“RE: Knowledge Management, Meta Data, and the Organization”

On Tuesday, October 30, 2001 at 9:34 PM, Brian Carnell wrote:

>>I am a believer in knowledge management, but that technology area needs 
>>improvement for widespread and effective usage. So far most knowledge 
>>management systems are merely front-ends to databases without processes to 
>>distill information in a comprehensible form different from the way the 
>>information was entered.
>
>Probably because to do so even in the best of circumstances is expensive on 
>a number of fronts (time/money mostly).

Unfortunately -- and you know I *hate* to say this -- most people would say that the cutting edge of KM is happening at the biggest businesses (like Ford), where they can afford the higher costs.

On the other hand, Brian, you've made use of some KM tools on your site... and I don't think it's been terribly expensive. If one person can do the work of applying metadata to the information he produces/collates, why can't a whole department or organization do it?

As I said, it only takes a couple of small changes to make a huge difference.

Seth