The Knowledge Evolution: Building Organizational Intelligence [Paperback]

Presently, workers at numerous companies are struggling with the concept of how knowledge becomes a driving influence within their organization. Because it is intangible and hard to grasp a common understanding of what organizational knowledge is, leaders are finding it hard to capture, organize, and use knowledge as a tool. Verna attempts to establish a frame-work which lends itself to this understanding and provides today's corporate leaders with the tools to better make decisions regarding organizational knowledge.

Allee provides a general understanding of how advancements in technology define corporate culture and how learning is effected by the widespread use of available technologies. Community relationships are also influenced by technology and leaders are being forced to rethink how organizations are structured and how knowledge is used to influence decision-making processes.

Current conditions indicate that the future of companies -- how well prepared they will be to compete in the global economy -- will be determined by how well they understand and use knowledge. Allee provides a management road-map to get companies where they want to be regarding knowledge.

Like it or not, the Knowledge Evolution is upon us. Allee identified some effective ways organizations should create, adapt and apply knowledge. This book is essential reading for leaders who want to win!

If you do purchase this selection, I recommend writing unabashedly in the margins, or keeping a notebook on hand, connecting the theoretical constructs of knowledge and it's management discussed in the book to a personal context. By and large the scope of the book is very broad, looking inclusively at the field of KM. Since the writing of this book, specific sub-fields within KM have emerged i.e. data mining, group memory technologies, knowledge mapping etc. A reorganization of the content in this book along those lines (i.e. "procedural knowledge" with data mining, "functional knowledge" with knowledge mapping) was a worthwhile endeavor of this reader and would be a tremendous value-add to a second edition.

By and large The Knowledge Evolution is a readable and comprehensive introductory text to the field of KM. The book is broad and encompasses so much of the theory and principles behind KM that the actual industry has yet achieve or implement everything discussed. With the enormous influx and popularity of KM books in the past two years I hadn't heard anything about The Knowledge Evolution and now having read it, I realize the book that all these current authors must have also read.