Stepping Higher - Reflections on the Knowledge Age

In knowledge management (KM), explicit knowledge – what’s written in documents and stored in files or other forms of media – has often had a bad reputation, and for good reason. Over years, KM has wrongly focused on documents and was busy building databases and repositories, when – as David Snowden put it – it shouldhave been focusing on connecting people instead . This preference is understandable. After all, explicit knowledge is just the tip of the iconic knowledge iceberg. Below the surface lies implicit knowledge, thoughts in people’s heads, rich with context and application insights, and accessible only through relationships and trust. However, I believe what we have been experiencing in 2023 with Generative AI marks a significant shift that could see explicit knowledge get its long-awaited moment in the sun. The Limitations of Content-focused KM and the Rise of AI Traditionally, KM never succeeded to fully leverage the knowledge that’s supposedly „stored“ in all the document...

Contrary to dystopian narratives, artificial intelligence (AI) isn't here to take our jobs. Rather, it is turning us all into managers. And your success in the AI age depends on whether you are willing to step into that new role. The current AI discourse paints a bleak picture of mass unemployment and identity crises, as AI surpasses our abilities as humans. I disagree. Historically, technological transformations have always yielded a net gain in jobs, albeit amidst disruptive periods and the extinction of certain professions. I don’t see a reason why AI should deviate from this trend, even when accounting for its unprecedented pace of change. Far from making you less useful or worthy, AI is not replacing you or diminishing the value you bring to the table. On the contrary, AI, like any other technology before, gives you powers you didn't have before. It enhances your existing skills and allows you to do the things you already do – but faster, with higher quality and with bigge...

Anyone who has been following the discussions in Internet tech forums this week gets the unmistakable feeling that we are currently experiencing a qualitative transition, from a yesterday in which artificial intelligence (AI) was either a thing of the future or worked in secret behind specialized systems (Google Auto-Complete or error-prone Tesla Autopilots), and a today in which the technology is suddenly available to all Internet users at the push of a button for a wide variety of tasks and queries. Change happens, as Hemingway put it, "first gradually, then suddenly." We are experiencing just such a sudden moment. But why am I writing this here in a knowledge management column? Let's first take a step back: What is knowledge management fundamentally about? Knowledge should be collected, managed and used within an organization. And users within this organization should be able to access relevant knowledge and information quickly and easily. All with the goal of facil...

I recently came across this blog post by a start-up that is developing an Artificial Intelligence that is being trained to read and write at the level of a specialized human analyst and produce briefings in human language based on a set of different information resources. It’s just one example of many different companies that are currently working on this challenge. The obvious clients are intelligence agencies, governments, or news agencies, but eventually this will enter all of our everyday work very soon. I thoroughly believe that this is what knowledge management in large organizations will look like in 10-15 years from now. In my organization, we’re challenged daily to consolidate the key lessons and insights from all our country-level programmes and experiences, lest meaningfully combine them with information, trends and insights from the larger development sector. We complain that we’re overwhelmed by the information overload that social media, Yammer and knowledge network...