Tag Archives: #KM Thought of the Day

KMers like to talk around the idea of the explicit knowledge vs tacit knowledge divide. We like to say that the tacit is the bigger, more important part – and yet then invest the majority of the effort into the explicit side.

Of course things have a purpose – and the orthodoxy will say that I’m about to prove that. But knowledge artefacts aren’t always like that.

When I think about how I have mostly learned and improved my own KM competence and practice, my first thoughts are not the usual suspects of training, attending the big conferences, nor reading the big books.

The key organiser of the community of practice is likely to be a highly visible person. However, there’s another mode in which they can operate, with equal validity, and that is one step behind the scenes.

Trapped in the lecture hall you can’t get on with your own stuff. There are no other nice distractions. All you can do is go internal. And the speaker is saying things that prod your mind in unexpected ways, that maybe shake you out of what you might have otherwise thought, just left to doing your own stuff some more

If you’ve ever shopped online, say for a garment or anything else for that matter, then you’ve likely dealt with metadata.

What is it that motivates me to review something? Mostly, nothing – I feel hugely over-surveyed and draw the line utterly this side of reviewing the packaging of my Amazon parcel.

I don’t suppose that the dilemma or balance between “run the shop” activities and “improve the shop” activities is special to KM. It’s a consideration for all organisational functions, and, indeed, for all businesses.

Stewardship is a high calling. It’s taking care of something – preserving and enhancing it. I believe the calling to be a steward of something is usually quite selfless and related to seeing an intrinsic worth in that thing. The concept of knowledge stewardship is, to my mind, just like that.

The difference between the content side and the collaboration side: “Shush, there’s no talking in the library”.