John O'Neill had some interesting things to say about corporate
memory, and concluded with the question:
"3. corporate memory (as I understand it) has been developed on the
basis of document storage. Has anyone investigated how individuals
can access and reuse this corporate knowledge (especially in
non-routine problem-solving situations)?"
This problem has been with us since the very early days of
computing. I can still remember the push for a "Total MIS" that
would be able to answer all questions. That gave way to "Complete
EIS". From my vantage point, the problem with all such schemes is
that the data can only be sensibly understood in a context. And the
context cannot be practically stored along with all the data.
The challenge, as I see it, is how to share enough contextual
understanding that data can pass between people and across time? It
may make sense to view membership in an organization as being
dependent on a basic understanding of such contextual information.
One interesting consequence of this line of reasoning is that
discussion forums (such as this one) are one of the more effective
ways to share data between people and across time. The forum comes
with its own context (a written history).
Bob Fabian
-- Robert Fabian VP, Knowledge Transfer GSA Consulting Group 366 Adelaide St W, Suite 503, Toronto M5V 1R9 (416) 593-6262 "Robert Fabian" <rfabian@interlog.com>