However, this does not mean that the terminology is universally accepted. Thus, my knowledge of how to change a tire presupposes me knowing certain facts about tires, cars, lug nuts, jacks, and so on. On looking around, I find many other quite different definitions. So there seems to be general agreement that knowledge management has to do with the gathering, processing, and offering of access to knowledge in a given organizational context. And although the concept of knowledge management is growing quickly, it is not warmly received everywhere it goes.
People resist sharing their knowledge.
The human issues must be addressed and settled before knowledge management can be successfully implemented. While the concept of knowledge management is technology-independent, powerful support technologies have emerged. For example, intranets and extranets are useful knowledge-management frameworks. But they are not typically discussed in those terms. But, because of the power and usefulness they offer, I predict we will see a rapidly growing awareness of the need for intranets and extranets for knowledge management in the engineering world.