In an article in the February, 2002 issue of Business 2.0, Thomas Stewart says, "Companies waste billions on knowledge management because they fail to figure out what knowledge they need, or how to manage it."

Knowledge management can't be done by technology alone. In fact, 'knowledge' isn't a commodity at all. Some of the best knowledge exchange that takes place happens in conversation, sometime when the nominal topic was something completely different. A knowledge management system designed for searching and categorizing knowledge once it's written down can't capture this kind of information as well as a chaotic mailing list with reasonable participation.