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I read a story recently in which the headline pronounced that the "Millionth English Word" has been declared. It is nice to know that we all have a massive repository of words to choose from when speaking, writing e-mails or composing memos. But before we all crack open a bottle of bubbly it might be worth pondering how many words we actually use, and how often the people we communicate with actually understand what we are saying.

The advent of Web 2.0 has taken the Web and information community by storm. Many organizations such as IBM, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, Shell and Airbus have abandoned cumbersome knowledge management systems in favour of Web 2.0 applications such as Blogs, wikis and other social software applications.

From Acquisition Solutions' inception, company leadership has consciously and deliberately instilled a strong corporate culture that values collaboration and trust as foundational to delivering high-quality products and solutions. Building on existing quality control process that focused on providing a "second set of eyes" to deliverables and work products prior to submission to clients, the KM team's initial focus was to introduce KM concepts, strategies, and implementing practices throughout the company, evolving the organizational view of knowledge.

In today's global markets, multinational corporations (MNCs) are pushed to search for new sources of competitive advantage. These firms have to simultaneously shorten their time-to-market, improve their product quality, follow and satisfy evolving customer needs, create new businesses and exploit new markets. In this context, sharing knowledge across geographically dispersed organizational units has become even more crucial.

Being open and honest does not mean that, as a senior person in an organization, you need to tell everyone everything. It does mean that you need to not try to avoid tough issues, gloss over problems or try to obscure the reality of a situation with anything less than plain talk.