Knowledge management, intellectual capital, and technical communication

One of the terms rising to the top of the "hot buzzwords" list is "knowledge management". The idea stems from the emergence of the knowledge economy. If knowledge is a resource, then organizations ought to be able to manage it, just as they manage more traditional resources, like capital, supplies, real estate and personnel. One the challenges of with any hot buzzword is incorporating the underlying concept into business practice. If the buzzword gains sufficient exposure and its promoters show sufficient relevance to the corporate bottom-line, several internal organizations compete for ownership of the implementation: it happened with total quality management earlier in the decade, and it's happening with knowledge management now. The information systems and training communities have laid claim to part or all of this territory, and some technical communicators believe that they, too, should claim ownership. Should they? And if they do, what is it that they are claiming ownership of? In order to discuss these questions, and to draw appropriate conclusions, we need to better understand what knowledge management is and how it contrasts with technical communication, then we need to understand what's already happening in the area of knowledge management.