KMC drops AIIM, partners with ARMA for standards development

The Knowledge Management Consortium has abandoned its short romance with AIIM and decided to partner with The Association of Record Managers and Administrators (ARMA) to continue its knowledge management standards work.

The KMC and AIIM parting was abrupt and led to KMC's abandonment of its sponsorship of the "KM Forum" April 11 in conjunction with the AIIM '99 Conference and Exposition in Atlanta. (KMWorld has since stepped in to sponsor that Forum.)

The links between records management and knowledge management are strong, according to KMC president Ed Swanstrom, who defended the union with ARMA. "Without accurate records, we cannot create knowledge that can be validated," he said. "With records we can go back and examine or reexamine the foundation of a knowledge claim to determine its validity."

The KMC had cited AIIM's focus on document management as one of the reasons for dissolving the original partnership. The KMC was working with AIIM to develop ANSI/ISO standards for knowledge management.

In addition to an over-emphasis on the document sciences, the KMC has also pointed out that it and AIIM had very different world-views: the KMC focuses on organizational goals and end-user perspectives, while AIIM has more of a technology approach, and a "vendor-driven image," according to Swanstrom.

As a result of the new partnership, the KMC will not meet at the AIIM show next month in Atlanta. The next physical meeting will be held December 4-5 at the KMCI conference in Orlando. Until then, virtual meetings will be conducted via real-time Internet broadcasts using video conferencing facilities at The Navy Acquisition Center in Washington DC