Knowledge management: Has it changed my working life? will it change yours?

Abstract

Recent years have seen a rapid growth in the literature of knowledge management (KM) with over 1800 different software products labelled as KM, even though companies interpret the definition in different ways. Notes that this lack of consensus has not prevented the considerable expenditure of money on courses, seminars and conferences on how to develop knowledge management programmes and even how to define it. The author records the ways in which KMhas changed her working life through the need to understand the concept as interpreted by the companies she has worked for. Concludes that the stages of the information profession have shifted from custodian, to reactive, to proactive and finally, to innovative. Ways of thinking need to be changed in order to further knowledge management programmes. Sometimes the simple recognition that there is a knowledge management programme in operation can be a big step forward.