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Emergent Knowledge Management
OmniTech Consulting Group conducts a monthly Executive Technology Pulse
Study. A recent one indicated that the field of knowledge management is in the early
stages of development.
Eighty percent of the executives polled by OmniTech expect knowledge management to have a
significant and major impact in their organizations in 3-5 years.
OmniTech's panel members view knowledge management as high priority, but they often
perceive it in very different ways. Some see it as an approach to decision making, others
as a way to reduce costs or improve quality, and still others see it as a mechanism to
increase responsiveness.
WALLY'S COMMENT ... I'm afraid that knowledge management is becoming the latest version of
the "just hit a button" myth. That's the one where an executive envisions that
all he or she will need to do is hit a button on their computer and exactly the
information they want will show up in exactly the form they need it. Like the great
teaching machine and perpetual motion, this one is more a matter of science fiction than
any likely practical business reality.
So what are some reasonable goals for knowledge management?
Sharing information in all the places that it's needed. In lots of companies there are
specialized databases and information files that exist only in one part of the
organization, even though the information in them could be used by people in other parts.
Knowledge management is about sharing that information broadly.
Sharing the lore is important, too. Every aspect of business, whether it's sales and
marketing, or production, or product development, or administration has lore. Lore is the
specialized knowledge that's been built up over the years by practitioners that helped
them get the job done quickly. Effective knowledge management programs make that lore
available. They do that by finding ways to capture it and share it. Most often, we're
seeing this in sales and customer service applications right now, but you can expect it to
expand to administration and finance soon.
Finally, a good objective for knowledge management is setting things up so you'll only
have invent the wheel once.
From Wally Bock's Briefing Memo -- 31 August 1998
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