Is KM dead?

[Transcript and video of interview with Stan Garfield at the KMWorld 2015 Conference. See video at the bottom of the page.]

 

Q: Is KM dead?

 

A: A lot of people have asked if KM is dead or have asserted that it is. But I think it's doing all right. It goes through cycles. At various times in companies where there's a cost-cutting movement afoot, they'll decide to cut the KM program and then that'll go away. Later they realize that they still need to do the things that knowledge management encompasses: They still need to share, innovate, reuse, collaborate, and learn. Whether they call it knowledge management or they call it something else, it's still needed, and therefore they'll start it up again. 

 

I think it's like anything else: people come and go from the field. Programs come and go, but I would say the KM field is relatively stable because there's this ongoing need to do the things that knowledge management does.