Re: Knowledge Management

[David Neeley <dbneeley -at- gmail -dot- com>]

In the attempt to appear more academic, STC articles seem too often to
be pretentious.

Essentially, there is still a great deal of floundering around in the
entire KM field.

Beginning with the realization that the real value in an organization
lies in its collective knowledge and how to access that knowledge, it
quickly became clear that there is a tremendous lack of an
understanding of just how such knowledge can be made permanent and
easily accessible.

For some time, there have been various attempts to deal with problems
around this entire subject. "Artificial Intelligence" was a fad for a
time, but like so many others it promised far more than it could
deliver during the early years--the problems were simply more
difficult than many assumed to begin with. The AI goal was to create
"expert systems" that would embody the knowledge of experienced
people, so that they retired or otherwise left the organization their
knowledge would not have to go with them. Ultimately, AI hoped to
create increasingly "intelligent" machines and systems.

While the AI term itself became unpopular for many people, the simple
fact is that progress has continued through all these years.

Meanwhile, the move from "data processing" to "knowledge management"
has continued. The various components of data handling--acquiring
information, storing it, finding that whihc is relevant to a given
need, maintaining it safely--all these are the trees. Knowledge
management is a view of the forest and how to manage that forest.

Other trends that have had currency and are also involved include
business process reengineering. Restructuring operations to better
deal with all sorts of business objectives and information
requirements can pay large dividends--and KM represents some
fundamental points of view that make this effort worthwhile and
potentially successful.

The spread of various kinds of logical representations such as modern
notions of diagramming like UML in moving beyond the software
development arena have enabled more ability to describe knowledge
resources and the processes that affect them. Thus, this too is a
major tool of the KM endeavor.

The bottom line is that KM is a "flavor of the month" among many--and
is surely the source of a great deal of vapid posturing by some--but
it represents a fundamental understanding of organizations--their true
value and how to preserve and enhance that value.

Sorry if this has been a stream of consciousness rundown of these
issues, but I lack the time to orgnanize it better just now.

David

On 7/19/05, Dan Goldstein <DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com> wrote:
> 
> The STC article includes the sentence: "He implements knowledge base
> technology and holds activities that foster good communication and
> leverages knowledge both within and outside the organization."
> 
> I am a native English speaker, and a technical communicator since 1997,
> but I have no idea what that sentence means. Could someone rephrase it?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Dan

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