Posted by Jefferey Bridges on December 17, 2001 at 10:47:11:

In Reply to: Is knowledge management coming down kind of crisis? Some numbers to think (and talk) over... posted by Riva Gianluca on December 17, 2001 at 09:23:06:

Reva, thank you for sharing the numbers.

Here are some other interesting statistics (caveat about 'statistics' later):

A raw first cut search on AltaVista finds:

- 982,204 documents with the phrase "knowledge management"
- 7,050,995 documents with the keyword "knowledge"
- 31,172,074 documents with the keyword "management"

A raw first cut search on Google finds:

- 726,000 documents with the phrase "knowledge management"
- 21,700,000 documents with the keyword "knowledge"
- 53,000,000 documents with the keyword "management"

Searches on other indexes may be done to find what are the number of documents indexed in other databases.

Is the glass half full or half empty?

That is an issue of perspective rather than statistics. Given above numbers, one may alternatively suggest that "knowledge" and "management" are two of the most important concepts of the postmodern organizations.

Here is the caveat about the above numbers - search for "knowledge management" tells only partial story. One may find many more references to the phenomena generally discussed under the umbrella of 'knowledge management' which may or may not refer to the term 'knowledge management', 'knowledge', or, 'management'. Many documents may refer to 'intellectual capital', 'e-learning', 'knowledge ecology', 'organizational transformation', 'strategic innovation', 'document indexing and archival', 'data warehousing portals', 'sense making', 'personal construction', 'social construction', etc. This is notable given the refinement of the application of 'knowledge management' framework to more specific areas of application to connect concepts with applications and performance. Likewise, any search on any database for the specific phrase "knowledge management" will show only the tip of the iceberg (even that may be an overstatement) because the constructs of 'knowledge' and 'management' are embedded in almost all other activities. That explains some confusion around the specific definitions of knowledge management.

One may also suggest that "knowledge management" is in its infancy with a number of competing theories and frameworks and it is time for shakeout for separating the hype from 'what really works'. This process of elimination is important so that all those who happened to 'arrive' in the KM field by virtue of the "mass search and replace magic" applied on the earlier buzzwords need to be packing up and moving on.

Unlike any other buzzwords that have come and gone, if one believes in the viability of the constructs of "knowledge" and "management", one would only ignore "knowledge" and its "management" at one's peril if one believes that both these concepts are still relevant to them and their organizations regardless of the hype.

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Follow Ups:

• Let's search what really works... Riva Gianluca 09:36:00 12/18/01 (0)
• Re: Are 'Knowledge' and its 'Management' Becoming Less Relevant? Rob 11:15:14 12/17/01 (3)
  • Stay!!!! Riva Gianluca 09:59:30 12/18/01 (0)
  • Re: Are 'Knowledge' and its 'Management' Becoming Less Relevant? Jefferey Bridges 11:39:10 12/17/01 (1)
    • Re: Are 'Knowledge' and its 'Management' Becoming Less Relevant? Rob 04:46:54 12/18/01 (0)

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