Robert Paterson has been having some great discussions of knowledge creation, particularly the conversion of tacit information to explicit using software tools. I tend to subscribe to Nonaka's scheme (described in The Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management), that knowledge is created through the various conversions of tacit and explicit information by humans. I have seen this exact sort of thing working at Immunex. It is the transformation and interaction of tacit and explicit information by human beings that creates knowledge. So many companies and software only capture the explicit to explicit side, allowing combination of data by its employees. What some of the new social software tools are doing is making it easier to accomplish the other 3 types of transformation, not only at small companies but at larger ones:
- Tacit to Explicit - the articulation of tacit information into an explicit form.
- Explicit to Tacit - the internalization of explicit information into one's own set of tacit information.
- Tacit to Tacit - the direct social interaction that transfers one person's tacit information to another.
Both explicit to explicit and tacit to tacit require no real commitment. In one you are a paper pusher and in the other you follow orders. But, when you convert tacit to explicit or explicit to tacit, you make a personal commitment that, in the scheme of things, helps propel the entire cycle to a new plane.
All four steps need to occur for active knowledge creation. In small social groups you can see all 4 transformations occurring in any brainstorming meeting where things actually get done. I have participated in many of these and find them fascinating to witness.
Tools like weblogs or what BP is doing work because they attempt to take the tacit knowledge inside each of us and make it explicit, something that American organizations have historically been poor at. But good software can make it almost magically happen. Then, when people can see it work so easily, they are more apt to continue using it.
I firmly believe that the successful organizations in the Information Age will be using these sorts of tools. Because the only way we know to convert the huge amounts of information being generated into knowledge that allows decisions to be made is by having humans interact. Being able to rapidly convert information in any of the 4 processes will create a company that will be more nimble than its competitors that can not. It will reach decisions faster and move through milestones at a rate unapproachable by those using Industrial Age tools.
Oh well, off of my soap box. Nonaka may not have it all right but it serves as a useful model because I have seen tools that help each transformation become killer aps. E-mail, the web, blogs. It is when the tools get so easy to use that non-techs can use them easily that the real explosion will start. 10:40:09 PM 
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