Personal knowledge networks have been primarily conceived by researchers with regard to the inter-firm knowledge sources between organisations, where networks are informal and personal. Instead of looking at the organisational context, some researchers investigate the intra-firm aspects at personal level of organisational knowledge networks, where
knowledge management processes start and end. Various
technologies and
behaviours support
personal knowledge networking for example
wikis,
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and relationship networks. Interest is also being driven by the realization that
KM can happen without a lot of explicit governance. This trend is called "grass-roots KM" as opposed to traditional, top-down enterprise KM.