Who needs to know

Who Needs to Know is an article written by Leandro Herrero of the Chalfont Project. I subscribe to his newsletter.

In the article he make a very good description of the evolution of KM as a discipline and how we are seeing a move from a strictly IT-centric view of KM to one that includes the social aspects of knowledge.

He also makes the point that many times, KM is "something added" to and existing application or process. It is used, in Leandro's words "to plug into the system.

Leandro tries to turn this thinking on it's head as he asks "who needs to know what, why, when and where they must know it and how will they find it out". These questions are asked at the onset and knowledge is the drivers.

What's good about this is that it looks at knowledge as a true corporate asset that can drive value and takes into account the social aspects of learning .

Leandro also says that "IT does not often create new behaviours, at least not sustanable ones". This is what many in the KM world have been saying. If we want KM to really deliver value, we must move it beyond simply a technology solution.

To be frank, I am not sure (from looking at journals like KM World) if all the software firms who consider themselves KM providers have figured this out yet.