Tags: Technorati, Knowledge Management, KM, Knowledge Management 1.0, Knowledge Management 2.0, KM 1.0, KM 2.0, Social Computing, Social Networking, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0, Dennis Howlett, James Dellow, Collaboration, Knowledge Sharing, Knowledge Workers, Innovation
I *love* comments in weblogs. Don’t you? I mean, ever since I started weblogging about three years ago I have always thought that I would be enjoying it much more getting together some interesting conversations on different topics than just having a popular weblog that plenty of people visit, but that rarely care to comment further. Yes, that is right. I never expect from my weblogs to be very popular nor very highly ranked in places like Technorati, on the contrary, I would feel a whole lot more satisfied with my weblogging efforts whenever I would have a good bunch of folks sharing their insights and adding further up on some of the different topics that I tried to put together in all of the different weblogs that I get to share.
And to showcase some of that, here you have got two different comments that have been shared over here in a weblog entry that I have shared a few days ago and which come to complement each other and differentiate, quite nicely, what Knowledge Management 1.0 (KM 1.0) is versus Knowledge Management 2.0 (KM 2.0). The first set of comments about the state of KM 1.0 have been shared by Dennis Howlett, one of the folks whose weblog I have recently started aggregating to my feed client and which I have been enjoying quite a bit already!, and the second set of comments comes from the one and only, James Dellow, who actually provides a spot on reflection of the next generation of Knowledge Management: KM 2.0.
In case you may not subscribe to the RSS / Atom comments feed, here you have got the quotes from each of them so that you can get to read some of the really good insights they have put together to describe the overall state of Knowledge Management.
"There’s another side to this as well. Traditional KM was not really about knowledge but the management of secrets. By that I mean that management had become so frightened by compliance – especially SOX – that they needed and wanted an iron grip control over the environment. They got that OK but completely stifled creativity in the process so rather than freeing up creativity, they locked it down. What we’re now seeing is KM as it should be – no constraints." (Emphasis mine)
What a terrific description of what the traditional KM has been all along! This is certainly a very short paragraph that describes very well the state of KM 1.0 and why it never really took off altogether. This quote is definitely one of those that I will be reusing on a regular basis whenever someone would ask me what KM 1.0 used to be. Hopefully, for not much longer anymore.
"Next generation KM (KM 2.0 if you like) has already arrived, its just the enterprise technology is finally catching up …”This next generation of knowledge management is more interested in social networks and the flow of knowledge between the people in them, than content management as we saw in the past. This latest evolution is reflected in the new Australian Standard for Knowledge Management (AS 5037-2005) published in October 2005.” Source: Knowledge Management: How to separate the wheat from the chaff http://users.bigpond.com/chieftech/downloads/kmwheatchaff.pdf (PDF, 108KB)" (Emphasis mine)
WOW! What a great quote ! I am really glad that James has actually shared it with us over here and the link to the PDF article as well, because it certainly makes for an interesting read on where KM is heading: KM 2.0. One of the things that I have enjoyed thoroughly, and which is something that I have been talking about over here all along, is the fact that James also points out that a successful KM strategy is that one that makes use of tools, technologies and processes to help empower knowledge workers share their knowledge with others, collaborate and innovate with their peers. Yes, indeed, a successful KM strategy is that one that places the focus of knowledge sharing and collaboration on the people themselves, and not necessarily the technology / tools or the different processes in place. Great stuff, indeed !
A special thanks to both Dennis and James for sharing their insights over here in elsua and for helping improve the original content with some really good conversations. So thanks for those comments, folks!
Luis – I’m glad you enjoyed my perspective on KM. Along with this particular KM article, there are a whole bunch of other articles and papers that people might find intereting here:
http://users.bigpond.com/chieftech/articles.html
Hi James ! Fantastic! Thanks a bunch for dropping by and for sharing that link ! Yes, indeed, there are lots of different articles in that link and, much importantly, lots of great stuff in there, too! This is certainly going to keep me busy for a while ! heh 🙂 Wonderful ! Again, I appreciate it very much dropping by and sharing these comments with us and, specially, the last link where there is some very good stuff for us all to digest further. So thanks for sharing that and for dropping by. Greatly appreciated!
(I know what I will be doing over the coming weekend ! Lots of great reading ahead of me!)
Very interesting article. Thanks James for the excellent pdf. It does provide one a very good overview on how knowledge management is moving from a content/information management to actually maximising the use of knowledge.
Hi Vijeesh! Thanks a lot for chiming in and for the feedback comments. Welcome to elsua! I certainly agree with your comments about James’ article. It does provide a very good overview of the state of KM and how it is shaping up to meet the "new" needs from knowledge workers, that, from what I know, have always been there in the hiding, anyway. So it is good they are coming back and, much more importantly, that they are finally met in the KM space. Great stuff, indeed !
I am really glad you have commented in this weblog post because somehow and while moving machines some time ago I seemed to have lost your weblog address in my feeds and I am happy to have found it again through this comment. Just re-subscribed to it and also added into my blogroll available here in this weblog.
You have been having some very interesting conversations and I am hoping to share some thoughts on a couple of them some time soon! Keep up the good work !