Responding to Denham Grey in LO23699 --
First, thanks for the link to the paper about KM and the management
fashion perspective. I just pulled it down and will read it with
interest.
Second, I agree that many (but not all) current KM efforts tend to be
"object-focused." I take that to mean that KM efforts tend to focus on
hardware/software (e.g., groupware and other collaborative tools) and that
they also tend to treat knowledge as a packagable, distributable commodity
(which some of it is but not all of it).
Third, I also agree that we will likely see a shift in KM to conditions
for learning, etc, as companies "seek to leverage their investments in
collaborative tools."
Case in point: I recently completed a KM project for a large
pharmaceuticals company. A consistent message was that KM isn't about
hardware and software, it's about learning and sharing the fruits of that
learning, especially emergent best practices.
We're also likely to see at least a surge of interest in learning by way
of communities of practice (CoPs). The latest issue of Harvard Business
Review carries a piece about CoPs by Etienne Wenger and William Snyder.
--Fred Nickols The Distance Consulting Company "Assistance at A Distance" http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm nickols@worldnet.att.net (609) 490-0095
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