Isn't knowledge management (KM) a fad?

This question has been floating around academic circles and the Web for years. Why?

Because in the late 1980's and 1990's a number of business innovations were introduced in order to allow the US economy to compete more effectively with European and Japanese industry. We saw the advent of quality circles, re-engineering and enterprise resource programs, and although some of the benefits lingered, the processes faded into the background and appeared to be mere fads. Knowledge management was introduced as the next best thing, and it's understandable why workers were skeptical that KM would last, especially since the early KM efforts focused on technological systems designed to have employees enter everything they knew into organizational databases. Of course, these efforts were doomed to fail.

The next wave of knowledge management focused on communication. Etienne Wenger wrote about Communities of Practice , and others emphasized the importance of effective action-oriented meetings and how to work with virtual teams in global organizations. Effective KM was linked with diffusion of innovation, research development, and learning about the world at large.

KM 2.0 (as KM pioneer David Gurteen describes it) is the new way to share knowledge. Knowledge management today is embracing and employing Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs, video sites and social networkin, such as Facebook in order to connect workers with each other and with clients KM seems stronger than ever. 

In his recent newsletter Gurteen ( Gurteen Knowledge ) describes how people were flocking into the KM and Libraries session at the recent international conference (IFLA ) in Quebec City. Mary Lee Kennedy from the Harvard Business School (formerly at Microsoft) described how HBS is using social technologies to share what the faculty know (Working Knowledge). Her presentation and others from government agencies and public libraries garnered plenty of enthusiasm. Professors Kay Cassell and Jana Varlejs and I were there along with LIS grad student Erin Hummel and PhD student Heather Moulaison .

Gurteen also talks about the 800 business and government workers who came to the KMconference in Brazil and about a new KM group forming in Mumbai, India.

So, there's something in the air around the possibilities and benefits of KM.

Want to know more? Join us at the Knowledge Institute meeting, Tues., Sept. 23, noon - 1:30 PM, SCILS Faculty Lounge, room 323.