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24 Chapter 1

In fact, we are now entering the third generation of knowledge management, one
devoted to content management. In the fi rst generation, the emphasis was placed on
containers of knowledge or information technologies in order to help us with the
dilemma exemplifi ed by the much quoted phrase “ if only we knew what we know ”
( O ’ Dell and Grayson 1998 ). The early adopters of KM, large consulting companies that
realized that their primary product was knowledge and that they needed to inventory
their knowledge stock more effectively, exemplifi ed this phase. A great many intranets
and internal knowledge management systems were implemented during the fi rst KM
generation. This was the generation devoted to fi nding all the information that had
up until then been buried in the organization with commonly produced by-products
encapsulated as reusable best practices and lessons learned.
Reeling from information overload, the second generation swung to the opposite
end of the spectrum, to focus on people; this could be phrased as “ if only we knew
who knows about. ” There was growing awareness of the importance of human and
cultural dimensions of knowledge management as organizations pondered why the
new digital libraries were entirely devoid of content (i.e., information junkyards) and
why the usage rate was so low. In fact, the information technology approach of the
fi rst KM generation leaned heavily toward a top-down, organization-wide monolithic
KM system. In the second generation, it became quite apparent that a bottom-up or
grassroots adoption of KM led to much greater success and that there were many
grassroots movements — which were later dubbed communities of practice . Communities
of practice are good vehicles to study knowledge sharing or the movement of knowl-
edge throughout the organization to spark not only reuse for greater effi ciency but
knowledge creation for greater innovation.
The third stage of KM brought about an awareness of the importance of content —
how to describe and organize content so that intended end users are aware it exists,
and can easily access and apply this content. This phase is characterized by the advent
of metadata to describe the content in addition to the format of content, content
management, and knowledge taxonomies. After all, if knowledge is not put to use to
benefi t the individual, the community of practice, and/or the organization, then
knowledge management has failed. Bright ideas in the form of light bulbs in the pocket
are not enough — they must be plugged in and this can only be possible if people know
what there is to be known, can fi nd it when they need, can understand it, and, perhaps
most important, are convinced that this knowledge should be put to work. A
slogan for this phase might be something like: “ taxonomy before technology ” ( Koenig
2002 , 3).