« de-intellectualising knowledge work | Main | Knowledge maps to visualise knowledge traces »

March 06, 2004

Why centralised knowledge bases do not work

I am aware that the metaphor of knowledge animals is not a theory, it is just a 'wild idea'. Nevertheless, it helps me and my colleagues (among others Lilia )to come up with explanations for several successes and -so to say- less fortunate KM-interventions. The following explanations resulted from a short discussion on why centralised knowledge bases do not work (i.e. have limited value). Please feel free to add to this list of explantions or to add your examples of (un)successful KM-interventions.

Knowledge bases do not take into account that:
- people consult people even for documents as long as this is faster, easier (k-animals are lazy and want maximum output with minimal effort)
- people consult people even for documents, as quality and relvance etsimates are useful, and for this you need knowledge, thus people
- people mostly like snacking, and only sometimes nutritious meals like reports
- people need pure 'information scent' not made up traces
- people leave valuable traces anyway, but in their own territories, not somewhere else
- people people are proud and cherish their own spaces -territories- and the cost of shared spaces
- re-using knowledge of others (i.e., other territories) is hard, it is like battles in the frontier areas of territories; k-bases are not sufficient to support knowledge re-use
- ......

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83420bce653ef00d8355108f869e2

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Why centralised knowledge bases do not work:

Comments

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

April 2004

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
        1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30  

About this log

Colleague bloggers

Books I read

  • Barry Oshry: The Possibilities of Organization

    Barry Oshry: The Possibilities of Organization
    Brilliant how just pictures describe (mis)communication in organisations.

  • Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
    It reads like a small snack, still it is quite nutritious. Love it. Among many other things, the author makes happiness or flow researcheable. Flow is measured as a state where you use your skills above average and where you are challenged above average. An interesting finding is that people report such a flow state more often during work than during leisure time (while they report to rather spend more time at leisure than at work). It is interesting to find out how to optimise flow in knowledge work.