Wrap-up: KM 2.0 - Why We Should Care

Summary of Presentation
Boston Knowledge Management Forum Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge
What is KM 2.0? Is it real, or just vendor hype?

Larry Chait, Chait & Associates

He thinks Web 2.0 is a catchall for a set of user-driven applications and the philosophy behind them. He hates the 1.0 , 2.0 and 3.0 labels, but since everyone is using the terms he does also.

Larry has seen KM move from technology-centric (capture store and access) to people-centric (after action reviews and peer assists) to social computing.

He thinks "2.0" is a cliche, but there really is a big change happening in the way people are communicating and there are big changes happening in the tools.

The issue he sees is trying to reconcile official taxonomies and user-generated folksonomies.

Larry points out that the use of collaboration tools is driven more by culture than technology. The tools will not do anything by themselves. He also points out that different tools do different things well. You need a suite of tools to get things done.

Larry raises five caveats: delivering business value, ensuring privacy, governing behavior, managing personal time, and overcoming cultural barriers. (I had to call Larry out on this. This caveats apply to all new technologies. He pointed out that the bad things are all now easy to find. I countered that the good stuff is also much easier to find.)