Here at "Adam Smith, Esq." I’ve written about Knowledge Management a fair
amount, since it’s my belief that knowledge is what law firms sell.
But despite the (I believe) inarguable centrality of KM to what we do, there
are three enormous problems with it:
- Too many lawyers don’t understand why it’s of value to them, or, more precisely,
why the return they could get out of it would exceed the investment they’d
have to put into it. (Never mind the threat of "giving away" your core
professional asset—what you know.) - Too many technologists and IT types don’t understand how lawyers work,
and end up creating shockingly powerful but essentially useless applications. - And even the most powerful and user-friendly system requires constant care
and feeding because legal learning is in a state of constant flux: In
a sense, pure white ignorance beats obsolete and mistaken knowledge.
Because some of these obstacles are a blend of the intellectual and the emotional,
a brief foray, presented in video, yields two of
the best visceral explanations of why Knowledge Management matters.
With
a big fat hat tip to Matthew Parsons and Neil Richards of Knowledge
Thoughts, then, our first (2:21 running
time, sponsor’s logo at the very end):
And our second (5:29 run time, academic credit and "CC" license at the end):
Enjoy.
And reflect.
