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

513 Pages·2001·1.48 MB·English

by  Dan Holtshouse

The Knowledge Advantage : 14 Visionaries
title: Define Marketplace Success in the New
Economy
author: Holtshouse, Dan.
publisher: Capstone Publishing Ltd.
isbn10 | asin: 1841120677
print isbn13: 9781841120676
ebook isbn13: 9780585309040
language: English
subject Knowledge management.
publication date: 1999
lcc: HD30.2.K66 1999eb
ddc: 338.068
subject: Knowledge management.
Page iii
The Knowledge Advantage
14 Visionaries Define Marketplace Success in the New
Economy
Edited by
Rudy Ruggles
and
Dan Holtshouse
Foreword by
John Seely Brown
Page iv
Copyright © Ernst & Young LLP 1999
The right of Ernst & Young LLP to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988
First published 1999 by
Capstone US Capstone Publishing Limited
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Page v
CONTENTS
Foreword ix
John Seely Brown, Xerox PARC
1 1
Gaining the Knowledge Advantage
Rudy Ruggles, The Ernst & Young Center for Business
Innovation
Dan Holtshouse, Xerox Corporation
Part I 21
Knowledge and the Individual
2 25
Consilience: A Unity of Knowledge
Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University
Page vi
3 41
Knowledge Is Power! Welcome Democracy!
Alan Webber, Fast Company
4 51
Managing Knowledge Workers in a Changing World
Peter Drucker, Claremont Graduate School of Business
Part II 59
Knowledge and the Organization
5 63
The Dynamics of Knowledge Creation
Ikujiro Nonaka, University of California at Berkeley
6 89
Turning Knowledge into Innovation
Dr Bob Bauer, Xerox PARC
7 103
The Knowledge-Based Organization: A Managerial
Revolution
Christopher A. Bartlett, Harvard Business School
8 123
Maximizing Innovation Using Intellect, Science and
Technology
James Brian Quinn, Amos Tuck School of Business,
Dartmouth College
Part III 141
Knowledge and Strategy
9 143
The Knowledge Perspective: A New Strategic Vision
Stephen Denning, The World Bank
10 163
Building Knowledge into Products
Stan Davis
11 177
Designing Business Strategy in the Knowledge Era
Professor Karl-Erik Sveiby
Page vii
Part IV 191
Knowledge and the Economy
12 195
New Economics for a Knowledge Economy: The Law of
Increasing Returns
W. Brian Arthur, The Santa Fe Institute
13 213
Brainpower and the Future of Capitalism
Lester Thurow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
14 245
The Role of Knowledge in the Connected Economy
Stan Davis and Chris Meyer, The Ernst & Young Center
for Business Innovation
Afterword: Whither Knowledge Management? 267
Appendix: Participants in The Knowledge Advantage 271
Index 275
Page ix
FOREWORD
John Seely Brown,
Xerox PARC
When I was a child, I became angry with my mother because she had
urged me to read a novel. Full of adolescent certainty, I told her,
"When that author understands his own ideas well enough to write an
equation, then I'll read that novel. Because all I have to do is read an
equation, and five minutes later I've got it."
I'm happy to say that such dogmatism has not stuck with me. As a
scientist, I moved from equations and formulas to artificial
intelligence, and from there to a growing appreciation of the power of
the narrative the power of realizing that generalities are different from
abstraction. After all, what do we know now that we didn't know ten
years ago? That learning and knowledge are the result of multiple,
intertwining forces: content, context, and community.
In the knowledge economy, the real formula for success (which is, of
course, less mechanistic than an equation) calls on the need to
Page x
learn continuously. And to learn continuously, we must learn to see,
and do, things differently.
We learn through conceptual frameworks, and we can continue to
expand our knowledge incrementally within these existing
frameworks. But if we are to create new frameworks and see new
opportunities, our evolving world calls on us to challenge the
assumptions on which our traditional intellectual constructs rest.
Furthermore, it is important to understand that learning is less about
absorbing information than it is about becoming part of a community.
Diversity of experience and practice, therefore, is paramount. For
what better way is there to foster a different perspective than to see
that perspective from another person's point of view?
Consider Silicon Valley, London's theater district, or New York's
financial district. All are dominant locales in their respective fields,
and communities of practice exist within each of these locales.
Members of these communities are bound together by both a sense of
purpose and the need to know what each other knows. They
communicate with each other and share knowledge via a web of
overlapping personal networks. These locales benefit from the porous
relationships (which enable the flow of information) among their
many communities. In an environment of complex symbiosis and
social reciprocity, partners and competitors alike benefit from the
movement of people and ideas.
But where the rubber hits the road is in negotiations between
communities. Inside a community, ideas are validated by the shared
practice or paradigm of that community. Taking an idea outside the
community requires the testing not just of the idea but of the paradigm
itself. Negotiations between communities, therefore, make knowledge
more robust and force us to understand the barriers to knowledge
sharing.