The promise of KM

Bruce MacEwen of Adam Smith, Esq. blogged A Taxonomy of KM and its Taxonomies in reference to a reference to a recent Financial Times article, Tantalised by the promise of wisdom (subscription required - see Bruce's article) by Michael Earl. The article describes seven "schools" of knowledge management.

Bruce attracted a lot of attention from the blawg community for a specific reference to the need of KM to adapt to the way lawyers work, rather than the other way 'round. Of course, this is important in any organization. You don't just toss a new concept, strategy, or technology into the waters and expect people to stop using their existing pool toys. You need to understand what people need from their toys -- and their undercurrent needs that they cannot express.

Beyond this, I saw a familiar item in the original article as well: the suggestion that CKO's have gone out of favor because KM in those organizations has become a familiar-enough concept that the CKO could move on to some other role or position. The CKO in this model is the change agent and moves to new roles when the change has been effected. "Their goal should be to work themselves out of a job - leaving the business with permanent benefits in place."