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| 11/05/08 | | The difference between knowledge and information |
"Not that old chestnut" I hear you cry.
We have written a whitepaper on this subject and blogged on it a few times. It keeps the KM list serves across the planet pre-occupied for a few months each year.
I recently had coffee with a client to get an update on the implementation of the knowledge strategy we did for them a while back. The client described good progress in many areas but highlighted one of the things holding them back was the continuing confusion/uncertainty about the difference between information management and knowledge management. This was despite an extensive education campaign to get a consistent 'language' in place across the organisation on order to minimise the roadblocks to implementation.
This reinforced to me that we should just stop 'pushing the proverbial up a hill' on this one. My suggestion to the client was to stop talking about knowledge management. It is much easier to grasp concepts like 'better information management' on the one hand, and 'improved collaboration and learning' on the other. This conception makes it much clearer that there is a big 'people' and 'process/practice' component to the task.
Knowledge strategy = Information Management + [Collaboration and Learning]
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Comments
Mark,
I share your frustration on this one. I came up with a very similar definition. See http://steve-dale.net/?p=186
Steve
Posted by: Steve Dale at May 11, 2008 7:13 PM
Hi Steve,
This phenomenon is no surprise, which is why we wrote the whitepaper on 'Our take on how to talk about KM'. It is simply a practical reality that we need to keep our language as simple and clear as possible to get the message across in managing knowledge. Even though I like your definitions they are still too complicated to generate the resolve for people to act.
Posted by: Mark Schenk at May 11, 2008 11:37 PM