Stop Apologising for Knowledge Management

Through Lilia Efimova‘s weblog, Mathemagenic, I have bumped into this particularly interesting article by David Gurteen on Stop Apologising for Knowledge Management. As I said, this is one very thought provoking article that David has put together, and that I have enjoyed very much, in which he is actually saying something that I have been advocating myself for quite some time now: There is no need to apologise for Knowledge Management. What is the point? Indeed, David comes to discuss how quite a few KMers out there have been in a situation where they have been in the need of neglecting or denying the Knowledge Management concept that they feel so passionate about. Goodness! How bad is that? How can you deny what you are so passionate about all along? Yes, I can certainly agree with David when he mentions that some times people may find it difficult to relate to, and that is perhaps what our job should be: helping clear out the KM message so that it is understood by everyone. But from there to denying it is going way too far away, in my opinion.

I agree with David that Knowledge Management is just a label, like KM is, like many many others. That is one of the things that differentiates as human beings, the fact that we need to label everything, but that is it. There is no need to go beyond that. What really matters is to actually make use of that label to move into the next level which is basically explaining what KM is all about, bring in some sensemaking into it, even though that may not necessarily be an easy thing either, as I have commented elsewhere as well. But at least, we should try !

There is no denying that Knowledge Management is back, I certainly agree with David on that one, too, specially with all this hype about social software, social networking and the like and I just hope that this time around we have learned the lessons from the past. KM is here to stay, whether we like it or not, thus if you feel that you are still passionate about the subject there is just one thing that you could do: show it!.

And show it now !