About Knowledge Managements opportunities

Here is a paragraph written by Lilia Efimova:
"However, much of knowledge management research and practice is focused at the organisational level, aiming to develop an environment where knowledge is created, shared and used, as well as implementing specific interventions that support these processes. In many companies, because "no one seems to own the problem of knowledge-worker performance" (Davenport, Thomas, & Cantrell, 2002: 25), the personal side of KM is often neglected: interventions and systems are designed and implemented without thinking about how they would match the practices and daily routines of individual knowledge workers. As a result, knowledge workers often perceive new KM activities as an overhead instead of making work easier (Davenport & Glaser, 2002)."

Now here is one written by myself:
"The first Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs) were centrally based and followed a top-down design approach. The organization managers, supported by knowledge engineers, collected and structured the contents of an organizational memory as a finished product at design time (before the organizational memory was deployed) and then disseminated the product, expecting employees to use it and update it. However, employees often claimed that the knowledge stored in the repository was detached from their real working practices. This led to the development of evolutionary methods, which prescribe that the basic KM system is initially developed and evolves proactively in an on-going fashion. However, most of the initiatives are still based on building central repositories and portals, which assume standardized vocabularies, languages, and classification schemes. Consequently, employees’ lack of trust and motivation often lead to dissatisfaction."

How many points in common can we find in the above text? LOTS IN COMMON, RIGHT? Well, now let me tell you that Lilia and I work only one building apart in the same University and we had to go all the way to Graz, Austria (i-know'04 conference) to meet each other. Well, I guess this says something about the lack of knowledge management in our University... but we have to agree that this kind of situation is not so uncommon to find in other places as well.

Now, think how many great opportunities may be lost due to poor care for KM... have I conviced you to start a KM project yet? Well, at least promise me you will think about it, ok? : ))