Lee comments on Martin Duggage's blog post Knowledge Sharing Literacy which got me thinking about the writing process itself as a potential barrier to knowledge sharing.

Writing is a skill that is easily taken for granted by those who have it and often seen as unattainable by those who don't. In fact, writing skills can be learnt and primarily involve thinking about the information that one is trying to communicate, rather than grammar or spelling (as many people assume).

The 'inverted triangle' - where you put all your key information in the first paragraph and then add supplementary data in decreasing order of importance - is a simple technique which helps writers formulate their thoughts before they even start typing. Another technique based on storytelling, where you create a 'hook' in the opening paragraphs which makes people curious enough to keep reading, also works well on blogs because of their informal, narrative nature.

At the moment, when new KM apps are implemented, staff training tends to focus on the technical aspects of how to use the software rather than on teaching people to successfully express themselves. As Martin said, it's all well and good equipping someone technically to share, but if users don't know how to say what they want to say then they won't feel comfortable enough to use the software with any regularity.