IDC: Knowledge Managemment and Knowledge Quotients

June 2, 2015

IDC tried to sell some of my work on Amazon without my permission. Much lawyering ensued, and IDC removed the $3,500 eight page heavily edited report about Attivio. I suppose that is a form of my knowledge management expertise: But $3,500 for eight pages without my caveats about Attivio? Goodness gracious. $3,500 for eight pages on Amazon, a company I describe as a digital WalMart..

I then wrote a humorous (to me) analysis of an IDC report about something called a knowledge quotient. You can read that Swiftian write up at this link: http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/honk/ . I write a column about knowledge management, and I found the notion of the KQ intellectually one of the lighter, almost diaphonous, IDC information molecules.

An I too harsh? No because now there is more evidence for my tough love approach to IDC and its KQ content marketing jingoism.

Navigate to “Where to for Knowledge Management in 2015: IDM Reader Survey.” The survey may or may not be spot on. Some of the data undermine the IDC KQ argument and raise important questions about those who would “manage knowledge.” Also, I had to read the title a couple of times to figure out what IDC’s expert was trying to communicate. The where to for is particularly clumsy to me.

I noted this passage:

“The challenge is for staff being able to find the time to contribute and leverage the knowledge/information repositories and having technology systems that are intuitive putting the right information that their fingertips, instead of having to wade through the sea of information spam.”

Ah, ha. KM is about search.

Wait. Not so fast. I highlighted this statement:

Technology is making it easier to integrate systems and connect across traditional boundaries, and social media has boosted people’s expectations for interaction and feedback. The result is that collaboration across the extended value chain is becoming the new normal.

Yikes. A revelation. KM is about social collaboration.

No, no. Another speed bump. I marked this insight too:

“There is also a fair gap between knowledge of the theoretical and knowledge of how things actually work. It is easy to say we should assign metadata to information to increase its discovery but if that metadata should really be more of a folksonomy, some systems and approaches are far too restrictive to enable this. Semantics is also a big issue.”

Finally. KM is about indexing and semantics. Yes, the info I needed.

Wrong again. I circled this brilliant gem:

“Knowledge management has probably lost it momentum as the so-called measurement tools are really measuring best practice which in turn is an average. Perhaps the approach should be along the lines of “Communities of Process” where there is a common objective but various degrees and level of participation but collectively provide a knowledge pool,” he [survey participant]observed.

The write continues along this rocky road of generalizations and buzzwords.

The survey data make three things clear to me:

  • The knowledge quotient jargon is essentially a scoop of sales Jello, Jack Benny’s long suffering sponsor
  • Knowledge is so broad IDC’s attempt to clarify gave me the giggles
  • Workers know that knowledge has value, so workers protect it with silos.

I assume that experts cooked up the knowledge quotient notion. The pros running the survey reported data which suggests that knowledge management is a bit of a challenge.

Perhaps IDC experts will coordinate their messaging in the future? In my opinion, two slabs of spam do not transmogrify into prime rib.

Little wonder IDC contracts is unable to function, one of its officers (Dave Schubmehl) resells my research on Amazon without my permission at $3,500 per eight pages edited to remove the considerations Attivio warranted from my team. Then an IDC research unit provides data which strike me as turning the silly KQ thing into search engine optimization corn husks.

Is IDC able to manage its own knowledge processes using its own theories and data? Perhaps IDC should drop down a level and focus on basic business processes? Yet IDC’s silos appear before me, gentle reader. and the silos are built from hefty portions of a mystery substance. Could it be consulting spam, to use IDC’s own terminology?

Stephen E Arnold, June 2, 2015

 

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