All:

A number of issues of enormous importance to KM and its future have
recently come up which demand our attention. Over the next few days, a
number of postings by myself and Joe Firestone will appear here which
generally raise concerns over the direction of KM now starting to come
into focus after many years of confusing trends and fragmentation in the
field. The operative word or term we'd like to focus on is called
"Communitarianism," and it has recently started to rear its ugly head in
profoundly disturbing ways amongst many thought leaders in the field, KM
listservs around the world in which they express their views, and the
actions of the controlling moderators of such venues in the form of
outright censorship.

First, I'd like to direct everyone's attention to Joe Firestone's recent
excellent posts on his blog about Communitarianism, what it means, and
why it should concern us in business and in KM. Here is Joe's blog on
that subject:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0135950/2004/06/03.html#a22

Communitarianism is, in so many words, a kind of "groupthink"
phenomenon, one which is alive and well in most of the leading KM
listservs around the world. It has both a political and an
epistemological side to it too, which in the case of the former uses
group pressure and consensus to stamp out criticism of the prevailing KM
worldview, and in the latter uses group pressure and consensus to make
decisions about what's true or false. In the case of several of the
leading KM listservs around the world, a prevailing view (if not THE
prevailing view) of knowledge and KM is that anyone's truth is as good
as any one else's, and that the search for truth as a basis for taking
effective action is an unwelcome fool's errand.

This highly questionable knowledge ethic is at least debatable, and yet
the controllers of KM conversations around the world will hear none of
it. This goes beyond the question of whether or not speech and opinion
in KM circles should be free and openly expressible - which of course it
should. Rather, it also has profound business, social, and
environmental outcome implications that are not to be trifled with.
These are gravely serious matters. The last thing the world needs is
more specious knowledge to be used as a basis for action in life by
governments and transnational corporations, and KM has a special
influential role to play in helping us to make our knowledge be the best
it can be.

What prompted this posting from me today is an experience I had
yesterday on another listserv (www.kwork.org <http://www.kwork.org/> ),
in which an attempted posting of mine there in response to an earlier
one by Dave Snowden of IBM was rejected. The moderator there justified
his action by accusing me of committing the unforgivable sin of
challenging the validity of Dave's views and expressing my own in
return. The particular views of Dave's that I was challenging (and yes,
I am guilty as charged) were precisely those that I find so dangerous
and misguided in the field of KM -- views, that is, which reject the
pursuit of truth and provide us instead with a noxious form of
Relativism according to which anybody's ideas are as good as any
other's.

But when it comes to matters of fact or values in organizations, I'm
afraid that's just not the case. And what worries me is that KM is
apparently evolving to a place where the opposite is widely held as
true. A place where avoiding conflict with each other, or even
respectful debate on the matter, has a lower value than feeling good
about each other and seeking harmonious relations in a community
setting. To hell with the truth, what matters most is how good we feel
about each other and whether or not the discussion is harmonious. So
when the prevailing Relativistic paradigm is challenged, the
Communitarian hammer wielded by KM listserv moderators comes crashing
down and snuffs out related postings, preventing them from ever being
seen. I ask you, has KM forgotten what it's all about? What it was
created to do or is supposed to be doing? Exactly whose interests do
its leaders think they're serving?

This excommunication of "truth" as a regulative ideal in a field that
nevertheless sees fit to brand itself with the word "knowledge" is
appalling, almost as if KM has become afflicted with a kind of group
hysteria or denial. If what we want in business and life is the
capacity to take effective action, then we must have knowledge that is
true or closest to the truth as a basis for doing so. To ban discussion
of truth from the public conversation about KM is extraordinarily
foolish, short-sighted, and shocking. But that seems to be the
direction that KM is taking.

What follows is my posting to Dave Snowden yesterday, just as it
appeared when it was banned by the moderator of the kwork listserv:

To Dave Snowden:

First, I completely agree with your view that the focus of KM is create
the conditions for innovation to enable better decision making. I
suppose where we part company is in what we mean by innovation and all
that it entails. For me, innovation is a knowledge production and
integration process that happens at all levels of scale (individuals,
groups, and organizations), and its purpose is to pursue truth.

You then go on to say that the purpose of KM is to create shared
context. But you earlier said its focus (purpose?) is to create the
conditions for innovation to enable better decision making. So are you
saying that the way to do that is to create shared context? If not, how
do you reconcile these statements?

Next, you say you are a practitioner-academic, and that your real test
in choosing from among competing terminological distinctions is "how
easy they are to explain and get people to use." I guess I find the
notion of "creating shared context" to be vague and inaccessible. What
exactly do you mean by that, and do you really think that that phrase is
comprehensible by the ordinary business person? Is it practical?

You then go on to define context as "the assumptions [you] make." Is
that what you mean by KM's purpose being to create a shared context?
That it should seek to get everyone in an organization to share
someone's (or their own respective) assumptions? Please explain.

Like you, I also reject the linear scale of data, information,
knowledge, etc., but unlike you I reject the data-to-information link
that you seem to embrace. I feel this way because data is really
nothing more than a type of information, and it, too, to use your words,
is produced through "a process of abstraction and codification" and
therefore has informational content. Data, that is, has semantic
content. It says something. So it is a type of information, and the
distinctions that Prusak, Davenport, and others try to make between them
is always a specious one in my view.

I know you focus on content, narrative, and context in your approach to
KM. But I've always wondered why you don't focus on truth, or on
improving the quality of knowledge as a basis for effective decision
making and action in business. It's as if as long we go through the
motions you prescribe, whatever follows in the terms of decisions and
actions will be fine. I, on the other hand, see the possibility that
your approach can lead to false content, false narrative, and false
context, and that you make no attempt to distinguish between truth and
falsity. Thus, decisions and actions taken on the basis of any of that
could be anything but effective. So as long as you refuse to take truth
versus falsity explicitly into account, how are we supposed to know that
the product of your KM approach will be useful to us? Or that the
conclusions people reach in the innovation process will be sound?
Doesn't truth matter?

Unlike you, I believe there is a right answer, even though I admit I can
never know it with certainty. But my belief that it exists has a
regulative effect on my approach to life and to KM. I seek the truth,
you apparently don't. And I suppose those who follow your methods are
also led away from the search for truth. And so where that takes them
as a basis for taking action in business is anyone's guess.

Your thoughts?

Mark

Mark W. McElroy
Co-Director, Center for the Open Enterprise (aka, KMCI) (
<http://www.kmci.org> www.kmci.org)
CEO, Macroinnovation Associates, LLC ( <http://www.macroinnovation.com>
www.macroinnovation.com)
(802) 436-2250






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