P eople don't understand very much about the subject of knowledge. We know the most about the structured, transactional data in terms of knowledge management, but that's the least valuable component of content. The unstructured, tacit knowledge is more important, but it's not so easy to capture, access, categorize or store. And it doesn't lend itself to the mechanisms that we use today to deal with more structured types of data. Y ou need to use general management principles, including concepts like value assessment, prioritization and investment strategies.
Some people use a portfolio approach to manage their money, for example.
If they apply the same concepts to knowledge management, they begin to see that different types of knowledge have different values and, therefore, different returns and risks associated with them. Higher returns often mean higher risks, and vice versa. Or, in some cases, your risk may be in not owning certain knowledge. U nfortunately, the analytical tools we have today were created for tangible assets like the raw materials of the industrial era. If knowledge is the most valuable asset of organizations in the next century, then we're way behind in creating the tools, techniques and management approaches to manage those intellectual assets.