Mario's Take on KM

Hello world. 
I have been active in the Knowledge Management field since 2005, meaning I have been specifically employed in Knowledge Management since that time.  In my short time in this field, I have discovered pretty much what many of you, who are either looking to see what it is about or who are confused about what it is and isn't.
Most of my discussions about knowledge management start with my definition. It's succinct yet open to interpretation and totally gets conversations started about the subject. Here goes:


"Knowledge Management is controlling the movement of knowledge from the one who has it to the one who needs it."


In this definition I don't say it is "about", but others have said that it is about ( or 'concerning') controlling the movement.... They are not wrong, it's just my preference to state definitively that managing knowledge is controlling the movement of knowledge from the one who has to the one who has not . Our choices on how to control that flow are what I believe to be the Knowledge Manager's chief concerns; be it whatever combination of codification and personalization they deem best at the time. (And by the way, if you want to use this definition, please do, just remember to tell every one where you got it.) 
Knowledge is Justified True Belief.
I am careful about defining 'knowledge' such that people will not confuse it - as it is often done - with information:
What you know must be true, you must believe it's true, and you have to be justified in your belief.
I know it seems like the beginnings of a philosophical argument, but I have found it to be a good foundation to base everything else about knowledge management. And we are going to cover much of those topics, as well as what I have experienced in applying KM to the organizations I have worked for; the good, the bad and the horribly gone wrong. 


Knowledge is based on action, and it leads to actions; experience.
Hence, my motto:
What you know is what you can do.


When discussing KM with practitioners and non-practitioners, almost immediately, the conversation heads toward the digital world: portals, databases, chats/IM's, web 2.0 .......every kind of way to manage information and knowledge in the digital world. Yes, digits are faster, easier to store and access. But they only store part of our knowledge; the explicit knowledge. I focus on the most difficult and relevant facets of knowledge management: the people side.

The Soft Side is the Hard Side.
Most say - and I agree - that knowledge management is of the soft side of management, dealing with people and all their inconsistencies, biases and unique views of the world, unlike the other hard disciplines of information management, data management, content management, and every management discipline that is policy and rules based. But take away the digital processing, retrieval and storing of information and knowledge, and all you have done really is slow down the movement of knowledge. Every aspect of gaining acceptance still has to address the trepidations of humans. We still have to manuever among the social networks showing early adopters and mavens that what we are bringing to the groujp is beneficial and useful. So everything that you hard core management types think you bring to the table, with your hard and fast rules based on algorithms, business rules, use cases and logic. Well, we have hard math working for us, too. (mark this for a future blog post...)


What to expect
How am I going to be different from other blogs on KM? Well, I read a few of the others. I will do my best to not repeat their content. I'll reflect what is going on in my worldview of KM and what I am doing during my working hours. I don't expect to be right but about half the time, at first. Once I have it down, though, you will have it right along with me.
I'll write about leveraging knowledge, innovation, exploration vs exploitation, and my favorite subject of social network analysis (which is also my current pet project).  
I'll be happy to share what works, based on my own experience, and sometimes maybe others as they allow me to, but do not expect to see all of my secret recipes for success. Some things have to developed on our own (hey -- that sounds like a great future article about the knowledge economy!). 


I really enjoy feedback. I'm thick-skinned, take few comments personally, and try to not make the same mistake more than twice. And I promise to be more witty, employ more graphics in my content and constantly improve this blog.


Chowdy!!!