According to Superintendent Choi Chin-pang of the Police College, the panel assessments of the Force's performance in promoting KM were:

* The Force is able to link KM objective with its operation process.

* KM strategy is well aligned with the Force's goals and vision as well as being linked to its strategic plan.

* There is a clear KM infrastructure.

* KM is implemented in a highly complex environment.

* There is strong leadership commitment.

* The KM activities in the Force strongly facilitate the workers to make a prompt and correct decision.

* Both formal and informal knowledge-sharing activities exist in the Force.

* The Force has gone through a mature KM journey (from knowledge codification to people-based KM).

* There are thorough retention and capitalisation of intellectual capital.

* Customer care mindset is good and developed to the frontline.

SP Choi said the Force was later nominated for the Asian MAKE Award 2009 competition, and was picked as one of the 16 winners. "The Force is particularly recognised in the Asian Award for some aspects including developing knowledge workers through senior management leadership, organisational learning and transforming enterprise knowledge into stakeholders value," he pointed out.

Elation over Awards

Two officers were particularly elated over winning of the Asian and Hong Kong MAKE Awards, and they have a good reason for their elation. Chief Superintendent Wong Sui-fat, Kowloon City District Commander, and Superintendent Eric Cheng of Licensing Office, have been assisting over the years in nurturing KM culture within the Force as a KM Champion for Practices and Experience Acquisition Kiosk (Good Practices) and Peer Advisor respectively. Both see the two awards as an international recognition of the KM efforts the management has made, and as a shoot in the arm for everyone associated with KM promotion within the Force.

"As a member of the KM team, I feel particularly honoured in that our Force is the first police force in Asia to capture the Asian MAKE Award. Apart from being Asia's Finest, the Force now also occupies a leading position in KM in Asia," CSP Wong noted. Describing the two awards as a "good return", he hoped the management would devote suitable resources to further develop the existing KM Platform so that the KM concept could be perpetuated within the Force and officers would be in a better position to use the KM Platform to solve the problems they come across in their day-to-day jobs.

Echoing CSP Wong's views, SP Cheng said: "The efforts we have made to promote KM have paid off, and this is a good reflection of the systematic development of KM within the Force and the management's full backing for the promotion."

As a KM Champion, CSP Wong feels the KM concept is gradually taking root among many officers. "The roll out of KM can be divided into four stages, namely Awareness, Trial, Trust and Use, and Embracing. After years of promotion, many officers have passed the first three stages and the fourth stage would be in sight in the not too distant future. There is another indicator of this encouraging trend: the hit rate of the POINT and KM Portal average over one million per month! This means officers have accepted the concept and have been using it a great deal," he noted.

CSP Wong stressed that reaching the stage of "embracing KM" by Force members called for further initiatives and more impetus by every officer supporting KM by treating it as an integral part of their duty. Thus, with a view to enhancing the Force's existing KM Platform, he had called at MTRC and Hospital Authority to study their KM best practices.

He is working in collaboration with the Police College on plans to enhance the Force KM Platform that is able to capture more information which is of material importance to Force members' requirements for their jobs, including exploring the possibility of deploying Web 2.0 technology in the KM Portal.

Welcoming the recruitment of specialised KM Officers by the Police College, CSP Wong said: "It is good to have a unit with specific duties to promote KM. The recruitment shows the management will not spare any resources necessary for the KM development."