Mapping the Territory for a Knowledge-Based System

Abstract

Although many powerful applications are able to locate vast amounts of digital information, effective tools for selecting, structuring, personalizing, and making sense of the digital resources available to us are lacking. As a result, the opportunities to connect and empower knowledge workers are severely limited. In recognizing these constraints, predictions of the ‘Next Knowledge Management (KM) Generation’ focus on nurturing personal and social settings and on utilizing existing and creating new knowledge. Levy even envisages a decentralizing KM revolution that gives more power and autonomy to individuals and self-organized groups. But, such promising scenarios have not materialized yet. It might be time to follow Pollard’s suggestion of going back to the original premise and promise of KM and start again - but this time from the bottom up by developing processes, programs, and tools to improve knowledge workers’ effectiveness and sense-making. As part of an ongoing design science research (DSR) project, this paper contributes to prior publications by synthesizing renowned computer-based methods of collective intelligence to provide a visual meta-perspective of a novel personal knowledge management (PKM) concept and prototype application. In focusing on time, space, and causality, the bottom-up approach taken, pictures the relevant personal and organizational knowledge spaces as a substitute for the intangible KM territory and provides a guiding map for knowledge workers and KM education.