KM on trial

With the excesses of the festive season and the new year behind us, this is the perfect opportunity to take stock of the year we have left behind and look at what 2004 holds in store for us. Indeed many predictions are made in this issue of Knowledge Management that set the scene for the coming year.

Our theme this month puts knowledge management in the dock to face the charges many people hold against it. Misleading terminology, an over-hyped industry and wasted investments are just some of the accusations it must counter. We look at the arguments for and against knowledge management with some of the industry’s leading thinkers, and stir up a little contention along the way. Find out the verdict in our Your Say article.

As 2003 has drawn to a close, editorial-board member Richard Cross gives a round-up of his year as a knowledge worker through highlights of his weblog. David Skyrme, in turn, makes predictions on the areas that will dominate the KM headlines over 2004.

Knowledge Management itself has a lot to look forward to in 2004. Following the success of our recent report on taxonomies, we will soon be publishing the next in the series with Public Sector – Public Knowledge, Communities of Practice: Lessons from Leading Collaborative Enterprises and KM Insight 2004/05. For more information, contact Adam Scrimshire at ascrimshire@ark-group.com.

This year will also see the launch of a new event, KM UK in June. As the sister event to the well-established KM Europe, it promises to offer a UK perspective to the latest knowledge-management trends and developments in the industry.

As you may have noticed, our regular Country Focus feature has taken a break this month, but expect to see a revamped version in our next issue. We have had requests to deliver more country-specific KM facts and figures with this feature to outline the knowledge management associations, leading vendors and main information sources in each region. If you would like to contribute to a future Country Focus feature, please get in touch.

With so much to look forward to, all that remains for me to do is wish you a very happy and prosperous 2004.

Sandra Higgison
Editor

Features

Driving standards at Jaguar Free
When mergers and acquisitions bring prestigious automotive brands together, convergence must take place. Trevor Harkin describes how Jaguar and Land Rover’s product-development centres share knowledge and experiences, and have created a tool to standardise and manage the many metrics used across the organisations.

Journey of a knowledge worker Free
Blogging is no longer the reserve of IT geeks and has become the must-have accessory to a website or discussion forum. Richard Cross shares a year in the life of a knowledge worker with highlights from his own blog. He discusses, among other things, the hype around innovation, leadership lessons from Shakespeare’s Henry V and the notion of galumphing.

Harnessing knowledge assets at JPMorgan Chase Free
JPMorgan Chase understands the value of a firm-wide approach to capturing and sharing knowledge. Jo Singel outlines her involvement in the firm’s organisational development through the creation of a web-based knowledge asset and the founding of a knowledge-broker network.

Maintaining your KM edge Free
Earlier this year, Ark Group, in association with David Skyrme, launched a series of reports that give fresh insights and practical guidance into key knowledge-management developments. Skyrme gives the background to the series and identifies some of the ongoing developments in knowledge management.

Cultivating a knowledge culture at HSBC Free
Using experience derived from his work as a KM practitioner within HSBC, Steve Ellis outlines the key tactical and operational problems faced when introducing knowledge management in traditional, often highly hierarchical organisations.

Knowledge sharing at the World Bank Free
Although knowledge sharing is now an integral part of the World Bank’s operations and mission, it has not always been this way. Bruno Laporte describes how knowledge sharing established its roots at the bank, the challenges the strategies have faced and gives specific success stories.

Regulars

Book review: The Gifts of Athena Free
Patrick Murphy reviews The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy by Joel Mokyr.

Five minutes with the EBRD Free
Jacquie Bran, project manager with the Knowledge Management events team, spoke to Bruno Balvanera, head of the business development unit and Olena Koval, information and knowledge manager, who lead the development and implementation of a knowledge-sharing programme at the European Bank for the Reconstruction and Development.

Your say: KM on trial Free
Discussions on the value and practice of knowledge management tend to conjure many reactions that are rarely short on contention. The extremes span a range of emotions, from the deeply passionate believers to those who reject its founding principles and concepts. As a set of disciplines, knowledge management has endured a roller-coaster ride that has peaked with praise and attention, not to mention resources and investment. The troughs, however, have been filled with war stories, failed initiatives, and wasted money and resources, which have encouraged the sceptical and scornful. As those involved in knowledge management seem to be taking stock of the industry’s developments and are consolidating ideas and concepts, it is perhaps a good time to turn a critical eye to the subject as a whole. KM stands accused of, among other things, evolving through hype, promising unrealistic solutions, generating misleading terminology and prioritising technology over processes or people. By putting the discipline on trial, we can judge whether existing success stories prove KM innocent or if these charges should be upheld.

The knowledge: Steve Denning Free
Bringing storytelling into knowledge management and the corporate world at large is part of Steve Denning's mission. He talks to Sandra Higgison about the power of stories for communicating change and new ideas, and his thoughts on the development of the knowledge-management concept as a whole.

Put it to the board: Don’t share, build Free
The truth is that knowledge work is not democratic; we are not all going to be knowledge workers. Neither is everyone going to be predisposed or equipped to create, far less share, any real knowledge in a world that still confuses data with information. The solution lies in creatively reframing the problem from how to share all the knowledge in people’s heads into how to build something new through knowledge building. We can ask people to empty their intellectual pockets and contribute the contents to the general good, or we can share a challenge, a journey to another place that will involve them in building and sharing tools that carry them towards their goal. If we can define the type of knowledge we want to build, we can then focus attention and resource to make it happen and start working on the problem of just how to engage the right constituents to build it.