I met for coffee with a friend yesterday, and we bantered around a lot of ideas for both of our businesses. What stuck with me was the question of why is knowledge management so interesting. And what do people get from working with me.
Why is knowledge management interesting for me? KM is frequently talked about as getting access to "knowledge," but what is described is access to information as quickly as possible. That is good information technology, which I enjoy. But it isn't knowledge. To get close to knowledge management, that information needs to be understood and explained. It needs to be fitted to the context of the person (or group) playing with the information. Here I am thinking of building context, the role of experts, building trust and creating collective knowledge. Sure technologies can support these activities, but so can basic business rules around conducting work. I'm interested in knowledge management because this isn't a simple matter of giving you Method X and walking away. I want to help people refocus on how and why they do these things within their businesses.