Mastering Organizational Knowledge Flow

Acknowledgments

The actual writing of the book was only a very small part of developing the ideas behind it. It was a much longer process, and many people have contributed over the years. The first person I want to thank is Gloria Miller, my manager back in 1997, who gave me the freedom to pursue this somewhat unusual project I had in mind. A lot of credit for developing a “knowledge management” mind goes to those leading and participating in the IBM Institute for Knowledge Management. During my participation from 1999 to 2003, I was fortunate to meet David Snowden, Eric Lesser, Mike Fontaine, Rob Cross, Don Cohen, Steven Denning, and many others. Larry Prusak’s great story-filled keynotes were highlights during that time, lighting my own passion for the topic. In combination with the numerous discussions I had with those from other organizations (ranging from the U.S. Army to the World Bank), I always returned home filled with the ideas and energy needed to push forward on my own initiatives. If you get started with knowledge management, you can easily feel somewhat isolated. So reaching out to experts outside your own organization is very important.

The next group that gave me that type of inspiration was the Harvard Learning Innovation Laboratory (LILA). Special thanks go to David Perkins and Daniel Wilson, who invited me to LILA and led such an exceptional group of practitioners and researchers. Robin Athey, Brigitte Lippmann, Carlota Vollhardt, Fred Vail, Peter Engström, ...