No such thing as a "KM System"
James Robertson usually has interesting things to say around knowledge management. This time he clearly states that There are no "KM Systems" in his latest CM Briefing Excellent.
With the rise of knowledge management as a discipline, vendors increasingly rebranded their products as 'knowledge management systems' (KMS). While this was a convenient label to cover a broad range of functionality, the use of 'KMS' as a term has caused considerable confusion.
For this reason, this briefing will argue that organisations should abandon the search for a 'KMS', and instead focus more closely on the specific capabilities required. Vendors are similarly encouraged to more clearly define their product capabilities, and to let go use of the catch-all 'KMS' label.
There are a lot of aspects to what people want to do with knowledge management. And there are a lot of technologies out there than can support those things. We all know that the technology alone isn't knowledge management, right?
KM is about the people and work being done and how we can help one another do our work better. If tech helps, great. If it gets in the way, get rid of it.
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I was just reading "Organizational Knowledge and Technology" by Rodrigo Magulhaes. In his definition of an information system, the organization and people use technology to gather, store, process, use and deciminate knowledge.
It is my understanding that KM best practices has taught us that the human element is key to success, and that technology is a tool. The list of KM tools contains communication modes and models, not just software.
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Your final remark is both succinct and apt yet all too often overlooked.
Undoubtedly technology can do many things but people working together, sharing successes, learning from failures and also letting levity and laughter in will always be the keys to what is called Knowledge Management. Yes everything is happening much faster now but that doesn't always mean much better in terms of what we're learning.
Having the ability to spew out more explicit knowledge can prove to be a double-edged sword particularly if we persist in trying to digest it all. Today we are struggling to contain BMI (Body Mass Index)......Will tomorrow be about trying to reduce KMI (Knowledge Management Index) in order to tackle the next great threat of what some are calling infoluenza?