actkm - dave snowden's challenge

Rewinding to the actKM conference a couple of weeks ago, I want to pick apart a comment by Dave Snowden. In a public discussion, he stated that knowledge managers should focus on solving intractable problems.

I have two responses to this:

1. That's easy for you to say, Dave. To my knowledge, Dave has never held down a KM role inside an organisation (apologies if that's wrong) and his primary engagement with KM has been as a consultant. He gets to pick and choose "intractable problems" that he will work on. Most knowledge managers do not have that luxury but must try to sell innovative projects to a sceptical management while ensuring that things like the intranet are working.

2. As a provocation, an incitement to knowledge managers not to get pigeon-holed as document minders, it's a great one.