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Beyond Knowledge Management

Last year, a team of academics from four British universities wrote Beyond Knowledge Management, a book that tries to analyze existing knowledge management theories and synthesize them. In my opinion, the latter ambition is flawed and of little utility, but the book succeeds superbly at creating a framework for understanding many of the various competing theories and languages of the field. The chapter on Systems Thinking and Knowledge Management alone is worth the price of the book. Posted: 6/6/05; 6:12:11 PM #

Creating Knowledge Based Organizations

Jatinder N.D. Gupta and Sushil K. Sharma's book on Creating Knowledge Based Organizations is rich with contributors, references, and footnotes. It's a goldmine of high quality concepts and examples. I found great value in the chapters on Inducing Enterprise Knowledge Flows, Virtual Communities as Role Models, and a Fractal Approach to Managing Intelligent Enterprises. The last one in particular is relevant to the new, emerging models of network advocacy and organization management. Posted: 6/6/05; 6:12:07 PM #

Knowledge Networks: Innovation Through Communities of Practice

Paul Hildreth and Chris Kimble's book Knowledge Networks: Innovation Through Communities of Practice brings together two of my favorite concepts: innovation and networks. A couple of years ago, in an Open Letter to Nonprofit Technology Funders, one of my three major recommendations to the field was to "fund technological fertility, not monolithic 'solutions'". The book demonstrates at length what I was talking about by showing what the factors are in a network that contributes to innovation. I recommend this book to funders, technical assistance providers, umbrella organizations, associations, and large scale movement organizers. I was pleased to see fellow Seattleite Nancy White among the many brilliant contributors. Posted: 6/6/05; 6:12:01 PM #