The Future of Knowledge Management

In 1999 I published an article for the European American Business Journal entitled the 'Future of Knowledge Management'.

What was poignant for me, at the time, was "will the good and extraordinary work that is going on in knowledge management show results quickly enough to convince the critical mass of organisations that they must urgently pursue this, or will the massive and mediocre bandwagon ultimately convince organisations that knowledge management is nothing too special, and relegate it to 'yet another initiative?. Are we likely to throw the baby out with the bathwater?"

I also felt compelled to write that "there will be several fragmented schools of knowledge management, each with their own approach, philosophy, methods and tools. The 'human factor' school is still fighting it out for supremacy over the 'technology factor' school. The philosophers and academics will continue to have their say about what knowledge management is.

Reason suggests that they should fuse and integrate their different and equally important perspectives into one holistic framework. Reality suggests that different schools will wish to become dominant."

Where do you think we are today in 2006?
Will the good work that is still being done ultimately create the critical mass that is still needed?

I have, since writing the article, developed my thinking further. I now believe the time is absolutely right for an 'Open Source KM Methodology' to capitalise on the good thinking that has been done in the past as a basis, and more importantly, to see exponential improvements gained from an 'open' km community as opposed to gradual linear improvements gained from a small 'closed' proprietary system.

Hence our decision for Knowledge Associates to donate our KM consulting methodology to the Open Source community at

www.knowledge-management-online.com.

No doubt there will be more challenges of a different nature, but I sincerely believe this type of initiative is needed for the 'Future of Knowledge Management'.

(the full article is available at www.knowledgeassociates.com/ka/news.nsf)

or from ronyoung@knowledgeassociates.com