IM -- KM

IM <-----> KM values just where do you sit?

As we get to know each other, you will come to appreciate I'm quite a radical 'knowledge' person. Most folks in the KM business do not worry too much about what they are dealing with, i.e., information or knowledge. I think the IM -- KM difference is indeed a critical distinction. Folks that have a good understanding of the difference are better positioned to see emergent knowledge related opportunities in the workplace and market.

It is difficult to make this contrast without talking one side down and the other side up (at least for me). Far too often I see the market highly confused about what they are dealing with. The same thing happens with 'tacit' knowledge, it really helps to have a very clear idea what tacit knowledge is all about, then you are in a better position to see where the concept is being used incorrectly.

Many folk see these distinctions as just being 'picky' and as 'playing' with language. My experience is if you make fine distinctions you can always recognize mixtures of meaning & confusion later, but it does not work the other way around.

Quite a few folk in the IC world really believe they are working with knowledge, some even think it is only when you have an 'asset', something you can exchange and assign a value to and that has legal protection / recognition (e.g. patent) that you are dealing with 'knowledge'.

Hope this helps

Comments

[Stuart]

Join Beyond Northern Iraq discussion.

[CyBarian]

I find it continously both amusing and tragic that corporations actually believe they are on track with their KM initiatives. Nothing that I have seen or read (in the umpteen number of KM books, articles, etc. I've poured over) shouts out what the KM solution is. KM initiatives, for the most part, are merely IM initiatives with someone in power getting kudos for convincing their boss that the I is really a K.
Knowledge is uniquely mine. It has NO existence beyond the world that my five senses create for ME. It cannot be transfered to another, in any form or by any function. This is because all knowledge exists at the railroad crossing of new information guardrails and an eternal railtrain speeding by with endless railcars of own personal history. Each of those railcars represents MY context. Not anyone elses. We may share the guardrail. But no one shares ANY of my railcars.

[Lilia]

I guess the problem is that KM has to do something with information next to knowledge.

I believe that knowledge doesn't exist "out there", it is always bounded to people. I also believe that knowledge is not shared (=I give it to you and you have it), but (re)constructed. One, who shares, helps (often unintentionally) another person to learn.

From this perspective, no tech tool contains knowledge: there is no knowledge in weblogs, wikis, on-line community tools, e-mails and even in the air when we talk. I tend to think about "sharing knowledge" in technology-mediated settings as about sharing information with an intention of being understood. So, my weblog post is "information", but in a way it is information that it easier to "convert" into knowledge at your end. The funny thing for me is that many people call this "easy to convert into knowledge information" knowledge. I do as well and it adds to the confusion :)

For me, on the learning side, knowledge starts with information, with ability to find, organise and process information bits while constructing knowledge. Sometimes a bit of information serves as a clue that we need to recall what we know or as a missing connection to "wave" our "half-insights" into knowledge. Of course, personal IM is not the only one of the components that we need for learning (think of relations and trust, shared language to start with, abilities to learn and to "share" in a way that helps others to learn...)

In my own definition to a certain degree KM includes rethinking and reusing IM for the "higher level goal", in the context of understanding what role information flows play in knowledge flows.