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I think that Knowledge Management (KM) has become so overwhelmed with technology products that the individuals in KM have become ‘tech support’ rather than knowledge managers. Yesterday, I read two different articles that reinforced my conception of what I think is a major flaw in the idea of “Knowledge Management” within law firms.

Penny Edwards’ articles on Social Networking for the Legal Profession. Edwards mentions that the approach we take to capturing “knowledge” is a hold over of the 1990’s IT ‘centralized’, or as she put it in her book “Industrial Technology.”

In my opinion, this type of self-cataloging and attempt at creating a ultra-structured system creates a process that is: difficult to use; doesn’t fit the way that lawyers conduct their day-to-day work; gives a false sense of believing that the knowledge has been captured and can be easily recovered; leads to user frustration and “work around” methods; and results in expensive, underutilized software resources.

"Knowledge differentiates a law firm from its competitors," according to Gretta Rusanow of Curve Consulting, an attorney and knowledge management expert.

Knowledge Management specialists within firms work hard to set up and maintain KM technology, but without grassroots adoption, many KM initiatives languish from lack of use.  Placing the emphasis on technology, rather than user behavior, tends to distract from the real barrier to adoption: Attorneys and staff simply don't see enough individual value to take time away from urgent (and billable) day-to-day activities to complete additional tasks required by a separate knowledge management tool.

"Too often KM becomes a conversation about technology . . . if you want to converse with lawyers about value, talk about value instead of technology," said Toby Brown of Fulbright & Jaworski. "This focuses the dialogue on the benefits to the lawyers and not on the cost of any technology involved. Solve the problem, instead of offering technology."

The general theme is that in the near future we will see more companies starting Enterprise 2.0 projects to increase productivity, reduce cost, improve client relations. While we have seen some early success stories, companies will need to think hard about ways to attract second-wave adopters.

The post is divided as follows:1) Overview of barriers to introducing Enterprise 2.0 and user adoption2) Scrutinizing barriers to user adoption3) Thoughts on how to attract second-wave adopters

However, with the current economic climate, change is not optional anymore. Organizations need to address inefficiencies caused by outdated management ideas and inadequate technology to increase productivity, save costs and offer better service to existing and prospect clients. This is one of the reasons why I expect to see more and more social software projects starting over the next months.