Knowledge retention is an important issue in business these days, usually in industries with high employee turnover or increasing levels of retirements or anywhere there is a concern that expertise might walk out the door and never come back.
But what about the situation where your knowledge is archived in paper or magnetic or electronic form? In some cases, this "stuff" has archival or recall value that can never be found in the rememberences of the people involved. Just think how important laboratory notebooks are to the intellectual property space of chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Listening to or watching tapes of historical events is sometimes painful, but they give a much better feeling for the context and the setting than other oral or written accounts. It's nice to know where those stories and materials are held, and that they are held securely.
This month's K Street Directions tells us about a story from NPR on Raiders of the Lost Tapes, where the knowledge is tapes of the Apollo moon landing.
Last week, we heard a surprising story that makes for a good cautionary tale of Knowledge Management. It has to do with time, history and the impermanence of memory, and at the center there's an inarguable milestone in human history: the first Apollo moon landing in July 1969.
If you know the location of the original 14-inch tapes from the Apollo moon landing, please contact Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station.