A member of a mailing list pointed us to the US Government's definition of knowledge management:
Defines the set of capabilities that support the identification, gathering and transformation of documents, reports and other sources into meaningful information.
The definition further breaks KM down into a number of representative processes / capabilities:
- Categorization
- Information Mapping / Taxonomy
- Information Retrieval
- Information Sharing
- Knowledge Capture
- Knowledge Discovery
- Knowledge Distribution and Delivery
- Knowledge Engineering
- Smart Documents
Even though the definition is fairly technology-centric, and I generally agree with it.
This is part of the E-Government Initiative, and this definition is ground together with other Digital Asset Services (KM, Content Management, Document Management, and Records Management) in their Federal Enterprise Architecture efforts. This sits under the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The KM definition and related processes seem to be a level above the definitions for CM, DM and RM. This definition of knowledge management suggests more that KM is about the capability to share knowledge, for example, rather than the details of how that is to happen.