In reply to the many messages about KM:
There are quite a few good quotes here; I'd love to quote and comment, but
I think just a few comments will work.
KM seems to be consultant's new buzzword to offer services and
management's new program to attempt to further fungibize (?) everyone
(except themselves) further.
I have seen a few messages effectively state that without people to make
it work, knowledge is just so much data. Any information that you store
in a database can be accessed by people and used. Best practices can be
explained and illustrated; cases can be shown and reasons for
success/failure can be shown and dialogue generated; and many other types
of information can be shared, including how to deal with some customers,
and personality/political information that is difficult to come by.
However, it is still true that a person reading this information will not
necessarily view and use the information the same as the person who
generated it. This is a matter of how we all learn; of our varied
experience, and our base of education.
Even in the best case scenario, people will still use knowledge
differently due to their differing orientation and world view. And if
management does not lay the foundations of trust, incentives for sharing
and collaboration, and a culture of service, no one will contribute their
full knowledge anyway. Much work has to be done.
The whole idea of knowledge and information technology has a long way to
go. The Dreyfus brothers have outlined this in their books, "What
Computers Can't Do" (1972) and "What Computers Still Can't Do" (1993); we
still need to learn SO much about how we think and use our brains. We
know we can drive a car, but if anyone told us they were going to drive a
building, our minds instantly make the distinction; to have computers
utililize that same kind of 'common' knowledge is a long way off.
Tom Clifford
cliffotj@state.mi.us
--"Tom J. Clifford" <CLIFFOTJ@state.mi.us>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>