We have already, on this blog, pointed out that there are "50 shades of Knowledge Management", and as a result, in any conversation about KM, you need to find out what the other person understands by the term.
There is no commonly accepted definition of KM, and as part of the KM hype wave in the early 2000s many parallel disciplines adopted the term "knowledge management" as somehow being more exciting that previously existing terms such as "content management", "document management", "librarianship" and so on.
As a result, we currently have many sub-groupings under the KM umbrella, each with their own understanding of the term.
This was brought home to me recently, when we received a request for KM services, which was clarified as
- Records management/archiving
- search optimisation
- document tracking/user usage/version control
- user policies/protocols/permissions/protection
- bulk/batch scanning
All of this is a long way from the services we offer, which include
- KM strategy
- KM implementation
- KM process facilitation
- Lesson learning
- Communities of practice
- Innovation, and
- KM culture development
So far away, that it might almost be a different discipline with a different name. "Records Management" perhaps.
Knowledge Management is a big field, and a very loosely used term.
Before having any conversation about KM, you need to ask "What sort of Knowledge Management are you talking about?"
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