Replying to LO26149 --
All:
Denham Grey wrote:
> The dream:
>
> One of the central themes of KM is the design, building and maintenance of
> an effective 'corporate memory', a repository, a dare I say it,
> knowledge-base. Here the intellectual jewels of the organization will
> reside, easily accessible, expertly indexed, intuitively browseable. Here
> experts and novices will come for self- help knowledge, they will find the
> correct solution quickly, be able to apply the solutions with confidence,
> and learn from the 'collective experience of the organization'.
>
> There is only one problem! this is real a dream. Many dollars have been
> invested, many organizations have egg on their collective faces, many
> repositories lie unused, shunned by novices and experts alike and yet
> there are more KM projects starting each day with the same vision /
> mission and another dream. Perhaps we think portals or automatic profiling
> or collaborative systems will do this time!
>
> Where did we go wrong?
I remain convinced that any KM solution that begins with a failure to
recognize the self-organizing nature of knowledge in human social systems
is doomed. This is my own assessment of what's been happening, Denham.
As you know, the notion of second-generation KM marks a radical departure
from first-generation thinking, in the sense that second-generation
thinking is essentially deferential to the self-organizing nature of
knowledge production and integration in human organizations. All of its
practices start from that most profound admission. First-generation
approaches (still dominant) take no such stand. But if the system is a
duck and you treat it like a rock, your rock-like systems will fail
accordingly. Ducks have no use for them. It's all about
self-organization, self-organization, and more self-organization.
Enhancing the dynamics of knowledge in human social systems must begin
with the recognition that such dynamics are self-propelled. Designing
practice with enhancement in mind must, therefore, DEFER to these dynamics
and ASSIST them, not replace them, and certainly not overlook them. This
is the key to what I describe as 'sustainable innovation.' Measures that
conflict with these dynamics are unsustainable; those that enhance and
reinforce them are sustainable. From this perspective, KM practice to
date has largely failed because of its intrinsically unsustainable nature.
It conflicts with the self-organizing tendencies of human social systems
to create, diffuse and apply knowledge in their own way and, therefore,
has eroded over time, as a consequence of the resulting friction.
This is not the end of KM, it's merely the end of first-generation KM!
Mark
--"Mark W. McElroy" <mmcelroy@vermontel.net>
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