Editor's Letter

Farewell: Jerry Ash takes migration seriously

It is with mixed emotions that I tell you this is my last issue as managing editor of Inside Knowledge magazine.
The last 14 issues have been a joy and I thank all of those who have worked with me as sources and writers. I thank the IK staff for the very special way they presented these stories in magazine format. And I thank Ark Group for giving me the opportunity and independence to make of IK what I thought it should be.
Perhaps you recall when I put out my first issue in December 2007/January 2008, I said I didn’t see much that needed changing, but warned I’ve always ended up putting my own stamp on any periodical I’ve ever edited. As it turns out, what I thought IK should be is an adaptive, innovative, leading-edge publication. During my tenure, the present and the future have moved very rapidly and IK with it.
During these 16 months, knowledge management (KM) has been in a disruptive, delightful and desired period of change, moving past periods of discovery, study, theory and experimentation on a pathway to embedment in the business process.
Many KM thought leaders have longed for this, saying that KM would never fully succeed until it became the new way of doing business. ‘Embedment’ became a word in the KM lexicon.
Even for KM, change isn’t easy, comfortable or completely controllable. Between the thinking and the embedment comes the ‘migration’ from the one place to the other, leaving behind a nervous bunch of KM pioneers, who worry they are losing their roles as wise guides.
There could be some serious consequences of that as the idea migrates but the expertise doesn’t. Suddenly KM is moving down the org chart and ‘amateurs’ are at the wheel. What to do?
What I’ve done with IK is to broaden its scope (probably to the disdain of some purists) to reach beyond the KM core for writers who are following KM into the workplace. New faces, new places. In so doing, I hope some of the world’s top executives and traditional KM leaders and managers have discovered that real KM is happening now in a catalytic state in business units where enablement, advice and support from consultants, top and middle management are even more necessary. Enterprise-wide KM is essential or KM migration becomes fragmentation and (yes) death. Successful KM will always be a partnership from top to bottom to top.
Change is fraught with uncertainty for me as well. In addition to leaving IK, I’ve gifted the Association of Knowledgework to another shepherd and will return to my original focus on knowledge work and knowledge workers at the workface or ‘any place’ people, who use the power of knowledge to succeed.
Meanwhile, another able KM editor – Kate Clifton – will take over here. She has been editor of Ark’s KIM Legal magazine for some years and has been my ‘keeper’ throughout my four years here as writer and editor. It has been she who has kept the continuity intact while headstrong editors like me waxed poetic. Thanks, Kate.

Jerry Ash, Editor

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