The Future of Knowledge

Verna Allee, whose groundbreaking book 'The Knowledge Evolution' helped usher in the exploding field of knowledge management, has brought her experience-tested insights into an exciting new synthesis, penetrating to the very heart of value creation. 'The Future of Knowledge' strips away traditional business thinking to reveal the new patterns of management thought and practice essential for success in a more complex world. With a gift for making the complex simple and practical, Allee weaves together diverse threads such as business webs, communities of practice, knowledge technologies, intangibles, network analysis, and biology to show why organizations must be supported as living systems before their natural networked pattern of organization can emerge. Embodying Allee's visionary approach, 'The Future of Knowledge' brings forward a practical view of new theories, frameworks, tools, and methods offering businesses a guide to managing the increasing levels of complexity within their organizations and in society at large. 'The Future of Knowledge' works on many levels: * At the strategic level, the new tools are intangible scorecards and understanding value networks * At the tactical level, the knowledge management tools for exchanging and applying knowledge are knowledge networks and communities of practice * At the operational level, a wealth of new technologies is supporting the codification, storage and delivery of the knowledge people need to complete their routine tasks.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: the center keeps moving; A new prosperity; Evolution of business thinking; Living networks; Learning into complexity; Power and limits of technology; The web of knowledge; Knowledge networks and learning communities; Communal learning and beyond; The New World of Intangibles; Intangibles go to market; The value network perspective; Value network examples; New business fundamentals; Reflections; Appendix: the knowledge complexity archetype.

Review :
"Breaking new ground, Verna Allee gives meaning to how the networked organization can be understood at a practical everyday level. She pushes the edge of our collective understanding on how organizations can prosper as they cope with the new business rules imposed by the networks that are emerging to re-define every aspect of business. A fascinating read that will challenge your assumptions about how it all works!" - Hubert Saint-Onge, CEO, Konverge Digital Solutions Corp; former Senior Vice-President, Strategic Capabilities at Clarica "In 'The Future of Knowledge' Verna Allee has interwoven complex subjects in an easy to understand way with outstanding lucidity and flow. Final chapters in this book will make business leaders across the world pause and reflect. I recommend this book for executives and managers of every level - in every industry. The Future of Knowledge is the future of your business!" - Bipin Junnarkar, Vice President Data and Knowledge Management, HP "If the modern corporation is to make meaningful progress in the coming century, it has to radically re-orient itself around today"s sources of wealth - networked people and knowledge. Verna Allee"s latest book makes a serious contribution to helping advance our understanding of the new rules and strategies we must follow to build sustainable high performance in a knowledge-based economy." - Phil Hood, CEO Digital 4Sight "If you want to increase the tangible and intangible assets of your company, rush to Verna Allee"s new book. It shows you in a very innovative clear and simple way how it"s all working. She gives also very challenging insights on tomorrow"s business and society." - Marc Luyckx Ghisi, Former member of the Forward Studies Unit of the European Commission, Brussels, (1990-99), Director of "Vision 2020", a think tank on the Paradigm shift. "Unless you are able to unlock the mystery of creating value from intangibles, your business is dead. Verna Allee"s new book holds one of the keys. The Value Network approach is a powerful and practical method based on theoretically sound principles. A must read." - Karl-Erik Sveiby, author The New Organizational Wealth, founder Sveiby Knowledge Management "The Future of Knowledge" covers Verna Allee"s immense grasp of emerging business realities for all industries. The success of leadership lies within one"s capacity to understand the vast white space referred to as the "intangibles" that exist throughout our economy. Through Allee's writing and practice, intangibles become tangible and the invisible becomes visible. Exposure to Allee"s models and methodologies will help any practitioner to systematically expose, expand and act upon the domain of value creation for themselves, their organizations and for their customers." - Charles Armstrong, CEO, S.A. Armstrong Limited, Canada "This book again shows Verna Allee"s great gift for making the complex simple and practical. In this book she builds and explores the metaphor of enterprise as a living network, successfully weaving together such diverse threads as value network analysis, communities of practice, social network analysis and biology. She shows us what to focus on now and, as always, provides a glimpse of the future. If you want to know what"s coming next in this rapidly evolving field, read this book." - Melissie Rumizen, Ph.D. author "The Complete Idiot"s Guide to Knowledge Management" and Knowledge Strategist at Buckman Laboratories, Inc. "Understanding intangibles has become one of the most important business and economic questions all over the world. Verna Allee takes us beyond industrial age management practices and shows us that people are the active agents in value creation. Using her revolutionary "HoloMapping"(t) techniques she makes "simplexity" out of the complex world of intangibles and people. The Future of Knowledge is a book that will have a strong influence on management thinking and education in the years to come." - Egil Sandvik, HR Norway and Head of Forum for Intellectual Capital, Norway "During the 1990s, a plethora of books appeared on Knowledge Management. Many of these books concentrated on how a company could gain a competitive edge in the business world. What these books perhaps overlooked was that today's business world is an entirely different one - it is a world of networked patterns in which social relationships are paramount. Verna Allee's new book is groundbreaking for it asks the only question that matters - What do we need to pay attention to in order to be successful? Knowledge is only one of the capabilities which flow through the interrelated networks of a company, its employees, it suppliers and its clients. The Future of Knowledge helps us realize that those in the systemic, interrelated business world now need to pay attention to so much more." - Kim Sbarcea, Chief Knowledge Officer, Ernst & Young Australia "Leaders who want to create sustainable businesses must read Allee"s book to understand the importance of using organizational order and disorder to create prosperity through networks. This well researched guide helps us understand and learn the new language and tools to create wealth from intangibles." - Sharon Oriel, Director, Global Intellectual Capital Tech Center, The Dow Chemical Company "Verna Allee has created the next step in providing a framework and a tool to deal with the ever elusive intangibles. It gives hope that the soft side of the organization can be measured!" - Victor Gulas, Chief Knowledge Officer of MWH Global, Inc. "Our challenge as leaders, executives, and educators is to create organizations that are able to adapt and contribute positively to the environments they serve. In The Future of Knowledge, Verna Allee persuasively shows us how the rapid changes in our thinking about organizations and work can contribute to bringing about true and equitable prosperity. She demonstrates that we must add a new cognitive dimension to our economic thinking in order to understand and optimize the new network realities of enterprises and their impact on the entire world." - John D. Adams, Ph.D., Director Organizational Systems Program, Saybrook Graduate School