At the 8th European Conference on Knowledge Management in Barcelona, Spain on 6-7 September 2007, Daan Andriessen gave a keynote talk entitled Knowledge As Love; How Metaphors Direct Our Efforts to Manage Knowledge in organizations.
In this talk, he made the point that we use metaphors to make sense of the world and the terms "knowledge management" and "intellectual capital" were such metaphors. When we speak of "knowledge management" we use a "resource" metaphor to help describe knowledge and when we use the term "intellectual "capital" we use a "capital" metaphor.
Daan explained that metaphors are indispensable for conceptualization and understanding. However, we need to be aware that metaphors highlight certain things and conceal others. For example, the "knowledge as a resource" metaphor ignores the fact that knowledge is subjective and difficult to elicit.
I found this concept fascinating and decided to conduct a few of my video mini-interviews with some of the conference participants including Daan and asked them "What is your favorite knowledge metaphor". I also ran a Knowledge Cafe on the theme. I think you might will the material including photos and videos that you will find on my website.
