Collaboration vs. KM

Yet more hints of Collaboration being the new KM in Encourage Employee Socializing - CIO Magazine Jun 1,2004. One symptom of a new hype is the way it disparages the last one.

"The assumption underlying knowledge management efforts is that untapped power lies within an organization and needs only to be brought forth. But what if KM software, communities of practice and offsite team-building exercises are actually part of the problem?"

The article goes on to argue that indiscriminate sharing generates spurious collaboration and therefore you need to work out where to act.  Exactly the same message of any decent KM position, of course.

More positively, the aticle is about a book by Rob Cross and Andrew Parker "The Hidden Power of Social Networks: Understanding How Work Really Gets Done in Organizations" ,  and the assertion that more collaboration is not necessarily better is a sound one.