Applying Knowledge Management: Techniques for Building Corporate Memories (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Artificial Intelligence) [Paperback]

Ian Watson (Editor)

Book Description

Series: The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Artificial Intelligence | Publication Date: January 3, 2003

The wholesale capture and distribution of knowledge over the last thirty years has created an unprecedented need for organizations to manage their knowledge assets. Knowledge Management (KM) addresses this need by helping an organization to leverage its information resources and knowledge assets by "remembering" and applying its experience. KM involves the acquisition, storage, retrieval, application, generation, and review of the knowledge assets of an organization in a controlled way. Today, organizations are applying KM throughout their systems, from information management to marketing to human resources.

Applying Knowledge Management: Techniques for Building Corporate Memories examines why case-based reasoning (CBR) is so well suited for KM. CBR can be used to adapt solutions originally designed to solve problems in the past, to address new problems faced by the organization. This book clearly demonstrates how CBR can be successfully applied to KM problems by presenting several in-depth case-studies.

Ian Watson, a well-known researcher in case-based reasoning and author of the introductory book, Applying CBR: Techniques for Enterprise Systems has written this book specifically for IT managers and knowledge management system developers.

* Provides 7 real-world applications of knowledge management systems that use case-based reasoning techniques.
* Presents the technical information needed to implement a knowledge management system.
* Offers insights into the development of commercial KM CBR applications
* Includes information on CBR software vendors, CBR consultants and value added resellers

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Applying Knowledge Management: Techniques for Building Corporate Memories is very readable and follows a logical order, sticking to the facts without burdening the reader with a lot of irrelevant detail. Most existing texts on artificial intelligence applications or knowledge management tend to deal with isolated examples of CBR applications. In contrast, this text has the virtue of dealing with CBR exclusively, and in doing so shows a diversity of problems addressable by the CBR approach. This book will really be read, and not just consigned to some dusty shelf after reading the first few pages."
-Rick Magaldi, Senior Technical Consultant (Artificial Intelligence), British Airways

"This book is written in a clear and friendly style that presupposes no specialized technical knowledge. It is full of practical wisdom about what works, why it works, how to make it work, and what it looks like when it works. This would be a great book to give to every member of a knowledge-system development team."
-Alexander P. Morgan, Principal Research Scientist, General Motors

Book Description

Provides insights into the development of commercial Knowledge Management using Case Based Reasoning applications

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (January 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558607609
• ISBN-13: 978-1558607606
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,719,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #37 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Algorithms > Memory Management

More About the Author

I am a writer and academic at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. I've published several books and over one hundred scientific papers, on various aspects of artificial intelligence, and am regular speaker at computing conferences worldwide. I also makes regular contributions to the popular NZ computer magazine NetGuide. I am on sabbatical in 2011 writing a new book, called "The Universal Machine - from the dawn of computing to digital consciousness" that will be published in 2012 by Springer Praxis Books.

Q. Who invented the computer? [hint it's not Steve Jobs or Bill Gates]

Be honest, you don't know do you? Don't you think its strange that you don't know who invented something as widely used as the computer.
For someone who has such an influence on us all, computing's Einstein Alan Turing is virtually unknown. It is his metaphor of the computer as a universal machine that is the unifying theme of this book. The computer unlike other inventions is universal; you can use a computer to do many different tasks: write documents, compose music, design buildings, plan and book vacations, create movies, inhabit virtual worlds, communicate with friends...
The story of the computer begins in the 1840's with Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine and Lady Ada Lovelace's writings on machine intelligence. It then moves onto early US office automation machines, Alan Turing's pioneering work on the theory of computation and the first computers of the 1930s and 40s. The innovations in Silicon Valley in the 60's leading to the development of personal computing, Apple and Microsoft and the PC boom of the 70's and 80's. The book doesn't just talk about technology but introduces key people in the computer's development: Charles Babbage, Alan Turing, Apple's Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, and many other people. In many ways this story is more about people and the changes computers have caused in society than it is about machines.
Concluding with the advent of ubiquitous computing the book explores the impact that artificial intelligence will have in the future and the promise of quantum and molecular computing. The computer has been a radical invention. In less than a single human life (sixty five years from 1945 to 2010) the computer has developed from a multi million-dollar governmental behemoth, to a tiny chip worth cents. Computers are transforming economies, societies and cultures like no other human invention before.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful KM Book, May 5, 2003

By 

zhaohaowang@amuro. (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Applying Knowledge Management: Techniques for Building Corporate Memories (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Artificial Intelligence) (Paperback)

I work for major telco in Hong Kong and we've been applying KM for several years across the business. This book solves a problem I've had. When a new person joins our team or we go to a new business unit I am asked often to provide book to introduce KM. I've found this hard because so many are all theoory and management stuff. Our people want practical example thay can relate to. This book does that through set of case studies from a range of country and industry. The case studies are detailed in a technical way and let people see what a KM system looks like when implement.

Excellent, just the book I've been waiting for. We are now very keen to try CBR (case-based reasoning) on one of our next projects and this book gives lots of practical advice as well as telling us where to go for further information.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very practical KM book, May 1, 2003

By 

james hunt (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Applying Knowledge Management: Techniques for Building Corporate Memories (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Artificial Intelligence) (Paperback)

This book is excellent. If you're tired of reading KM books that just say "KM is good" and that you need to "empower knowledge workers" then this book is a very refreshing change. The book is easy to read (even though writen by an academic) and is centred around a set of case studies from companies you've actually heard of (Microsoft, General Electric, Deloitte Touche, etc.). The case studies really inspire confidence that you actually could implement a KM system and live to see the benefits. Ian Watson writes a couple of chapters at the front which introduce the main ideas behind KM from a technical viewpoint, not a mangerial view, and then you're off into the case studies.

All the case studies use a technique called case-based reasoning that I'd never heard of before. I was fascinated to come across a business intelligence technique I'd never seen mentioned before that actually seems so simple and usable (I've just read the author's previous book on CBR which is also very good).

The book gives you plenty of practical ideas of how to implement a successful CBR KM system and I've been able to pursuade my mangers to start a KM project. This book is currently doing the rounds at work and (almost) everyone loves it.

I've bought too many of these books before which have disapointed because either they are just full of management speak and guru-buzzwords or they are so techie you need a PhD to understand them. Basically this book is practical, sensible and above all useful.