Ah, knowledge is indeed good. No one questions its value. But capturing, organizing, preserving and disseminating a company's knowledge in a structured way can be a bad trip. Some companies have implemented formal knowledge management programs and systems but can't quite get their employees to buy in. Perhaps knowledge management shouldn't be viewed as equipping employees with the tools to access and retrieve stores of information, but should focus instead on helping employees find and access expert colleagues.
Stored information gets stale fast.
Meantime, knowledge-seekers want to hear war stories from those who've already worked through similar problems in the same environment. Inspired knowledge management isn't based on archiving and search. Texaco relies mainly on e-mail and conferencing software to trigger conversations between those in the know and those seeking to be in the know. The important knowledge really tends to be in people. What we're emphasizing is building communities or networks of people who share some common business goal.