Thanks for mentioning that thread, @cedric . Knowledge Management isn’t dead — in fact as pure Gen AI initiatives struggle, there’s a bit more interest. (As a hint why — the kind of improvisational, “good-enough”, flavor of Generative AI is often far more reliable and useful if it’s applied around a framework of explicit knowledge models.)
A Gartner consultant mentioned to me a few months ago that a client had come to him wondering how to make (Gen) AI actually pay off for them. The client said “I hear I need to do knowlege management — what’s that?” (In case of any doubt, a Gartner consultant is not the best source to learn about knowledge management. They are excellent, however, for learning about the business models called “pay to play” and “double dip”.)
But for sure, given that tacit knowledge gets a mention in every KM book, even the most technology-oriented ones, then that aspect of KM has failed. Tacit knowledge is gained and passed on in the same ad-hoc way it always has been. Probably passed on less, now there are fewer cues from a physical work environment. (There is a lot of truth behind the concept of “embodied cognition”, even if a lot of academic BS surrounds it.)
As for why codifying tacit knowledge hasn’t taken off? Probably because it makes people think too hard. And the results aren’t immediately visible.
Thank you for the link to the Jephson paper! Very useful and pithy.
I wonder what would happen if I tried to record what I know about good and bad ways to manage information tooling and projects. There are so many recurring patterns, but they’re not always obvious. I recognize them mostly through a gut feel, though I can articulate some of them OK.