On Becoming a "Knowledge Journalist"

In search of encore careers, my wife told me about "knowledge journalists"; that seemed to be a valid trigger for some internet wondering/wandering, so here we go! While there are some wasted hits on the first page of Google results, the first hit is a goodie, but oldie. From 1999, Tom Fineran writes about "A Component-Based Knowledge Management System" and says:

One essential aspect of knowledge quality is meaningful classification. Although it may be possible to perform some classification automatically, a considerable amount of manual effort will be required initially. "Knowledge Journalists" will be required to perform some of these activities. This is not to say that Knowledge Journalists are essential for a functioning Knowledge Management System.. What it means is that those organizations that require high-quality information need to consider developing Knowledge Journalist professionals.

The next good hit is about someone who apparently was a knowledge journalist for some time. From what seems to be an old, not-update web site, we can learn about Sylva Foti:

Then she became a Knowledge Journalist at Hewitt, which is a lot like being a Regular Journalist, except that she wrote confidential business profiles from the consultants' point of view. The idea was to share consultants' stories on their clients so they could learn from each other. It's the latest in Knowledge Management.

Up next, an abstract from a publication on "Knowledge Management"( but I am not paying $25 to see what's in the detail):

A brief historical overview of KM is presented to show the evolution from a management fad to a scholarly discipline of study and research. Finally, the emerging roles for information professionals in this field are briefly described, outlining some of the key roles such as Chief Knowledge Officer, knowledge manager, content editor, and knowledge journalist.

Next up, Monster.com's definition of "Web Editor":

Web Editor

Computer, Information Technology, and Mathematical > Web Development > Web Editor

a.k.a. Content Editor, Content Strategist, Internet Content Editor, Internet Content Provider Product Manager, Knowledge Journalist, Online Content Editor, Product Manager - Internet Content Provider, Web Content Editor, Web Content Strategist, Web Development Editor, Web Editor In Chief.

Job Purpose: Manages content and community development for online channels by formulating editorial and design strategies; preparing articles and interactive applications for Web release.

I don't think that is really what Tom Fineran was writing about all those years ago, but we are now almost through our second page of Google results, and it is not getting better. Gave Bing search a shot, but that was even worse. However, one trigger matched an earlier find (not mentioned) about this job title existing at Scient Corp., which leads me to this excerpt from a S-1 SEC Filing, filed by SCIENT CORP on 12/22/1999 [Note: 1999 again! This is 2011; where are all our knowledge journalists!]:

Knowledge Management facilitates access to the Scient Approach methodology and helps our colleagues determine what services to deliver to clients and when to perform the services during the different steps of the approach. Resources available through Knowledge Management include tutorial materials, templates, expert contacts and sample outputs for the different process steps. We are also constructing an interactive, dynamic environment, the Scient Workbench, which is being designed to provide our colleagues with a comprehensive context for creating client deliverables. In addition, we have developed a system to help us staff engagements that will query our Scient Approach process database to determine what skills are needed for an engagement and examine our skills inventory to identify available colleagues with the appropriate skills.

A knowledge journalist is assigned to each client engagement. During the course of an engagement this person is responsible for:

- Guiding the Scient team to information that can be extracted from Knowledge Management;

- Instructing colleagues on the use of Knowledge Management;

- Incorporating new content and information developed during the engagement into Knowledge Management, to the extent that such content and information is not proprietary or confidential to the client; and

- Providing feedback to Knowledge Management staff about the use of Knowledge Management's products and services.

An explicit goal of each engagement is knowledge transfer to our clients. Through the development of our extranet we intend to share information online in a secure way with each of our clients.