Toward a technology for organizational memories (original) (raw)

THE RECOGNITION THAT KNOWLedge is one of an enterprise's most important assets, decisively influencing its competitiveness, has fueled interest in comprehensive approaches to the basic activities of knowledge management: the identification, acquisition, development, dissemination, use, and preservation of the enterprise's knowledge. Traditionally, enterprises have addressed knowledge management from either a management or a technological point of view. Managers understand that the knowledge their employees possess is one of their company's most valuable assets. They are concerned with the effective use of personal knowledge and the qualitative and quantitative adaptation of this knowledge toward a changing environment. The technological approach, by contrast, deals with questions about what information technology should be provided to support knowledge management. 1 We find that effective knowledge management requires a hybrid solution, one that involves both people and technology. 2 As this article shows, our long-term vision is a corporate or organizational memory at the core of a learning organization, supporting sharing and reuse of individual and corporate knowledge and lessons learned. Arranged around such an OM, intelligent knowledgemanagement services actively provide the user working on a knowledge-intensive operational task with all the information necessary and useful for fulfilling this task (see ).