The pursuit of any significant human activity typically leads to the acquisition by those involved of know-how and expertise as to how the activity may be successfully conducted. Insofar as what is learned in the process can be captured, and communicated and shared with others, it can enable subsequent practitioners - or even generations - to build on earlier experience and obviate the need of costly rework or of learning by making the same repetitive mistakes.

   In the village, from time immemorial, the elder, the traditional healer and the midwife have been the living repositories of distilled experience in the life of the community. 

   Even in highly sophisticated modern knowledge organizations, the most valuable knowledge – know-how in terms of what really gets results and what mistakes to avoid – often resides mainly in people’s minds. 

   Interactive knowledge-sharing mechanisms have always been used - from palavers under the baobab, village square debates, and town meetings, to conclaves, professional consultations, meetings, workshops, and conferences – all functioning to enable individuals to share what they know with others in the relevant area of knowledge. 

   Migrations of people have been a principal mode of knowledge transfer across continents. Today, a range of technologies from computers to video-conferencing for distance learning offers unprecedented opportunities to disseminate know-how and insights rapidly and cheaply  to a worldwide audience.

   Explicating knowledge: The reach of know-how and experience possessed by individuals can be greatly extended once it is captured and explicated so that others can easily find it and understand and use it. 

   In ancient Greece, the philosopher, Plato, in his dialogues, captured and elaborated the thinking of his mentor Socrates, and so succeeding generations have been able to discover and share that thinking, and in turn reinterpret those thoughts and to be stimulated to achieve fresh insights and creativity. 

   In other cultures, the Analects of Confucius, The Art of War of Sun Tzu, or the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico, have served similar knowledge sharing functions. In modern times, reports of activities, minutes of meetings, memoranda, proceedings of conferences, and document filing systems maintained by organizations are traditional commonly-used devices for recording content in paper format so that it can be transferred to others. 

   More recently, the unit costs of computers, communications and transactions are declining towards zero, and electronic transfer is proliferating. Electronic databases, audio and video recordings, interactive tools and multimedia presentations have become available to extend the techniques for capturing and disseminating content. 

   Digital divide or opportunity: Although these tools are not yet everywhere available in the developing world, they are spreading rapidly and present a unique opportunity for developing countries to benefit most from the technological revolution now unfolding: low-cost telecommunications systems could help countries to leapfrog ahead through distance education, distance health services, and much better access to markets and private sector partners abroad. 

   Nevertheless, even with modern tools, the process of knowledge transfer is inherently difficult, since those who have knowledge may not be conscious of what they know or how significant it is. Thus know-how is “sticky” and tends to stay in people’s heads.

   Human beings resist taking on new challenges their existing beliefs. What this means for the transfer of knowledge is that simply making new knowledge available doesn't typically result in it being transferred. If you want new knowledge to be imparted to people who hold contrary views, then you need to learn a different way of communicating, as explained The Secret Language of Leadership.

References

   Stephen Denning, The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations. Boston, London, Butterworth Heinemann, October 2000.

  Stephen Denning: The Leader's Guide to Storytelling (Jossey-Bass, 2005) chapter 8.

   Stephen Denning: The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative (Jossey-Bass, October 2007)