Knowledge management, insights from the trenches

In 1999, the Software Productivity Consortium-a not-for-profit alliance of industry, government, and academia-asked our members to indicate which technological advances they need most urgently. Most respondents stressed the need to better leverage an increasingly vast and complex array of intellectual assets. Such assets represent today's new capital, marking a profound shift from more traditional types of capital. To address this urgent need, the Consortium launched a knowledge management (KM) program to develop our competency in knowledge management so that we can better serve our members and to provide products and services that will help members develop their own KM competencies. We focused first on making access to Consortium assets easier through an enterprise portal. Then, to address the larger KM issues, we also partnered with George Washington University and its new Institute for Knowledge Management, which seeks to establish a sound theoretical foundation for KM. Here, we recap the lessons we have learned in pursuing our KM mandate and set forth what we believe are the keys to KM's future success.