Stephen, I couldn't agree with you more that the issues facing us in
knowledge management is at "best" misunderstood by many....and at its
"worst" manipulated by some.
Most of the client systems with which I work are bombarded with data, out
of which they need to mine the information they need. One of the more
insightful articles I read recently in WIRED espoused that we are not
really a "knowledge economy". What is emerging is that we are really an
"attention" economy.
The author took the position that economics is a study of scarce
resources. We have no shortage of information. What we do have a
shortage of is capturing the "attention" of people.
These issues and others rest at the source of the knowledge management
discussion. It is no longer what we can know (which is alot), but what we
need to know. These are not issues of knowledge management, but of the
ability of the individual to discern and choose appropriate information
flows.
About undoing the problem....well, how many studies on cigarette smoking
did it take for us to determine that the surgeon general perhaps knew what
he was talking about.....I reckon we're simply going to have to start
"studying" the issue and bringing attention to bear on the fact that we're
headed down a dead-end street with regard to knowledge management.
When studying for completion of my doctorate, I studied the relationship
of technology to the lifeworld of individuals, simply asking does
technology move us toward or away from consciousness? Something of that
question lies buried at the base of the knowledge management problem.
Computers and technology are tools....some people expect someday they will
think for us with the hope that they will help us create a utopian world.
I haven't seen it yet, nor do I expect to....
Any ideas for a roaringly good research project addressing the issue?
Thinking for myself, and still thinking....
Linda Wing
Human Systems Design, Inc.
lwing@usinternet.com
--Linda Wing <lwing@usinternet.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>