[Sigia-l] knowledge management

[Jody A. Hankinson]

Everyone, thanks for the comments. I promise to post summaries in a couple
of days. Before then, I feel compelled to explain a bit more. And heaven
knows I hesitate, because I don¹t want to turn this into anther "what is IA"
discussion.

When I explain my practice to someone outside the field, the five second
version usually goes like this: I look at the information and materials
identifying patters of usage and creation. Simultaneously, I pull out common
themes from the materials themselves. Then, based on the goals for the
online presence, I develop a structure and processes that are most useful to
the target audience. The longer version includes audience evaluation, user
testing, taxonomy creation and addressing the needs of users maintaining a
site.

With that said, I *think* knowledge management is about
1. organizational patterns
2. the materials generated during the course of business
3. how those materials can be identified as knowledge and fed back into the
organizational patterns.

If I define myself as an IA by my abilities to see patterns, goals and an
audience then I am also practice knowledge management. Where I'm not so sure
is if I am practicing Knowledge Management, the phenomena that has generated
books, buzz, etc. 

I'll admit that I borrow terminology from some of the business trends,
particularly Learning Organizations. It's not so different from the
philosophies behind JAD. But that doesn't mean I call myself anything but an
IA! So Ziya, please don¹t jump from any tall buildings - our city would be
the poorer for it.

- Jody



On 5/7/03 5:35 PM, "Karl Fast" <karl.fast at pobox.com> wrote:
> 
> A few years ago I read an interview with Larry Prusak, who coined
> the term "Knowledge Management" along with Thomas Davenport.
> 
> Prusak argued that you could divide KM into two world views:
> 
> * One view is says KM is primarily a technology problem. If you
>   build good KM tools and you've got the problem licked.
> 
> * The second view is that KM is largely a people problem, meaning
>   that it involves managing people and creating an environment
>   that supports and rewards knowledge creation and sharing.
>   Sometimes this means software tools, but it usually means making
>   sure people get along.
> 
>   
> Prusak believes that the technology view of KM has been a disaster
> and the people view is the way to go.
> 
> 
> Now, if you swallow that story then I think it's hard to argue that
> "IA could be defined as KM"
>