By Hugh McKellar – Posted Mar 1, 2009 at KMWorld
Publishing this list is the most difficult project KMWorld undertakes every year, and I’ve been heading the effort since it began in 2000. Our somewhat informal judging process taps the individual and collective wisdom of colleagues, analysts, system integrators and even a selected group of users.
And let’s not forget vendors themselves. With more than a thousand companies in the broad knowledge management arena, we do rely on solution providers to keep us aware of what they’re doing. And, because the judges have been involved with the project for years, we are all quite adept at filtering out the hype and marketeering.
We have always maintained that knowledge management is an attitude, not a specific application—a commitment to taking full advantage of all the information at an organization’s disposal and delivering it to the appropriate constituencies to facilitate decision-making at every possible level.
And it’s with that in mind that we judges start making our assessments. The mission became even more critical as we saw the economy begin to unravel last year. And as we saw the credit crisis unfold, our job of compiling the list became even harder. Never in the history of our 100 Companies list had there been such far-reaching circumstances that affected identifying the selection of the organizations we publish. Nevertheless, we had to factor companies’ ability to not only survive a potential catastrophe but also thrive and deliver solutions to help their customers succeed, as well.
Hence, we believe that each of the companies embodies as part of its culture the agility and limber execution of its mission, in whatever subject areas upon which they focus. Both small and large, they embrace a spirit of innovation and adaptability. They each embody the resiliency and wisdom to identify and act upon their own areas requiring improvement and, more importantly, those of their customers.
