Knowledge Management: "just information management really"

That's the headline of the breaking news.

Well, I happen not to think that KM is the same as IM, but I know many people think it is, and I was moved to write this after hearing that proposition on the lips of someone working in a senior capacity in KM.

First there's the problem of "BIG KM" vs "little km". Because the original idea of KM is not about "managing knowledge" (which would be hard to do, since it's an abstract concept with no material referent to "manage"), but rather it's about management for the knowledge era. So it's a much bigger idea - BIG KM. Overall, I don't have a downer on the industrial era. It's true that the Industrial Revolution was a period of massive upheaval, but the industrial era gave us everything we enjoy in the developed world today. But in the latter C.20th thought leaders started to notice that the shape of the economy had changed and that we were in a 'knowledge era' where ideas and innovation might matter more than plant and material. So we needed to re-think all of our received, industrial era assumptions over for the needs of the knowledge era. It's worth reminding ourselves that industrial era patterns weren't there from time immemorial: life was different at different times before and could be different again, yet many of these patterns are clinging on very resiliently: large, hierarchical organisations, the workplace, working hours and so on and on. It's because we noticed that ideas and innovation mattered so much that we got involved with all the paraphernalia of km (little km): communities of practice, learning from experience, and, yes, organising that part of our knowledge that gets transmitted in some documented form. So in km, we use IM, but our focus is on the usage and the user, and on the origin, application, evolution and transmission of knowledge in application. Ours is a literate culture, and so if a user accesses knowledge (instructions, guidance etc) in a documented form (for instance, and instructional YouTube video) then we're interested in that process of use and also in the process of creation of those knowledge artefacts. So in km, we use IM, and we use lots of other models, methods, tools and techniques as well: project and change management, process change, Agile, Lean, so on.

Meanwhile, IM has been trotting along quite happily for its own reasons. There's document and record management, for instance, needed for legal, operational and historical reasons. But it wasn't setting out to change the theory of the firm. They're just as happy filing periodicals and accounting documents as they would be handling any document that contained transmittable experience and insight. We're not really interested in those clerical activities per se in km, except in so far as they enable knowledge transfer. Where we come in is in facilitating the use of IM to transmit documents that pass on valuable knowledge from one person or team to another. Likewise we're not property managers, even though we want suitable facilities for people to be able to meet and work together in.

We do other things in KM. There's no talking allowed in the library, so we get out to where the work is done and witness, listen and help. We study the processes of knowledge in action in the field - learning, innovation, knowledge sharing, applying best practice - and we implement solutions, provide services and make interventions to help that process work better towards the aims of the organisation. Some of that involves leveraging information. Some of it doesn't.

Why has IM got confused with KM in so many minds? I think it's materialism and the persistence of pre-existing cultural values and norms. It's more comfortable to the orthodox, industrially-organised company to have people who manage IT or buildings or even documents than it is to have knowledge managers who challenge the accepted ways of working and do activities you're not accustomed to. You can point to something tangible in the material world that they're responsible for, and the kinds of activities they're doing are familiar and accepted. Another reason I think is that IM itself has been a casualty of the internet and personal computing. When I first went to work we still had libraries and librarians at large industrial and corporate facilities. They had places and systems for storing, indexing and retrieving information and documents. As this all become digitised, those roles went and these duties became part of everyone's job (ie nobody's). Bringing in a Knowledge Manager role often became an opportunity to add in an IT role or put back IM role you'd started to miss.

In KM we like IM. We like suitable IT. We like good workspaces. We also like HR policies that are suitable for the knowledge age (but we're not HR), efficient and effective processes (but we're not Operations Management), repeatable standard procedures (but we're not Quality). And just as much as any of them isn't each other ... we're not IM either.

I'm a management consultant and knowledge manager. I consider my practice to be about business architecture and business change. I like to write about knowledge sharing, innovation, corporate social responsibility, the personality of organisations and learning from experience.

As ever, all views are solely my own

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