Knowledge management has met its timely demise.
No matter how sophisticated or agile, knowledge management (or “KM”) remains fundamentally embedded in a container view of knowledge.
Where the ephemeral and superficial nature of social media reflects the failure of communication in the Twenty-First Century, KM’s demise stems from the Chief Information Officer’s view of knowledge as discrete packets of data, each one destined to be filed in its own pigeon hole.
The death of KM is a soulless one, because it is devoid of culture.
Even though KM shares commonalities with publishing (static knowledge, expertise frozen in time), the latter adds the significance of culture (whether organizational or literary) to the flow of knowledge.
A book as an object (physical or electronic) does not confuse the container with the message or the processes that infuse the former with meaning.
Photo: Tables in disused autopsy room (Eric Allix Rogers/Flickr)