BU is in the Knowledge Business
It may be stating the obvious, but BU is in the
knowledge business. From the deep understanding
and historical knowledge of its senior managers, to
the expertise of its faculty, to the process knowledge
of its employees: the University functions through,
and because of, its knowledge. Knowledge in all
its forms is the key to running the University. Not
surprising then that over the last 15 years or so, many
business organizations have began to realize that
one of their key strategic assets is the knowledge
they possess [1]. Not just a notional asset either, as
many of those same organizations have actually
quantified the value of their corporate knowledge
and declared it as a business asset in their accounting
process [2]. At the same time, it doesn’t take a
rocket scientist to work out that if you have a
business asset as valuable as your knowledge, then
you had better start to manage it like any of your
other business assets, such as hardware, property or
personnel.
From this need to manage knowledge has grown
the business discipline now known as knowledge
management (KM). In fact, knowledge management
is anything but new, as companies have always
managed their knowledge in one way or another, its
just that previously they didn’t call it KM. KM in
one form or another has always existed wherever
business existed. In medieval times in Europe,
skilled craftsman apprenticed younger people in
order to pass on their knowledge to them. That
practice is still in evidence in KM today, now we
call it mentoring. Similarly, individuals and societies
have always managed their knowledge, whether
gathering important knowledge in documents,
visually or aurally, we capture what we know so
we can pass it on to others that follow us.
However, the main focus of KM, and its value
proposition to businesses, is that it seeks to not
merely capture what we know, but to ensure that
what we know gets used for the benefit of individuals
and companies. In other words, KM is all about
improvement, whether it be at an individual, group,
or enterprise level.
At the same time, KM has proved problematic
for many organizations who have tried to implement
it [3]. Why so? Because KM can seem to go
everywhere: it’s broad and it’s deep, and if you
don’t scope it properly, and set a realistic level of
expectation around it, you may find it becomes
difficult to manage.