Posted by Dan Cohen on July 14, 1999 at 17:20:23:

In Reply to: Re: Why KM is not a science (yet?) posted by Lauri Grohn on July 14, 1999 at 08:19:51:

Interpretations of KM allow it to be a perfectly valid science. Something can be called a scientific discipline is;

- anything which proceeds from a hypothesis,
- uses test cases and methodology to prove or disprove the hypothesis,
- has the ability to change its own body of knowledge.

Why doesn't KM feel like science?

- KM works on human subjects in non-lab environments, so the tests and results lead to very fuzzy "conclusions."
- KM is not a unified body of work. Physicists agree about the speed of light, biologists have a common taxonomy, but these are only now emerging in KM.
- Too many snake oil salesman and technology vendors claiming that "they _are_ KM".

As far as KM not having an accounting system, I presented a knowledge economy at WIPO last year and nobody laughed. (I was not the first). Since then I have joined IBM and they do have a knowledge management system with accounting for using knowledge, sharing knowledge, modifying knowledge, proliferating existing knowledge, changing the state of knowledge, etc.

- Dan Cohen
dancohen@clearthink.com

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• Accounting or just statistics? Lauri Grohn 03:00:13 7/15/99 (0)

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