The Knowledge Advantage: 14 Visionaries Define Marketplace Success in the New Economy

Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: Editors Dan Holtshouse and Rudy Ruggles bring together 14 experts on knowledge management, including Peter Drucker, Alan Webber of Fast Company magazine and Stephen Denning of The World Bank. The best thing - and worst thing - about this compendium is that it is an anthology. Positively, it serves the unique purpose of offering an introduction to different views. If something piques your interest, you can investigate it further. But, unfortunately, you may be disappointed by a problem endemic to anthologies: lack of in-depth analysis. The book's four sections focus on the role of knowledge individually and strategically (in two theoretical chapters) and on knowledge's role on an organizational and economic level (in two more practical discussions). This is not a "how to" book about leveraging intellectual capital. Instead, we [...] recommend it as a brief history of the evolution of knowledge in the context of the working world.


Rating:
Summary: A few minor nuggets in an important field
Review: This 292-page book contains 14 chapters of varying degrees of interest and practicality. The four main sections cover knowledge as related to the individual, the organization, strategy, and the economy. The authors include such luminaries as Edward O. Wilson, W. Brian Arthur, Blur co-authors Stan Davis and Chris Meyer, and Lester Thurow. Some chapters, such as that by Wilson are fascinating but not terribly useful to the executive. Some of the most interesting and useful chapters are "The Knowledge-Based Organization" by Christopher Bartlett, "The Role of Knowledge in the Connected Economy" by Davis and Meyer, and "Brainpower and the Future of Capitalism" by Lester Thurow. Overall, many of the contributions are frustratingly tantalizing but ultimately yield little actionable information. This problem is not limited to the academic contributors. Although somewhat abstract, Stephen Denning's piece on how the World Bank applied knowledge management details their three-part process, their 7-part definition of knowledge management, and their blunders, luck, unexpected lessons, and toughest issues. The topic of knowledge management and knowledge processes certainly is important, but most of the chapters of this book fail to show how to implement it. The exceptions are well worth reading. The remainder of the book can be quickly scanned for an overview of current (2001) thinking on the subject.