From Explicit to Tacit: The Evolution of Knowledge Management in Organization
Knowledge is knowing, and information is what you can (or can’t) know
So, what is Knowledge Management, anyway?
Knowledge is awareness, understanding, or skill that you get from experience or education.
Information is the facts or details of a subject. They are related: knowledge is the knowing of something, and information is what you can (or can’t) know. Knowledge as information that, embedded in the right network of semantic relationships (that is: relationships of meaning), can be used either to understand a situation or to act to achieve a goal.
For a long time, when the term “knowledge management” came up, it was within the context of organizations. Complex organizations handle large quantities of information, much of which is “explicit knowledge.” That is: knowledge that can be easily placed within a structure and transferred. Instruction manuals are a great example of explicit knowledge.
But human beings are not easily systematized. Throughout our lives we build vast stores of what’s called “tacit knowledge” which is summed up within the concepts of wisdom, intuition, and the holistic realm of personal experience.
