[Matt Mower has been reading about Purple Cows](http://radio.weblogs.com/ 0107808/2003/02/18.html#a749) and how ideas must be remarkable to take off. He reflects:
Which lead me to thinking about knowledge management products and how so many of them are good, but hardly remarkable. PersonalBrain is a remarkable product which was never exploited. The Wiki idea was remarkable, but none of the Wiki software I’ve used has been. In fact when I think about it, the whole field of KM is dominated by the idea of being good enough.
Software is a tool and like any tool it has to be mastered. Knowledge management products are forging into a new area and we don’t understand how to use them yet. Spreadsheets, word processors and CAD software all work in well understood paradigms. The paradigms for KM tools is still being developed.
Wiki is a remarkable idea. True opportunity for collaborative development from anywhere, by anybody. The original wiki has fostered the whole practice of agile development in software. Wiki software doesn’t have to be remarkable, unless Matt is equating remarkable with visually pretty. I grant it can be awkward but have you looked at early versions of Word lately? Wiki does work. I led a team to create a strategy document using an internally run wiki in a matter of days. It worked because we could all access the text and make changes as required. I have learnt that technically adept users take to wikis easily. It is great for technical project documentation for example. Non-technically adept users don’t adapt to the wiki model easily. The freedom is too scary.
PersonalBrain is a little different. A visually stunning piece of software with a remarkable idea behind it and effective interaction with Windows, the “PersonalBrain Community” is only now starting to develop patterns of use to tap into the power the software gives us. As a subset of Topic maps PersonalBrain is a very good start.
Maturity of the existing knowledge management software will come with time. The ideas are remarkable.