Embeddedness: mining a rich vein

Everyone recognizes that knowledge is not readily quantifiable. It has no line on a balance sheet, and we even lack the vocabulary to describe a quantity of knowledge, reverting to nuggets, chunks, pieces, and, more generically still, amounts. Mining your company’s knowledge is necessary, but it is difficult to know how rich the seam is because a core characteristic of knowledge is that it is embedded, hidden from view. Companies must come to terms with this if they are to have a successful knowledge management program.