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09.30.09 Tell A Story To Define Knowledge Management  By Luis SuarezMost of the folks out there who know me, and have been following this blog for a while, have probably realised by now how much I dislike definitions, and putting labels on things, in general. Funny enough, that has been like that for quite a while, having gotten started around 2001, when I was first getting exposed to Knowledge Management (KM or Knowledge Sharing, whatever you would prefer) as time and time again I kept bumping into multiple knowledge managers wanting to define it. I am sure that would sound very familiar to plenty of people out there. Fast forward to 2009 … and we still haven't come to terms with the fact that we may not be able to define it, after all; at least, that's what may be coming out after all of what has been written on the topic over the last few months, where KM definitions seem to have peaked up again. RaySimsmade a very brave attempt by managing to compile the whopping number of #62 of them. Yes, 62 different definitions of KM! SteveBarth ventured, earlier on this year, into putting some very thought-provoking arguments on the need for one, after all, and he shares his favourite one: "Knowledge management refers to strategies and structures for maximizing the return on intellectual and information resources. KM depends on both cultural and technological processes of creation, collection, sharing, recombination and reuse. The goal is to create new value by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of individual and collaborative knowledge work while increasing innovation and sharpening decision-making" DavidGurteen shared, just recently, another KM definition by DavidWeinberger, which I am going to take the liberty of quoting over here, since it fits in quite nicely with the direction I am heading for this blog post… and you will see why shortly: "But the real problem with the information being provided to us in our businesses is that, for all the facts and ideas, we still have no idea what we're talking about. We don't understand what's going on in our business, our market, and our world.
In fact, it'd be right to say that we already *know* way too much. KM isn't about helping us to know more. It's about helping us to understand. Knowledge without understanding is like, well, information." So, how do we understand things? From the first accidental wiener roast on a prehistoric savannah, we've understood things by telling stories. It's through stories that we understand how the world works" Getting closer to the real thing, don't you think? Well, it gets better, because just recently, one of my virtual mentors, someone for whom I have always had the greatest of respects as being one of the fathers of Knowledge Management himself, the fine DaveSnowden, finally, after over 15 years (Perhaps even more!), decided to put together his definition of KM. And he blogged about it under "Defining KM" just a couple of days ago: "The purpose of knowledge management is to provide support for improved decision making and innovation throughout the organization. This is achieved through the effective management of human intuition and experience augmented by the provision of information, processes and technology together with training and mentoring programmes. Read the rest of this article... About the Author: Luis Suarez has been working in the fields of Knowledge Management, collaboration, communities, and learning for the past seven years, and is heavily involved in social computing and its adoption within the enterprise. Luis shares his insights on important KM issues of today through The Knowledge Management Blog and ELSUA.NET, and is an active participant in the ITtoolbox blogging community. |
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