Jongmin Moon and I have authored an article on Customer Managed Knowledge Factories. The paper will appear in Business Information Review.

Abstract
Most organizations spend millions, if not billions, on knowledge management. There is no doubting the fact that organizations must manage knowledge if they are to be successful, or even survive, in the marketplace. While this remains an accepted fact, one thing has changed over the last few years – the role of the organization in how knowledge is managed. This transformation is especially visible when it comes to managing knowledge from external sources. The most important source are the customers (users), both current and future, of an organization’s products and services. Organizations need to relinquish control over customer knowledge management. Customers will, and in many cases, already are taking on a more active role in managing knowledge for the benefit of the organization. The organization should not try to duplicate this nor try to force the customers into a top-down mode of knowledge management. Instead, the ideal organization will find ways to leverage the grassroots, and customer driven, knowledge factories that emerge around them. In this paper, we develop the concept of customer managed knowledge factories and share examples on how the concept is implemented in leading organizations.

Interview Part II

Interview Part III