Connecting Organizational Silos: Taking Knowledge Flow Management to the Next Level with Social Media

About the Author

Frank Leistner is Chief Knowledge Officer for SAS Global Professional Services. He has been in the IT industry for more than 20 years, beginning as a systems programmer for Nixdorf Computer in his home country of Germany and working from 1989 to 1993 for Siemens-Nixdorf in a liaison role out of Mountain View, California, focusing on the development of UNIX multi-processor operating systems. In 1993 Frank joined the European headquarters of SAS, shifting his focus to application development and field consulting. Based on his experiences in the field, he founded the SAS knowledge management program in 1997 and since then has been leading a range of knowledge exchange initiatives on a global level.

Between 1999 and 2003 Frank worked with the Institute for Knowledge Management led by IBM. In 2003 he was invited to the Harvard Graduate School of Education Learning Innovation Laboratory (LILA) roundtable. From 2005 on he worked with the Babson Working Knowledge Center, led by key KM pioneers Thomas Davenport and Laurence Prusak. He provided a chapter to Leading with Knowledge: Knowledge Management Practices in Global Infotech Companies (2003) and wrote case studies for a number of books published as part of knowledge management and business conferences. His book Mastering Organizational Knowledge Flows: How to Make Knowledge Sharing Work (Wiley, 2010) was well-received.

Frank holds an MSc in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Albany and a master’s ...