Hi Meliha, William,

I think my response would be that KM has "saved" those organizations and people who have been willing to listen to the messages. But a lot of organizations and people have not been willing, and some of those are in the vanguard of the AI/machine learning/big data movement; and (too) many of those people are not even aware of KM or concepts like tacit knowledge. So if they have a working definition of knowledge (sin 1) it still looks very much like data, and several of the other sins follow - like numbers 2, 3, 5, 8 and 10.

Number 9 ( Failing to Recognize the Importance of Experimentation) is probably the one where most progress has been made.

On the other hand, I think that number 8 ( Focusing on the Past and the Present and Not the Future) always was a much wider problem than one just for KM to tackle. George Huber wrote an excellent book about this in 2004, "The Necessary Nature of Future Firms: Attributes of Survivors in a Changing World" (Sage).

I could go on for ages, but I'll stop now.

Best wishes,

John E

Although the Km community still has a lot of "deadly sin" in its practices, I have personally adress these in my own. (1) Knowledge is conceptual capability; (2) Capability covers both stock and flow; (3) This capability is cognitive; (4) Cooperation trumps isolation; (5) Cognition covers both tacit and explicit; (6) All capability has some use; (7) Thinking and reasoning is #1 on my agenda [see Thinking and Reasoning: A Very Short Introduction from OUP Press]; (8) Past-present-future is a continuum; (9) Application necessitates experimentation; (10) Digital coordination and harmony IS the long-term goal; (11) As a Conceptual Pragmatist, outcome is always my primary goal. My "Rules of Ignorance Management" and "Rules of Knowledge Management" (both posted on ResearchGate) are my own modest attempt to provide some guidelines.

Hi William, thank you for your response. I downloaded and read your rules and tend to agree with them except for the first rule of ignorance management. Concentrating on what is needed appears rational, but sometimes we do not know what kind of knowledge will be useful to us in the future. I remember Steve Jobs’ comment that he enrolled in a calligraphy course out of pure curiosity and that became crucial for his font design later on. So, I would change the first rule to: learn whatever you want rather than just what you need. Meliha

Hi Meliha, William,

I think my response would be that KM has "saved" those organizations and people who have been willing to listen to the messages. But a lot of organizations and people have not been willing, and some of those are in the vanguard of the AI/machine learning/big data movement; and (too) many of those people are not even aware of KM or concepts like tacit knowledge. So if they have a working definition of knowledge (sin 1) it still looks very much like data, and several of the other sins follow - like numbers 2, 3, 5, 8 and 10.

Number 9 ( Failing to Recognize the Importance of Experimentation) is probably the one where most progress has been made.

On the other hand, I think that number 8 ( Focusing on the Past and the Present and Not the Future) always was a much wider problem than one just for KM to tackle. George Huber wrote an excellent book about this in 2004, "The Necessary Nature of Future Firms: Attributes of Survivors in a Changing World" (Sage).

I could go on for ages, but I'll stop now.

Best wishes,

John E

Thanks Meliha for question. I feel that we still live with and commit those sins, largely because of the misconceptions about what knowledge and by extension, knowledge management is all about as alluded to by John Steven Edwards. Until clear distinctions are made among knowledge, data, snd information, I am afraid, we will continue reveling in those sins.

This from Kimiz Dalkir is also very good for anyone with a serious interest in KM-

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/knowledge-management-theory-and-practice

And yes the problems continue due to a lack of understanding at multiple levels within organisations as well as a lack of emphasis via the leadership and management.

Dear colleagues,

thank you for your responses. It seems that KM researchers will have to continue to work harder on convincing practice of the value of KM and foster its adoption.

Meliha