You might have noticed how frequently knowledge management (KM) pops up as a topic in surprisingly diverse contexts. Knowledge work has been acknowledged for over three decades since Peter Drucker emphasized it in Management: Task, Responsibilities, Practices. The phrase knowledge management emerged in business circles in the 1980s, usually used by information technology managers. Perhaps because computers and software applications were implemented to manipulate data creating new versions of information, a misleading idea came into existence, namely that the resulting information was knowledge being managed by computers. Being inspired by the promise of automated solutions that could somehow manage knowledge, managers leapt to implement an astonishing variety of software applications associated with KM hype. The late-90s killed the belief in the hype, more quickly than most implementations could be brought to maturity. Some of those implementations might actually have resulted in desired benefits but the will to persevere in such undertakings requires thoughtful approaches and sustainable plans that evolve over time. Now is a good time to talk about what KM should really be about and how it relates to business processes like content management (CM) and information technology (IT). In attempting to scope out important business components for managers to keep in mind, we give them a framework for positioning IT projects as adjunct, enabling activities in the larger business context. KM as a framework for managing knowledge assets in the organization is one way of looking some of the components of KM and relating them to other infrastructure activities.

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