Posted by Daan de Koning on September 20, 1999 at 11:20:52:

In Reply to: Re: Curious about Knowledge Management posted by Vaughn P. Fox on September 20, 1999 at 00:24:48:

Vaughn,

I have never entered an organization that worked. That could be because I am a consultant, and organizations that work have no need for my services. But I also never heard of or read about an organization that worked. Most people "don't know what they need to know" and "they try a little of everything until they stumble into what they need". People and managers "don't know what they need to know and often (often?? always!) establish complicated solutions". Only afterwards they see there were simpler ways of achieving the same results. Dilbert is fun because it is so 'damned' recognizable.

So perhaps IM was developed by people who intented it to be effective, covering not only the systematic issues but the social, psychological, leadership etc. issues as well. The fact that so many people put their energy in knowledge managenent means that they do not find in IM (or know how to find) what they think they need.

I don't think that positioning IM against KM is useful in gaining a better understanding of organisations and how they do (and don't!) work. Even if the focus on KM will lead to a re-discovery of IM, it is benefitial.

Information and knowledge are closely related, one could even argue that they are the same. My answer to that would be: as long as there are (enough) people percieving a difference between information and knowledge, there IS a diffenrence.

As a consequence of the close relationship between information and knowledge, any KM or KM theory that disregards the ideas, concepts, experiences of IM, is indeed using its energy misdirected. But developing KM, based upon IM, is not.

-

I did not (mean to) say that technology is a solution. In fact, thinking of it right now, technology is still a problem for most organizations! Only a fragment of the information and communication technology capabilities are put into practice. I agree, I presuppose that technologie does have capabilities...

but then, I belong to that rare and curious group of people who read the manual first, before they unpack their tool. ;-)

Daan de Koning

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Follow Ups:

• Re: Curious about Knowledge Management Vaughn P. Fox 21:18:01 9/21/99 (6)
  • Re: Curious about Knowledge Management Daan de Koning 15:42:04 9/23/99 (5)
    • Re: Curious about Knowledge Management Vaughn P. Fox 23:16:38 9/23/99 (4)
      • Re: The philosophy of KM Diwakar Thakore 12:27:36 11/18/99 (0)
      • Re: Curious about Knowledge Management Daan de Koning 08:42:06 9/24/99 (2)
        • Re: Curious about Knowledge Management Vaughn P. Fox 08:21:10 9/25/99 (1)
          • another UTK Daan de Koning 10:34:24 9/26/99 (0)

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