Thanks for your comment. While it pertains directly to Eaves’ original post, I still find it interesting. You are right that tools are just that – implements we use to work towards our goal (whether that be knowledge management, cooking dinner, or building a cabinet); of course it will be human intervention that saves the public service, ultimately. GCpedia cannot write itself. What you did not address, however, is the thrust of Eaves’ post – which is that GCpedia is a tool that is especially suited to supporting public servants in their KM efforts. If, that is, they use GCpedia in that capacity.

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who disagrees with your contention that thoughtful discussion and leadership are key to strengthening the public service. But I think that you are underestimating the value that the use of the right tool can bring to any project, and the dearth of KM tools available to public servants pre-GCpedia. Plus, not only does GCpedia allow for knowledge capture, but it also facilitates the discussions that you endorse so strongly.

Cheers,
Emily

Will GCPEDIA save the public service, or capture all the tacit knowledge that will walk out the door? No, of course not! To suggest otherwise is, frankly, naive hyperbole.

As great and as promising as GCPEDIA and other Web 2.0 tools are, tools will never save the public service. People are the public service and only people have the capacity to save the public service, and it will take a whole lot more to improve the weak areas of the public service than a tool. Things like leadership play a pretty important role in organizational effectiveness. There are many good Organizational Excellence models (I have researched this area) and they all include people and leadership as two elements, but funny enough, tools aren’t included. Why? Because it is not so much a tool issue as it is a craftsman issue.

With respect to your comment about tacit knowledge and social capital (not the same things by the way), I think it might be helpful to brush up on what tacit knowledge is, and what Knowledge Management is.

It is unquestionably true that the public service continues to face a potential impact from demographic changes that are both extremely significant and yet unquantified. It is also unquestionably true that most public service organizations haven’t truly understood or addressed these potential impacts, to say nothing of the potential of improving their effectiness right NOW from better Knowledge Management (productivity, innovation, etc).

These issues need to be addressed by public service leaders in an intelligent and thoughtful manner. Tools can and certainly should help but only when wielded by craftsmen and women. For too long vendors have made grandiose and unrealizable promises about their ’solutions’. I thought we had learned our lessons from all that experience.

Let’s not get the cart before the horse, shall we?

Paul McDowall
Knowledge Management Advisor
and chairperson of the Interdepartmental Knowledge Management Forum