The significance of ‘Ba’ for the successful formation of autonomous personal knowledge management systems

Abstract

Just as computer science underwent a revolution in the 1980s with the wide-spread use of personal computers, it is possible that Knowledge Management (KM) will in the twenty-first century experience a decentralizing revolution that gives more power and autonomy to individuals and self-organized groups.” Levy’s scenario—nearly seven decades after Vannevar Bush’s still unfulfilled vision of the Memex—stresses the dire need to provide overdue support tools for knowledge workers in the rising Creative Class and Knowledge Societies. With a prototype system addressing the issues about to be converted into a viable Personal Knowledge Management System (PKMS), the author consolidates recent activities and publications and visualizes and presents a comprehensive Meta-PKMS-Concept covering the main environmental, design, development, deployment, and capacity building concerns. The paper also portrays its substantial interrelationship with Nonaka’s concept of ‘Ba’ and its impact on the novel PKMS approach aiming to aid team-work, life-long-learning, resourcefulness, and creativity of knowledge workers throughout their academic and professional life and as contributors and beneficiaries of organizational performance.