As predicted some nostalgic application vendors and elements of the decomposing Knowledge Management (KM) Establishment are providing futile life support for KM Standards. Of course the Death of KM Standards is certain and confident. It has already occurred in most all global KM precincts. However, some find unlearning the 1990s-style of KM very difficult. They need a bit more coaching and counseling.  

To be very specific, the ISO Proposal for the KM Standards drones on for about 60-pages of overweight hubris. In all this nonsense the absolute Foundations of KM, such as systems thinking, complexity science, network analysis, professional development, conversation, social media, collective intelligence, and so on and so forth are simply and shockingly absent.

This fact alone means the vacant KM Standards are very harmful and must be abandoned once-and-for-all. Again, the KM Standards proposal is a fine document circa 1990. However, the world has moved on.

Remember, KM nostalgia and standards are not fair, open or honest. The very notion of KM standards in the 21st Century is a stunning embarrassment. How else can we break the news? We really need to wall-off the KM past.

KM Standards is a recipe for failure and collapse. It rehashes all the terrible management of KM over two-decades of KM. Truly effective KM leadership like distributed phronesis and situated cognition are entirely missing from the KM Standards. Goodbye to the stale KM Establishment and its empty KM Standards.

Not in 60-pages of KM Standards hubris is leadership mentioned, not even once!  What more do stubborn vendors and hapless KM legacy people need to know? It is simply time for you to unlearn 1990s KM. 

Even widespread smartphone services like intelligent personal assistants and knowledge navigators are entirely missing from the KM Standards. The obtuse and useless KM Standards makes no mention of core Enterprise KM management such as activity streams or social objects. 

The aim is not to expose or hurt the fine people and effort of KM Standards. If historians and scholars want to know what KM was like in the 1990s then they can turn to the obsolete KM Standards. Let’s not lead KM with models from 20-years ago!

Today we are in the era of Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Twitter and smartphones. KM must adapt and lead… or perish. For example the article below is a wake-up call, an icy splash in the face of KMS reality. It’s electroconvulsive therapy for the stagnant KM Establishment mind.

Before you view it remember, this development required no  million dollar budget, no PowerPoints on ‘culture’ (?), no software, no well-manicured vendors, no ‘thought leadership,’ no annoying consultants, no hierarchy, no community of practice, no training, no loopy change management and positively no KM Standards – just top professionals and real people with critical needs.

Report: Wikipedia The Top Source Of Health Care Info For Doctors, Patients

It is painful to change and unlearn. KM needs to be realistic and step-into the 1st century of the 3rd millennium of Anno Domini (Common Era). It is time for KM to unlearn the past, to grow and lead.