Why don't "they" understand KM?. Will Blogging catch on in corporate life?
If you study the development of the British Navy in the 19th century you may find some answers. The ship on the left was HMS Inflexible (what a name!). On the surface she looks modern. She is driven by steam, made of steel and iron and has 16" turret guns. Her first Captain was Jackie Fisher and she was the pride of the navy. In fact Inflexible is not a modern ship at all. At her core was the doctrine of the Nelsonic Navy. She was officered by watch officers who looked down on those dirty engineers. Her battle doctrine was to get in close and pound directly at the enemy just as they had at Trafalgar. Battle was all about weight and courage. Knowledge was sneered at as being ungentlemanly. She just looks modern and has all the new gear attached. But deep inside she is the Victory. I think that this is the "problem" with most organizations. They have all the new attached like barnacles but deep inside, they are the GM of the Sloan era. They have the command and control culture and the Mainframe approach to technology. They believe that they know what is going on and that only they are clever enough to predict what the customer wants. Why would such leaders need KM or value Intellectual Capital? Why should such men allow blogging?
The ship on the right is HMS Dreadnought. Ironically she was the child of Jackie Fisher, he was the first Sea Lord who commissioned her. She is the first true convergence of the new technology and the new culture.Now Dreadnought not only had all the new gear but had a new doctrine. She was designed to stay far away from the enemy and use concentrated indirect fire. To design, build and operate her, you had to know a lot. She demanded knowledge. She had the power to take on the entire German fleet. Just like Dell can take on the entire traditional computer business or the Southwest model take on the entire airline business. By building her Fisher made every ship in the world obsolete.
So what is the lesson for us? Lesson #1 is that on its own technology does not do it. We won't sell KM or blogging etc as a stand alone artifact. What is needed as a driver is a new doctrine. For Fisher it was the issue of asymmetry. A cheap torpedo boat could sink a battle ship. Getting in close was no longer a "good" idea. So he had to find a way of fighting at a distance. Hence a revolution in doctrine. The all big gun ship driven fast by a turbine engine. The technology to achieve this demanded a shift in social culture at work as well.
Once again we have an asymmetry. If you use the new IT well you don't need the bulk of mass production. You don't need to make it first and then sell it. You don't need inventory. So today we see a new doctrine in business. The new doctrine is to set yourself up to know what is going on and then respond quickly. We are seeing this in Iraq. This is the doctrine that Southwest, Dell, Amazon eBay and Wal-Mart are using. Their competitors cannot face this. All competitors who rely on smart marketers at the head office, the GM style, still build stuff and then try and sell it are finished just as the pre dreadnoughts were.
The context for KM is survival.
5:44:20 PM 
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