Knowledge Management, a term that i have tried many a time to define. Yet very few people outside the KM community actually comprehend. To be honest it is rather difficult to explain to the average person what it is we try to accomplish in the field. Managing knowledge? how on earth do you do that ? are one amongst the many questions i have to field every time i describe my profile to someone.

If the lengthy discussion on one of my previous posts is anything to go by there is still a lot of disagreement around the subject.

So for all of you out there who’ve battled with trying to define KM, here is a story ( a fable rather ) that defines what we do and how we do it extremely well.
 

The situation

Once upon a time, there was an ivory tower. In the ivory tower, there lived a community of very wise

wizards. The wizards knew many things, and were proud of their knowledge and wisdom. They had a

motto: “Knowledge is power.” They had spent many years studying everything in the kingdom, and

knew how everything worked.

Not far from the ivory tower, there was a palace, where the king and all his courtiers lived. The king

was very wise in the ways of ruling his kingdom. Around the palace were farms, rented by the serfs. The

serfs farmed all the land around the kingdom. The goods produced by these farms made the kingdom

wealthy. - A KM Fable