【正文】 rganizational units solve their own knowledge problems. What large pany doesn39。t have pockets of a few hundred people with mon interests — such as employees working in a particular product group or on a mon design problem or sales professionals serving the same industry? The knowledge creators and seekers in these units usually know one another and exchange ideas easily. The units in turn use whatever technology solutions they favor in order to develop small, specialized approaches to managing knowledge. Authors earn peer recognition, motivating them to produce and share more content. Usually, a senior person in the group cares enough about the exchange to invest in the technology and staff needed to build an effective, highquality internal Web site or portal that gives knowledge seekers easy access.This decentralized approach works because it facilitates exchange among small groups of workers with mon interests. Still, as a solution to the exchange of knowledge across a broad organization, it often produces mixed results. For every example of a small organizational unit with terrific success in sharing specialized knowledge among a narrow group of people, there are usually large numbers of outright, and often expensive, failures. The obvious flaw is that the proliferating approaches and technological tools have few mon protocols or standards and typically remain useful only to small groups of workers interested in very specialized topics. For most panies, this approach will provide just a fraction of the potential benefits of exchanging knowledge on a panywide scale.A Market ProblemThe truth is that the real value es less from managing knowledge and more — a lot more — from creating and exchanging it. And the key to achieving this goal is understanding that a pany39。s really valuable knowledge resides largely in the heads of the most talented employees. Moreover, they will be unlikely to exchange their knowledge without a fair return for the time and energy they expend in putting it into a form in which it can be exchanged. Then it must also be worth the price of seeking it.In short, effectively exchanging knowledge on a panywide basis is much less a technological problem than an organizational one: encouraging people who do not know each other to work together for their mutual selfinterest. There is, of course, a wellknown, welltested solution to making it possible to exchange items of value among parties who don39。t know each other. We call it a market.Large public markets for knowledge have long existed, of course, through books and articles and through public services such as libraries. More recently, panies such as , America Online, and Yahoo! have served as external markets for public knowledge. But there are no equivalent internal markets for the valuable proprietary knowledge lodged within a pany39。s own frontline employees.So how does a pany create effective internal markets when the product is something as intangible as the valuable knowledge gained from experience and personal thinking? Working markets need, among other things, valuable objects for trading, prices, exchange mechanisms, and petition among suppliers. Often, there are also standards, protocols and regulations, and market facilitators to make markets work better.A valuable object to trade.Markets will form only around items valuable enough to justify the time and effort of buyers and sellers. Common knowledge, by definition, hardly needs trading. The opportunity lies in trading distinctive knowledge (see Knowledge or Information? at the end of this article).From a buyer39。s perspective, the knowledge to be acquired from the market must be more insightful and relevant — as well as easier to find, gain access to, and assimilate — than alternative sources. Usually, knowledge available through most internal knowledgemanagement systems fails this test.The trick is motivating authors to produce content that meets this standard. Almost all content produced by most panies — whether short internal memos or documents packed with charts — needs to be backed up with oral discussion. Companies must give the reader, who has no opportunity to talk with the expert, more insightful, more relevant, more accessible knowledge. The answer is a new internal equivalent of a signed article, in which the author is motivated to produce a highquality document that is easily accessible to any user. Once knowledge is in this form, it can be traded in the market. This knowledge object allows a buyer of knowledge to understand an author39。s thinking without the parties having to talk to each other. The bad news for most panies is that documents generally fail to meet this standard.Defining the item being traded creates the conditions for pricing the exchange. Authors, who are the suppliers to the market, need something that justifies their costs, or effort, in return for creating the knowledge object. In internal knowledge markets, the price that authors receive is usually the enhancement of their own personal, internal reputation. Providing knowledge that catches the eye of peers and superiors and helps the author build a reputation can provide plenty of incentive. Buyers — those who seek knowledge — will have the motivation to go to the market if they believe that they will find valuable knowledge at a price, in time and effort, that is lower than, say, making numerous phone calls to locate an expert.An exchange mechanism. The pany39。s role now is to provide an exchange mechanism so that authors and knowledge seekers e to the market out of mutual selfinterest. Meeting this goal requires investments in a technology infrastructure and in the staff to maintain it, in order to make the exchange possible.An internal knowledge market has special characteristics. For starters, the pany is the ultimate beneficiary of the effort to form and maintain a knowledge marketplace. Therefore the pany, rather than the knowledgeseeking b