Knowledge Matters™

Today is Hogmanay, which is a Scottish word for the last day of the year. It heralds the start of the New Year and the end of the silly season – thank goodness! Tonight I will celebrate the coming of 2008 with friends and family, and I will play my bagpipes. Of course I will play Auld Lang Syne at midnight, and no doubt Amazing Grace at some other time in the course of the night. I intensely dislike both tunes along with Scotland the Brave, The Scottish Soldier, and The Flower of Scotland. I could add a few more but you get my drift.

Why do I dislike these tunes? Probably because I have played them several thousand times in my lifetime, and almost certainly because I have heard them several thousand times played or sung badly! I continue to play these tunes only because the ignorant masses don’t know anything else and it’s all they want to hear. I play them because it gives me a chance to introduce listeners to some of the better music, and indeed the great music.

This line of thought got me thinking about knowledge management. So often we do things because it’s what management wants, or think they want. However by accommodating a small requirement we can get people to see the next horizon, and start to understand what they don’t know, or to ask questions about what they want to know.

I am reminded of the motto of the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps – an organisation I proudly served for 23 years. The motto is Paulatim , which means “Little by Little”. I think this aptly sums up knowledge management. The little things, no matter how tedious, count and together add up to something larger than the whole. I think knowledge management as a discipline is important, and I will continue to advance the discipline as best I can. Good luck in your endeavours for 2008, and remember the little things matter!

Regards, Graham