Collective Knowledge: Intranets, Productivity, and the Promise of the Knowledge Workplace

Book Review

By Andrew Collin, CMC
Qunara Inc., Business Strategy & IT Consulting Division
andrew.collin@qunara.com
www.qunara.com

Book Title: Collective Knowledge: Intranets, Productivity, and the Promise of the Knowledge Workplace
Authors: Robert Marcus and Beverley Watters
Publication Information: Microsoft Press 2002, ISBN 0-7356-1499-7, 216 pages

Topics Covered: Collective knowledge (CK), knowledge management (KM), and how intranet and portal solutions can facilitate CK/KM in an enterprise

Author Profile of Robert Marcus: Robert Marcus is lead product manager for the Microsoft Solution for Intranets. Previously, he held management and executive positions in start-up and established American information technology firms. He has a degree in the Psychology of Leadership from Antioch University.

Author Profile of Beverley Watters: Beverley Watters is president of TCE Research Solutions in Toronto. She is a recognized pioneer and authority on the science of electronic information and knowledge management and co-founded Information Highways, Canada's magazine that focuses on these subjects. She has a B.A degree from Queen's University and a Master's degree in Library Science from the University of Western Ontario.

Summary:
This book is a high-level introduction to the contemporary and significant management challenge of how to unleash an enterprise's "collective knowledge" (which, for the sake of this book review, let us identify as "CK" and assume is fairly synonymous with knowledge management (KM)).

The book's orientation is fairly balanced between technological and non-technological subjects that are relevant to CK/KM. An IT background is not required to benefit from this book.

The book is well researched and referenced and weaves together historical, cultural, technological, and human resources and other management theory developments that are relevant to understanding what CK/KM is today, how it came to be, and why it is significant. More than one third of the book's content is dedicated to examining such themes.

The authors advocate intranets, "private knowledge networks", as a key technological solution for an enterprise to unleash its collective knowledge. The authors present the analogy that a company's intranet is the structure that stores the enterprise's knowledge, just as a library holds books. The authors position intranets within an evolutionary lifecycle and focus upon its most recent stage, "Next Generation Intranets". The authors further detail portals as an inexorably linked extension of a Next Generation Intranet. They present the portal as the index of, and conduit to, an enterprise's knowledge. The combined Next Generation Intranet/portal solution encompasses very broad and deep Web-based functionality that supports, amongst other things:

integration of enterprise applications and data stores;
powerful search;
rich document management;
collaboration;
push and on-demand digital media communications;
role-based user-customizable interfaces; and
business intelligence.

The authors' passion that reverberates throughout the book elevates a Next Generation Intranet/portal solution from strictly a tool into something that is more of an enterprise cultural artifact that is tightly interwoven into many, even most, business processes.

A high level architecture for a Next Generation Intranet, multi-portal enterprise CK/KM solution is presented.

Given the publisher, there is, not surprisingly, some emphasis on Microsoft products and case studies that showcase them. I would not call this a weakness given that, overall, the CK/KM and technological constructs presented in the book are vendor-neutral. Those readers particularly interested in Microsoft products might find this book of special interest.

Value to Management Consultants:
This book is of value to management consultants who are neophytes in the collective knowledge/knowledge management space. The book effectively blends relevant technological and non-technological subject areas. Distinct chapters are dedicated to the contemporary knowledge workplace, the knowledge worker, intranets, and portals. Some guidance is provided on how to perform ROI analysis - always a smoky area - for investments in intranet solutions. The book successfully presents visions of what "could be", especially brought to life in one chapter that is dedicated to four large, sophisticated organizations and their respective quests to harness collective knowledge. The book provides useful "lessons learned" and other advice when planning and deploying an intranet/portal solution to support enterprise collective knowledge/knowledge management.

The book includes a 14-page glossary of intranet terms and acronyms and a two-page resource list of internet sites that offer additional information on intranets and portals.

Collective knowledge/knowledge management is a very large and ambiguous space. It is easy for an enterprise to quickly get mired in "paralysis by analysis" when stepping up to this challenge. This book is as good a place as any to start.