Personal knowledge management tools such as weblogs, wikis and online messaging systems are creating easily accessed knowledge on the fly with simple features and rapidly implemented structure to get communities of peers surfacing answers and collective insights for critical issues.

It is a trend that is changing enterprise publishing as much as it has changed the Web as we know it today.

While personal knowledge management tools are now familiar to many Web surfers, these tools take on a whole new light when they are applied to the needs of major enterprises, their clients and suppliers - especially as they present new challenges for commercial publishers trying to get their content into the right contexts in today's business environment.

Many publishers and aggregators focus on devising big-ticket workflow solutions for enterprises that use technology-intensive tools to put their premium content in the most valuable context.

But personal knowledge management tools allow users to devise their own workflow solutions on an as-needed basis - solutions that may come together long before a publisher or aggregator has been able to engineer their value equation into the user-driven publishing mix.

As demonstrated by the panelists for this session personal knowledge management is really about eliminating the IT gibberish that hangs up so many collaborative efforts and getting to the important thing: passionate professionals communicating effectively with peers through flexible, easy-to-use publishing tools.

 (c) John Blossom

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