In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning (Quill Hedgehog Adventures Series) [Paperback]

Dede Bonner (Author)

Book Description

Series: Quill Hedgehog Adventures Series | Publication Date: May 5, 2000

Because knowledge doesn't happen in a vacuum, you need ways to encourage people to share what they know and foster a free-flowing exchange of ideas. This set of case studies provides ideas and strategies for creating knowledge-friendly workplaces that stimulate continuous learning.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dede Bonner is the president of New Century Management, a consulting and learning services firm she founded in 1988 in Leesburg, Virginia. Bonner works in a variety of organizational settings to help companies create improvement strategies for managing their knowledge, learning initiatives, and the career development of their employees. In addition, Bonner has been a professor of graduate-level business and human resource development courses at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, since 1991.

Active with the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) for over 10 years, Bonner was a member of Training & Development's editorial review board from 1992 through 1999. She reviewed manuscripts for ASTD during her four-year term on its Publications Review Committee, beginning in 1996. She has also served on numerous other ASTD committees, including the Benchmarking Committee that reviews proposals for awards for best practices.

Previously, Bonner worked for the U.S. federal government in human resources and as a political analyst. She earned her undergraduate degree in education and social science from Michigan State University, her graduate degree in human resources from Marymount University, and her doctorate degree in executive leadership from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: ASTD (May 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1562861360
• ISBN-13: 978-1562861360
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,732,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Realities of KM In Action, July 26, 2000

By 

Dr. Tom Boldrey (Champaign, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning (Quill Hedgehog Adventures Series) (Paperback)

This book bridges the `knowing and doing' gap of Knowledge Management (KM) with clarity, realism, and practical detail. The editor has done her research and documented the best practices of Knowledge Management. She has captured the stories and used words of the actual people engaged in the journey of this growing profession and emerging body of knowledge described in 17 cases. Now we have names of people and organizations that serve as benchmarks and sources of lessons learned. After all, isn't that what Knowledge Management it's about, learning from experience and sharing what we know across boundaries. The book walks its talk. The roles, responsibilities, and activities of those responsible for KM, Chief Knowledge Officers and/or Chief Learning Officers, are delineated and compared using all of the illustrative cases. This alone is worth the price of the book. Up until now no single book has described the realities of Knowledge Management with so many living examples. Each of them are contemporary, vivid, and representative of diverse industries. The facts and data presented in most of the cases clarify the bottom line consequences of knowledge management. This is a valuable resource book for executives, performance consultants, human resource staff, trainers, university faculty, and students of all ages. When someone refers to Knowledge Management as only an abstract concept that is too theoretical and too illusive to practice, give them this book. One of the criticisms of Learning Organization literature is there are no books like this. The layout of this book enables the reader to pick the cases which are of interest without having to read it from cover to cover. It is easy to pick up and read in short segments of twenty minutes or so and not lose continuity. I took the book with me on a trip and skipped around according to what interested me most. If you or people in your organization believe continuous learning, intellectual capital, and organizational knowledge is what distinguishes one organization from another in terms of staying competitively viable this book is a five star must read.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning, July 25, 2000

By 

Kristen Sanders (Northern Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning (Quill Hedgehog Adventures Series) (Paperback)

Lord Bacon, perhaps borrowing from the Book of Proverbs, long ago reminded us that "Knowledge is power." Given today's sophisticated technology and the highly trained minds driving it, knowledge, as a fundamental precept and as a tool of business, has seen little over the course of history rivaling its present day importance and prevalence. Those of us in business are challenged daily to best utilize the knowledge brought to our respective workplaces by our employees, our clients, and ourselves. With the incredible, even overwhelming, amount of information available from a myriad of resources-both technical and human-the task of harnessing facts, ideas, and beliefs into a usable and manageable instrument of economic, social, and cultural betterment can be daunting. Until editor Dede Bonner gathered together some of the best minds in the still evolving area of knowledge management, business and its leadership had little in the way of formal and practical examples from which to draw and learn. The impressive and useful result is her recent book, In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. In it, Dr. Bonner presents a variety of workplace learning and performance professionals, who bring their own insights and experience to the complicated and oftentimes taxing realm of knowledge and how to best maximize its potential without succumbing to its pitfalls. Using actual examples from both the private and public sectors, contributors to this informative treatise offer the reader practical and tested methodologies focusing on the timely topic of knowledge and its immense influence on modern life and a modern workforce. Dr. Bonner's book helps fill a void created by the new and expanding realm of knowledge management. As such, it is good and necessary reading for business professionals at all levels.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Practical cases about CLO's, CKO's-told as personal stories, June 12, 2000

By 

Carol Gorelick (New York, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning (Quill Hedgehog Adventures Series) (Paperback)

This book is useful to anyone working with CKO's or CLO's as well as people aspiring to these positions. It is well written and provides the reader with explicit examples of how individual and organizational differences have led to mutiple effective ways of addressing knowledge management and learning.

The book emphasizes the human performance aspects of knowledge management but is effective in integrating strategy, structure and technology as well. Each case presents the direct experience and actions of the CLO or CKO clearly from a personal perspective.

I particularly liked the case selection across industries and the inclusion of early adopters and leaders, less well known companies, firms and government agencies.

Kudo's to the authors and editors.