It may be that in the end we are referring to the same notion.

You say “That’s the key paradigm shift for KM - knowledge is collectively “owned”, not personally “owned”. That’s why I say that if KM has to be done personally, then something is wrong.”

I really don’t like the term “owned”, and at the same time I think knowledge is both “personal” and “collective”. The big difference I think is that it’s no longer a private form of PKM, as people have an online space to share, and these online tools help them organise and work productively. And the enterprise can iron this out by offering a set of common tools.

The other difference is that all the nodes are connected in a network. This is different than aggregating all the nodes…the whole is more than the sum of it’s parts (more is different). That is by connecting the parts, stuff emerges, conversations ensue, that would not happen if all the parts were thrown in a bucked and not connected.

I like Clay Shirky’s reference to complexity vs aggregation
http://johntropea.tumblr.com/post/78212659/here-comes-everybody-clay-shirky-p28

“sociology is not just psychology applied to groups; individuals in group settings exhibit behaviours that no one could predict by studying single minds”

“no one has ever been bashful or extroverted while sitting alone in their room, no one can be a social climber or a man of the people without reference to society, and these characteristics exist because groups are not just simple aggregations of individuals”

Adapting - another thing to take into account is that we have strong ties to our groups and teams. The beauty of a network is we can be ambiently aware of weak/potential ties, people that may think differently and bring the missing piece to your issue.

You say “This above paragraph is true if you treat PKM as nodes on their own, but if you connect these nodes into an open network, then you don’t just have access to people and then knowledge, in your interactions you are creating new knowledge. This is doing KM bottom-up, empowering people to do KM without even releasing it”

If you connect nodes into a network, bottom up or top down, then this is what I would term corporate KM. It is no longer individual, it is collective. Whether the corporation is involved or not, the knowledge is held corporately. It is in the networks that new knowledge is created, and that is where you need to move from being individual to being collective.

Whether the solution is a bottom-up network, or a top-down infrastructure and enabling environment, it’s about knowledge becoming a collective product, not a personal product. The knowledge lies in the network, not in the person.

That’s the key paradigm shift for KM - knowledge is collectively “owned”, not personally “owned”. That’s why I say that if KM has to be done personally, then something is wrong.

I agree with your comments re adaptation, by the way, and despite this being 25% of Nonaka and Takeuci’s SECI model, it is often completely overlooked. However for me, adaptation can (or should) also be a collective process, within a team doing scenario planning, or within a work group going through training, or within the (quoted) Shell drilling team at their Technical Limit meeting. Unless you are a team of one, adaptation is as much a collective exercise as any other component of KM.