debz

One of most difficult questions I’ve had to answer with respect to the subject of Knowledge Management is why Technology is so important.

The people asking these questions do not confuse Knowledge Management with Content Management ( as a lot of people very often do ). More often than not they do understand what KM is about and what it could potentially achieve.

So what is the answer? Is technology really that important to KM?

I tried drawing a correlation between the various KM initiatives I’ve been a part of over the years and whether technology did play an important role in it. The results were pretty startling, in over 80% of the initiatives technology did play a vital role. The most common role being the ability to bridge the huge geographical divide that comes with the day to day runnings of a Multi-national corporation.

As I’ve stated in many of my previous posts Knowledge Management is very simply creating channels of communications ( in essence, getting people to talk to one another ). With the breadth of communication enablers that we have at our disposal today its no wonder KM has started relying heavily on technology.

Lets not forget another valuable contribution of technology to the implementation of KM in an organization. The ability to derive metrics! a necessary task for those of us battling with the leadership teams for funds. As with all companies success speaks volumes when it is in the form of a verifiable number. KM is held to the same level of accountablility as any other function. You need to know where and how KM helped achieve a particular organization goal.

Bottom line…. For KM to survive in todays organization a technology framework is vital.

Taken from: http://arjunthomas.com/?p=190