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Implemented by one knowledge worker at a time, bottom-up tools and techniques
demonstrate immediate and explicit benefits in terms of increased productivity and improved
morale and build momentum to overcome the technological and sociological barriers to top-down, enterprise-wide
KM initiatives
I set out to identify the relatively simple and inexpensive steps anyone can take to acquire
and create knowledge, manage documents, share learning, extend networks and collaborate
with colleagues without relying on the technical or financial resources of a corporation. I
found dozens of affordable products and services (many of them actually free) which had
been overlooked by the research of high-priced analysts.
But there is more to PKM than that. Personal knowledge management isn't just about tools
any more than enterprise knowledge management is. In fact, like them, I believe that
personal knowledge management may be the critical ingredient to the creation of a
successful knowledge ecology or the critical impediment that has been overlooked for too
long.
Implementation of enterprise KM systems is a lengthy, expensive and contentious process
that often runs out of time, money and political support before reaching critical mass.
Knowledge management cannot succeed unless every knowledge worker takes personal
responsibility for what he or she knows and doesn't know. While this enhances the value of
intellectual capital for the corporation, it also makes the individual more valuable to the
corporation.
"Today, all of us live and learn in a world that has been radically altered by the ready
availability of vast stores of information encoded in a variety of formats. The learning
process and the information process mirror each other as we seek to construct meaning
from the sources we encounter and to create products that shape and communicate
meaning effectively. Developing expertise in organizing and analyzing information is in fact
the authentic learning that modern education must promote." (Norton and Sprague,
Teaching with Technology, 103.)
“The maintenance of organization in nature is not —and cannot be— achieved by central
management; order can only be maintained by self-organization.”
Biebracher, Report to the EC
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