What is Knowledge Management??

My thesis adviser has given me til mid-August (it's an informal deadline, but still) to narrow my thesis ideas... So far, I'm certain that I'd like my research to focus on blogs, but I'm not sure just how. For a brief report I wrote recently as part of my summer professional writing internship, I tried to organize the overwhelming results of my blog-studies research -- yes! there is such a thing as blog studies! -- into more digestible categories: weblog communities, corporate blogging, journalism, and blogs in the writing classroom. I didn't expect to find much info on corporate blogging that I might be able to tie into a thesis research project; I don't know, the idea of sharing production-boosting strategies for the purpose of maximizing profits turns me off, I guess. But it was my investigation of the corporate-blogging realm that brought me to a field hitherto unbeknownst to me: "knowledge management."

One knowledge-management guru, Jack Vinson, referenced and linked to work by Lilia Efimova, a doctoral candidate who is writing her dissertation on blogging and knowledge management. I read parts of one of her papers and also have been checking out her blog, what she calls her "learning diary." She says it is "on personal productivity in knowledge-intensive environments, weblog research, knowledge management, PhD, serendipity and lack of work-life balance..." Long story short, this blog is dense! There is a buttload of info and I'm almost afraid to delve too deeply for fear I'll never again see the light of day... Not really -- her writing is very engaging and I'd even say she's someone I'd like to hang out with. :)

Well, I'll leave this for the moment, but there is more to come -- I really like the "learning diary" concept; if I had one, it would help keep me organized as I research and write, I think...