In the early 1990s knowledge management was a new and exciting idea. Propelled by consultants and a few management gurus, seized upon by strategists, information technology managers and organisational development practitioners and identified by academics as a rich theme to probe or pick apart, it was difficult at the time to reach any agreement on what knowledge management actually was.

Yet organisations and their managers were often attracted to it, arguing that if they were now competing in a knowledge-based economy they should be efficient and effective at managing knowledge. Some appointed a new breed of executive - the chief knowledge officer - to lead the charge.