by Sudeepa Nair

Created on: March 03, 2009   Last Updated: March 04, 2009

A personal book of knowledge consists of all your experience, accomplishments, expertise in specific field, and other relevant information put together in an easy to use format. It is much more than a diary or journal, since it will have a structured format. Your personal book of knowledge will serve the same purpose as the knowledge repository serves for a company. It can contain your personal experiences of looking for a job, a house or applying to a college. Basically, anything that you think, if documented, will act as a guide or manual for your children, relatives or even friends.

Using the basics of knowledge management as applied in an organizational context, wherein knowledge is documented, shared and maintained for future reference, you can build your own personal knowledge base. A key concept in knowledge management is the fact that there is a differentiation between data, information and knowledge. Knowledge is something that is useful and is referred by you again and again. You can even pass it on as a family heirloom, a legacy of your own.

As an example, let us see how we can build a book of knowledge to document your professional and personal experience, to serve as a reference for your professional portfolio, resume or interview preparation.

As a first step, identify all the possible job profiles or roles that you think you can do a good job at. Find out what skills or experience are required for these roles. Perform an honest assessment of yourself and determine which skills you possess. Here, your friends, peers and relatives can help you perform an assessment; most often we are not aware of all our strengths and weaknesses. Once you have done this, list down all your relevant experiences. You would have a basic outline for a resume now. You can convert this resume into a portfolio by filling in descriptions, examples, your thoughts and knowledge put into words.

A basic structure that can be followed is:

1. Skills & certifications: List down all the skills you possess ranging from technical, management to soft skills like interpersonal communication. For technical skills, list down any relevant certifications that you have along with the date, certifying agent's name and credentials like marks obtained etc. There may be certain skills that you may have learnt on the job; do not forget to note these and also add a brief note on how you learnt it. For instance, it may have been an on the job-training, or you may have been asked to fill in for

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