1995. Creating Business Value Through Information Technology: The effect of Chief Information Officer and top management team characteristics. DAI, 56, no.06a.
Bender, David R., Phd. Managing Knowledge: A Primer on the Trends and Concepts http://www.sla.org/content/SLA/exdir/edinfo/edspeeches/japan899.cfm.
Bonner, Dede. 2000. Features - HRD ROLES - Enter the Chief Knowledge Officer-new role, new rule. American Society for Training and Development. 54, no 2:36.
Chen, Rui. 1998. The eight stage of information management: information resources (IRM) vs. Knowledge management (KM), and the Chief Officer (CIO) vs. Chief Knowledge Officer. International forum on Information and documentation. 23, no.1 pp.18-25.
Corcoran, Mary, Dagar, Lynn, and Stratigos, Anthea. Changing Roles of Information Professionals: Choices and Implications. Online Magazine. March/April 2000. p. 29-34.
Costello, Daniel. September, 2000. For Knowledge, Look Within. Knowledge Management Magazine. http://www.destinationcrm.com/km/dcrm_km_article.asp?id=404.
Davenport, Thomas. InformationWeek. 9/5/94. http://www.informationweek.com/509/cko.htm.
Davenport, Thomas H., and Prusak, Lawrence. 1998. Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What they Know. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, Massachusetts.
David J. Skyrme and Debra M. Amidon, Creating the Knowledge-based Business,
Do You Need a CKO? (Chief Knowledge Officer). http://www.skyrme.com/insights/27cko.htm.
Despres,
Charles (Editor), Chauvel,
Daniele (Editor), Knowledge Horizons: The Present and the Promise of
Knowledge Management, http://www.skyrme.com/insights/27cko.htm.
Duffy, Daintry, What does it takes to be a successful cko? CIO connection. http://www.cio.com/archive/enterprise/111598_ic.html.
Duffy, Daintry, 1998. Columns - Knowledge Champions-Intellectual Capitalism-What does. CIO. 12.no.4: pp.66-72.
Ethan Winning, "THE CHIEF KNOWLEDGE OFFICER, Ethan A. Winning Associates, Inc., http://www.ewin.com/articles/cko.htm.
Guns, Bob. (March 07, 1998). Role of the Chief Knowledge Officer. http://www.brint.com/wwwboard/messages/1560.html.
Hibble A, Kanka D, Pencheon D, Pooles F. 26 September 1998. Guidelines in general practice; the new Tower of Babel? BMJ, 317:862-3.
Knowledge Management Officer Basics. March 2000. Knowledge Management Magazine. http://www.destinationcrm.com/km/dcrm_km_article.asp?id=229.
McCullagh, Michael G; Meldrum, David S. May 1, 1999. Guidelines in general practice: Post of primary care knowledge officer could be set up. [Letter], vol. 318(7192):1212-1213.
Melymuka, Kathleen Nov 27, 2000. Due diligence, Computerworld; Framingham; Vol 34, issue 48, pp40-41.
Nonaka, Ikujiro and Takeuchi, Hirotaka.1995. The Knowledge-Creating Company, Oxford University Press, p. 156. Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2000-01 Edition. Bureau of Labor Statistics. http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos068.htm.
Smaltz, Deltlev Heribert. 1999. Antecedents of cio effectiveness: a role-based perspective ( chief Information Officers, information technology, executives). DIA, 60, no07a p.2582.
Stuller, Jay. 1998. Chief of corporate smarts-as companies struggle to capture, organize and apply their intellectual capital, a new breed of executive—the chief learning or knowledge officer—either a trendy cipher or a vital fulcrum. Training. 35, 4, pp 28-37.
Vizard, Michael. Dec 4, 2000. Changing CIO characteristics explain CTO's rise. InfoWorld; Framingham.
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This section of the site was last updated on January 13, 2003.
