Narrative Patterns: Uses of Story in the Third Age of Knowledge Management

David Snowden ()
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David Snowden: IBM Institute for Knowledge Management, USA

Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), 2002, vol. 01, issue 01, 1-6

Abstract: This paper draws on a six-year programme of research and practice, in IBM Institute for Knowledge Management, which has been recently patented and is shortly to be offered under licence as a body of method to practitioners in the field of knowledge management. It argues that we are entering a third age of knowledge management in which the focus on tacit–explicit conversions, exemplified by the SECI model of Nonaka and Takeuchi, is no longer adequate, and leads to an excessive focus on codification, or disembodiment of knowledge from the knowledge holder. In the third generation, we recognise that people always know more than they can say, and will always say more than they can write down. This leads to a separation of context from content management and a new focus on the management of narrative, or colloquially, story. This paper summarises ways in which narrative databases can be constructed, and more critically indexed, using high-abstraction emergent properties such as archetypes and myth objects. In addition to established uses of narrative in communication management, radical new work in the application of narrative techniques to decision support, partially replacing scenario planning through the creation of context filters is also described. While some aspects are explored in depth, others are summarised and references provided by the author to other papers where more details can be found.

Keywords: Narrative patterns; knowledge management; story-telling; metaphors and context filters; communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
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DOI: 10.1142/S021964920200011X

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