KM Define vs. Improve

Jim McGee doesn't agree with Mark Clare's idea of the need for a knowledge definition

Don't define knowledge, improve knowledge work instead

I think that most efforts to define knowledge get hopelessly bogged down. The reason this happens is that the discussion is locked in an assumption that there needs to be a centrally managed agreement (at a minimum) about the definition.

Actually, a big part of the discussion revolved around this problem. Mark fully admits that it is not an easy thing to define what knowledge is important for the organization. We didn't go too far down the path of Jim's concern on the assumption of a centrally-managed definition. For an organization like Allstate, where they have been able to focus their efforts on what they need to make the business continue growing, a high-level definition makes sense. At least the way Mark Clare described it. For an organization like a pharmaceutical company, where the knowledge needed depends greatly on the specific role (clinical trials, drug discovery, method development, production, quality analysis, packaging, sales ...), there can be no single definition of what is important for the organization.