I recently came across the article,
"The nonsense of knowledge management", which I both agree and disagree with. According to the author, what is today pushed as KM by the consulting companies and IT vendors is really information management. I mostly agree with that. A system that automatically categorizes documents and provides intuitive navigational schemes is more of an information system than a knowledge management system.
However, in the continuum of data, information, knowledge and wisdom, the boundaries are vague. If a star sales person with 30 years of experience tells a junior sales person, "if you propose this kind of a deal to a customer with such a cultural background, you are 95% likely to fail," is it a piece of information or a nugget of knowledge?
The author asserts that the tacit knowledge resides between two ears and cannot be shared. And that the knowledge can never be managed. That's a candidate for debate. I thought one of the purposes of organizational learning systems is to facilitate explication of tacit knowledge. And whatever happened to all those knowledge-based decision support systems - where does all that knowledge come from, if the tacit knowledge never becomes explicit? I am not a knowledge theorist, so I am unable to appreciate a purist's opinion.
I tend to use 'information management' and 'knowledge management' interchangeably, and as long as it serves the purpose, I am okay with such use. However, academicians do need to make finer distinctions.
References:
# posted by
JC Reddy : 12/27/2003 11:54:00 AM
