It's really nice to see a list like this. You convey these key ideas deceptively well and consistently, without over complicating them (which can be tricky :p). Thanks Dave.

While I am still learning the details, most of the concepts here seem intuitively right to me. I'm not quite clear on what technological contact is though. Could someone expand a bit please?

A really nice commentary Dave, I have blogged on it today. My only thought on your response to the first sin is that I have always taken that to mean developing a common working understanding of what KM means to the given organisation.

As you know, I have little patience for the definition debates, but I do believe it is important for an organisation to figure out and explain what KM means/should mean for the organisation - we usually help our clients encapsulate this at the end of a KM strategy exercise into a KM vision statement that explains what KM means for the organisation, and what's important about the KM activity that will follow.

So maybe "working definition" is a little too strong and misleading, but "common understanding" should be less sinful, surely?

Thanks Glen and Patrick.
Glen - my interpretation of technological contact is when people link via a virtual environment rather than face to face or over a telephone.
Patrick - I agree on understanding, its why I referenced the taxi driver and the map story which I should have elaborated. I will do that at some stage in the future

Thanks for a timely flashback to timeless issues, Dave. To pick but one, I think the stance that knowledge is "all about action", provides an escape from the whole "Viewing knowledge as existing predominantly outside the heads of individuals" issue. The focus on behaviour lets us view knowledge as an aspect of the currently acting system, be it a person, an organization or a country - rather than a constituent part of it.

If you accept that, it follows that viewing knowledge as located inside or outside the brain is neither right nor wrong, but simply a red herring, a quasi-issue, a counter-productive trap. Instead, we can look into the processes and determinants of those behaviour patterns that interest us, and the fruitful question of how to cultivate these.

Hi --

Seems no one has the courage to ponder why these are STILL sins. Frankly, it vicious cycle of KM. KM people are co-dependent enablers; they are fearful risk managers. Hence, they continuously perpetuate their myths and commit mortal sins. Any normal disipline would have 'new' sins after a decade.

The KM doctor is very ill.

Also, the axe-grinding on social atomism is a nuisance. "Viewing knowledge as existing predominantly outside the heads of individuals" IS about the collective intelligence, about collaborative knowledge, value networks, narrative and information markets.

After all, it does not read:

"Viewing knowledge as existing predominantly outside the head of an individual."

Please, we are suitably warned of atomism, but it is starting to interfere with critical complex properties of markets, networks. It is making the ‘cognitive-edge’ rather dull.

Cheers,

-j

John, while I have concerns about KM I am not prepared to support the stereotyping above. I think a similar list could be produced for most management movements (including value networks) and at least the list came from KM itself.

As to social atomism - we have an ideological disagreement here as we both know. My view is that it is critical to sharpening the edge

Hi --

Failure to examine oneself, one’s craft and profession, is what perpetuates these sins.

Stereotype is not pejorative. Look at Corporate IT. Their job is risk management. The do it very well for the most part. They fall down when trying to create or lead any sort of business strategy. It is why there has been an enormous migration of strategic and tactical ICT into business units, away from the controlling influences of IT. In short, IT as a strategic change agent has been a failure. That’s fine, workable, a fact of life.

Sadly, KM has adopted this model and is perpetually sinning.

Look, in the KM era of Prusak, Stewart, Fahey, JS Brown, etc., KM was iconoclastic. The KM archetype was leadership!

A decade ago the 11 Sins were telegraphing the eventual demise of KM. For heaven sake, go to a KM conference, the people there are secretaries, retirees, administrators, librarians – they are not leaders. They are knowledge apparatchiks. These roles are important and honorable; it is just not KM…

Yes, it is encouraging that the list came from KM, but it was a generation ago, before the huge intellectual and professional flight from KM.

BTW, the duality of the collective AND the individual originates from Hayek, e.g., “It is with respect to this that practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique information of which beneficial use might be made, but of which use can be made only if the decisions depending on it are left to him or are made with his active co-operation.” Social atomism is a red herring and unworthy polemic.

Finally, it is not good to be glib about so-called ‘management movements’ whatever those are. That's what got us in the mess of BPR for example.

BTW, belated thanks for the list, your comments and reply.

Cordially,

-j

Excellent commentary. I think the idea of an "11 Deadly Sins" is a perfectly useful way of stimulating a directed dialog (multilog?) on this subject. The London cabbie with the "knowledge" vs. a map is a very useful analogy. One equally useful for the technology KM often finds it self in is an experienced local driver vs. MapQuest or similar mapping programs using GIS-like databases. The latter may know the apparent shortest route in terms of distance but not the fastest or least stressful and programs such as those do not (yet) allow for commentary or alternative routings by users (i.e., the network).

The only other thing I would note is that KM has been confounded (not necessarily by this community) with ICT. It is important to stress that KM long precedes the Internet and the computer (hence all those librarians and secretaries and consultants). Technology has vastly ramped up the capability of knowledge networks to solve/manage problems the way that pre-modern KM networks did (and still do) but on a potentially vastly larger scale. But it would be a tragedy for Km to be ghetto-ized into simply a "branch" of ICT.