We have started a pilot knowledge log at my office. Our team has been running a multi-author weblog on our intranet, writing about the web sites and related projects that we run.

Our original intent was to provide an easy way for other staff in the office to keep up with what’s going on with the web, updates on technical problems, major content changes, etc. We have had good feedback so far from our audience and are working on rolling out a few more klogs for other units that are interested in klogging their work. The grassroots revolution has begun! 🙂

Within our team, we have been surprised at how well the team klog has helped us to have a better understanding of what each of us is currently working on. We didn’t realize how much of our individual work was below the radar of our closest co-workers. No wonder we often get questions from other staff wondering what the web team does day-to-day. The klog should help with that office-wide.

My own experience returning from a week of vacation really illustrates the benefits it has had within our own team. The first thing I did yesterday was fire up our team klog and read what had been going on while I was out last week. I immediately saw a couple items that needed my attention (which I dealt with in a few minutes each) and got up to speed on what the rest of the team had been focusing. All before I had finished my first cup of coffee and long before I had made it through my backlog of 200 e-mails and a few voice mail messages. (See John Robb’s comments on the communication efficiency of klogs.)

It really took my breath away how effective it was for quickly getting me back up to speed. And I’ve been the one evangelizing this stuff! Without the team klog I would not have gotten to the critical items as quickly and I might not have ever learned about some of the other things that went on while I was out.