Scope of Knowledge Management

I received my copy of KMWorld today and read the article on surveillance. Before I began reading the article I wondered why surveillance would be a topic in a knowledge management magazine but I quickly began seeing applicability to the KM field. The example of Tacit Software's ability to conduct an email network analysis to identify subject matter experts based on incoming email messages appears to be a good example of using employee monitoring as a means to capture tacit organizational knowledge. While this application seems to be useful and applicable to KM initiatives, the idea of surveillance as a KM tool is a little unsettling.

I view knowledge management as a way to engage people to share what they know and learn from each other. To me, the field encourages collaboration, trust, and just being a good person and a valuable employee. Although I may have somewhat of an idealistic perspective, the knowledge management field has an overall positive connotation. Typically, knowledge management requires active participation and acknowledgement that people are participating in knowledge sharing and reuse. Surveillance as a KM practice makes me a little uncomfortable since the participants are not actively engaged and may not be aware of how their actions are leading to organizational knowledge.

Organizations must conduct certain levels of employee monitoring to address compliance requirements, mitigate legal risk, and other reasons. However, I prefer to classify these activities as part of risk mitigation or compliance rather than a component of knowledge management. Knowledge requires people and should be a people-centric practice that benefits both the organization and its employees (as well as individuals applying a personal knowledge management practice). Employee surveillance does not engage people to develop knowledge. Rather, it uses people to develop knowledge for the organization without direct benefit to the employee. Without awareness and engagement by the contributors, I cannot consider surveillance as a form of knowledge management.