Some of this message has been mailed to Mark already, but I felt I had to
contribute to the discussion as well.
Although I am very interested in Mark's distinction between First and
Second Generation KM (FGKM and SGKM), my opinion is that, what is labeled
FGKM is the type of KM that people use who never understood the basic
thing behind KM. From the very first moment KM came into my life, some
years ago, I was tought that, what Mark calls SGKM, is the real thing.
Even the use of technology in FGKM can be disputed in many (most ?)
cases. Mark writes in his WP the credo of FGKM: knowledge exists, round it
up, codify it and share it through technology. This is what has been used
over the past years, as an excuse for s/w-producers to put the KM-label on
their products. All of a sudden, groupware is a KM-tool, as well as
document management systems, library systems and even some good old
messaging systems like bulletin boards are dusted to be able to sell a
next generation of refurbished material for state-of-the-art prices.
For me, the best tool for FGKM is still the ancient pin-board next to the
coffee-machine. You can put notes, announcements and requests on the
pin-board, other people read it (knowledge-sharing ?) and start to talk
about it over a cup of fresh brew. This brings up new ideas, much easier
than any available technology can. Of course this holds true only for
organisations that come together daily like in most businesses is still
the case.
Furthermore, by sticking to a kind of FGKM, a company will finally be
overtaken by those that did understand that SGKM is the real thing. My
theory is (i.e. have no evidence) that just sharing existing knowledge
will result in a company which is no longer innovating. Every once in a
while, existing "facts" must be made questionable, in order to improve our
mental models. If we would not have done so since Gallileo, we would still
believe the earth is flat and the end of the world really exists.
Fortunately, doubt about each others ideas is something which seems to be
genetically embedded in human beings. And something called "truth" is just
an interpretation of observed facts and will no longer be true as soon as
we are shown additional facts. Seems philosophical, but in FGKM, we will
never see additional facts so we cannot adjust to our changing
environment.
Bas de Kruyff,
ICT-consultant at Itude Consulting, The Netherlands.
--Bas de Kruyff <B.deKruyff@itude.com>
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