Here’s the scenario: you’re a department head in a company. You and HR have come up with a list of basic skills you require for anyone coming to work in the department. Among these are basic IT (information technology) or ICT (information and communications technologies) skills.

What does the list include?

A first past breaks requirements into four categories: computer skills, e-mail skills, word processing skills, and internet skills.

Any thoughts about what the next level might include? What else does your staff need to have mastered, to be proficient with “computer” skills?

Ditto “e-mail,” “work processing,” and “internet” skills?

Next step: What’s needed to ensure staff has KM/knowledge services skills? Do we have an equally practical 4-point list?

Probably not, since most people seem to think of KM/knowledge services as kind of the next level “up” in workplace performance talent. That might be a misplaced construct, though. If staff are going to succeed in inputting and managing information, won’t their workplace performance be  strengthened if they understand the elements of KM/knowledge services?

Leading nicely to a group of KM/knowledge services skills that strengthen staff capacity in the workplace: ability to define KM in the workplace (“working with knowledge”), understanding the role of strategic knowledge in organizational effectiveness, knowledge asset management, ability to incorporate collaboration/cooperation/knowledge sharing (including social media networks) into job performance, and an enterprise-wide (not local) focus.

And here’s the challenge: How do we teach these skills to people who want to be employed in the new, high-tech workplace but have not been exposed to IT/ICT and KM/knowledge services before? Where do we start? What curriculum do we develop?

Or more simply put: how do we break down the digital divide and include the people who are on the “wrong” side of the divide? What do we teach them?

Comments and enthusiastic responses appreciated.