Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing!
Fellow jazz aficionados will recognize the title to the famous Duke Ellington song. I was recently listening to the CDs from the Ken Burns JAZZ series and came across the tune (hear a sample on Amazon.com–first song on Disc 2). It got me to thinking about a particular KM theme, one that I’ve mentioned a lot in this space, but have not yet addressed specifically:
Knowledge = Information + Context = Ability to Act.
In other words, the swing in KM is enhancing your employees’ ability to act. If you’re not doing that, you’re just pushing a lot of ones and
zeroes around in the ether*, and your KM efforts won’t mean a thing. But what exactly does that mean – the ability to act? Why is it such an important focal point for knowledge management efforts? How do you determine if you’re achieving the goal? * Ones and zeroes, of course, are the binary bits that make up all digital content. The ether (or aether) was a 19th century hypothetical medium for transmitting electromagnetic radiation (i.e., the medium through which the future digital ones and zeros would move). Einstein’s theory of relativity eliminated the need for such a hypothetical medium.
Let’s take a quick look at each of these questions. First, what exactly does "ability to act" mean? The answer is in part, as you…
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"There's a Mr. Bartlett to see you, sir." - Graham Chapman, Monty Python's Flying Circus |