What is Knowledge?
"The definition of knowledge is still a matter of ongoing debate."
- This quote from the Knowledge page of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, explains why so much myth and misinformation has built up around the topic of knowledge management.
- In particular, many do not understand the distinctions between information and knowledge. I favour the definitions from the DIKW (Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom) model:
- Information is created by analysing relationships and connections between the data. It is capable of answering simple who?/ what?/ where?/ when?/ why? style questions.
- Knowledge is created by using the information for action. Knowledge answers the question how?.
- Wisdom (in case you're wondering) is created through use of knowledge, through the communication of knowledge users, and through reflection. Wisdom answers the questions why? and when? as they relate to actions.
What is Knowledge Management?
- There is no unanimous definition of Knowledge Management - is this beginning to sound familiar? - but it typically includes a range of practices used by companies and organisations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge.
- Knowledge Management has always existed in one form or another. Formal apprenticeships, professional training, corporate libraries, even peer-to-peer discussion groups, were all forms of Knowledge Management long before the term came into common use.
- The rapid increase in the power and availability of computer systems towards the end of the 20th century, and the concurrent expansion of the internet, led many to look to these new technologies for the means of managing the previously informal ways of sharing knowledge. This led to the establishment of Knowledge Management as a recognised discipline around the mid-1990s.
Why implement Knowledge Management?
- We all remember US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's notorious statement ...
"... as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns; the ones we don't know we don't know."
- ... but this infamous quote omits an important fourth category ...
"the unknown knowns; the ones we don't know that we know."
- Effective Knowledge Management eliminates the unknown knowns.
- How often do you hear the head of an organisation say that its staff are its greatest asset? He, or she, may mean that the staff create an atmosphere in which the organisation can flourish, but too often they mean that the staff hold the corporate knowledge within their heads.
- Corporate knowledge may be a modern company's most valuable asset, but hidden knowledge is a hidden asset and no company can afford not to know what it knows.
- Knowledge Management programs are typically tied to organisational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, lessons learnt transfer (for example between projects) and the general development of collaborative practices. Knowledge Management is frequently linked to the idea of the 'learning organisation'.
- Read more about Practical KM strategies.
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