Fourth stage of KM revealed at the KMWorld conference
The corollary issues that derive from zombie knowledge are fascinating. How do you monitor the accuracy and pertinence of what is in your KM system? This is certainly an issue, even just for routine information. The zombie knowledge concept, however, is broader. For tactical and strategic information, it becomes far more compelling. Knowledge is certainly not simply facts and data, it is also corporate culture and how-to knowledge. Does this how-to knowledge include corporate strategy? Does this mean that a role for KM is, or should be, to monitor corporate strategy? This is not a role that most KM managers have contemplated or anticipated.
Interestingly and insightfully, the new ISO standard on KM, if not explicitly recognizing this issue, provides a place for it. ISO Standard 9001:2015, clause 7.1.6, breaks the KM process down into four steps. Powell parsesd it this way: Determine, Maintain, Provide, Refresh. The choice of the term “refresh” seems clearly to imply more than just adding what is new. It also implies the housekeeping of removing what is old and stale before it becomes a dangerous malignancy.
A piece of speculation
The broader implication of stage four KM is that we may be beginning to move with more speed into the world of the semantic web. It is probably too strong a statement to say that the prospect of the semantic web has been traveling down the road before us like a water mirage for some 3 decades, ever since Tim Berners-Lee proposed the notion in 1989, but it is certainly the case that the rate of development has been much slower than most of us expected. However, it may be that a decade or two down the road, we will recognize that what we are observing now as the consolidation of stage four of KM and the corresponding dramatic increase in the attention paid to knowledge graphs in the KM community coincided, not coincidentally, with the inflection point at which the development of the semantic web noticeably accelerated. We may even be able someday to enjoy saying that we were there “back when.”