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Let’s be completely honest about this. Knowledge management is a fad. And like most things faddish and fashionable, it’s going to make you look good, it’s going to make you feel good, and it’s going to cost you a lot of money. The only thing is, in a couple of year’s time you are going to throw it aside and run after something else.
>"Fashion, Magic and Knowledge Management" by Patrick Lamb
>Where is the magic in all of this? Magic is strangely reversed in knowledge
management. Magicians, generally, like to display their skill by making
visible things disappear. One of the central debates in knowledge
management, on the other hand, is over how to make the invisible appear.
The debate over knowledge as intangible assets, the quantification and
measurement of human capital, and the transfer of tacit knowledge into
explicit knowledge within an organisation are classic parallels to the ancient
quest of the alchemists: how to turn base metal into gold.