Social Web and Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management is the study and practice of representing, communicating, organizing, and applying knowledge in organizations. Moreover, being used by organizations, it is inherently social. The Web, as a medium, enables new forms of communications and interactions and requires new ways to represent knowledge assets. It is therefore obvious that the Web will influence and change Knowledge Management, but it is very unclear what the impact of these changes will be. This chapter raises questions and discusses visions in the area that connects the Social Web and Knowledge Management - an area of research that is only just emerging. The World Wide Web conference 2008 in Beijing hosted a workshop oil that question, bringing together researchers and practitioners to gain first insights toward answering questions of that area.